The European Union’s insufficient strategy on decarbonisation of road transport places the nationally determined policies of its Member States at the forefront of ending oil dependency and achieving climate change mitigation objectives in a sector responsible for a fifth of the Union’s greenhouse gas emissions. This article analyses the implications of the Member States’ policy discretion under the 2014 directive on alternative fuels infrastructure, and the national policies to implement the directive as exemplified by a case study of Sweden. The article explores the different governance levels and their interactions by illustrating how mitigation objectives at the supranational level are shifted to mitigation policies at national and sub-national levels, and emphasises the significance of enabling local climate activity in a policy area underpinned by the principle of subsidiarity.