Range Energy said its goal is to make the diesel tractor-trailer more efficient and cleaner. (Range Energy)
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Hybrid technologies that combine electric powertrains with internal combustion engines remain uncommon in the commercial vehicle segment, but some manufacturers are introducing forms of hybridization geared specifically toward freight transportation.
Jeff Seger, clean energy consultant for the North American Council for Freight Efficiency, is a supporter of hybrid technology for commercial fleets, but he said there must be a real economic benefit to fleet operators, not just an environmental benefit.
“This stuff won’t take off unless there’s real value to the customer, meaning the total cost of ownership or the payback period is attractive,” he said. “Either that or it must be regulation driven.”
There are many challenges associated with electric powertrains in heavy-duty trucks, Seger continued, noting vehicle range limitations, the added weight of the necessary batteries and the availability of raw materials.
“That’s where I think hybrids are nice, because with a hybrid you can get away — depending on how strong of a hybrid [it] is — with one-fifth of the battery material,” he said, adding that operators could trickle charge at night, depending on the hybrid model. “You don’t need opportunity charging where you have to zap 500 kilowatt hours of energy into it in a short period of time.”
Seger added that those benefits present hybrids as a good middle solution that offers sustainability and environmental improvement at a lower cost and with less range anxiety.
Range Energy is enabling diesel-electric hybridization in the trucking industry not through the tractor, but by providing electric power to the trailer.
The company’s eTrailer system adds an electric-powered axle and a high-voltage battery to the trailer, which provides propulsion support for the tractor and can also power other systems, such as refrigeration and liftgates.
As a result, these electric-powered trailers can improve miles per gallon by about 67% while cutting greenhouse gas emissions by about 70%, according to Range Energy, which estimates the payback period for the technology as about five years.
Instead of pursuing a binary switch from diesel to electric, Range Energy set out to make the diesel tractor-trailers that dominate the industry more efficient and cleaner, said Ali Javidan, the company’s founder and chief technology officer.
“What I wanted to do was develop a piece of technology that was specifically empathetic to this industry but also has to have a massive ability to move the needle,” he said.
Drawing on his background in the trucking industry and on his work in development at Tesla, Javidan began thinking about how much the trailer and the load it holds dictates operation efficiency and safety. That led to the spark that ignited his business plan.
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“Why don’t we bring intelligence to the trailer?”
Range Energy found a niche where refrigerated carriers in particular can benefit from the cost savings and zero-emission refrigeration. Other companies are focusing on specific applications as well.
Mihai Dorobantu, director of technology planning and government affairs for Eaton’s mobility group, said the company is looking to hybrid technology in the heavy truck segment instead of fully electric powertrains.
“The trade-offs [for electric vehicles] are much more extreme than in the passenger car world,” Dorobantu said. “We’re looking at vehicles that consume, on a daily basis, one megawatt hour, one and a half megawatt hours of energy. Even with our best-case scenarios on batteries, that’s a lot of battery.”
Dorobantu noted that it equates to 10 or 15 times the size of the standard passenger car battery and extremely lengthy charge times.
“We’re seeing that there are parts of the heavy-duty sector that are either very hard to electrify or impossible to electrify,” he said.
Hybrids offer a compromise, Dorobantu said — lower costs and fewer drawbacks than purely battery-powered EVs, but many of the benefits.
The company’s work on heavy trucks led to a hybrid system that combines internal combustion engines with a heavy electric component, currently being developed for the U.S. Army and Marines.
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Eaton has been able to produce hybrid engines that produce emissions at the level of natural gas systems, but using diesel fuel, Dorobantu said.
“Very low emissions, but using a fuel that’s ubiquitous as diesel,” he said. “That’s almost nirvana.”
Dorobantu said the company is pursuing specialized uses for hybrid vehicles, particularly in applications like refuse vehicles, car haulers and other use cases that have a more intense drive cycle and where performance is important.
“A hybrid is more expensive than a pure internal combustion engine, certainly, much cheaper than a pure BEV,” he said. “But for the added expense, what benefits will people get?”
It’s important, Dorobantu said, to balance what the technology can save operators with how much it will cost to purchase.
NACFE’s Seger agreed, saying hybrid manufacturers must be able to price their vehicles so that payback periods work for the fleets. If it takes too long for the truck to reach profitability for the carriers, there’s no value in the purchase. The conversation changes, he said, if there’s a regulatory structure creating demand for the more expensive vehicles.
Harbinger Motors focuses its all-electric and plug-in hybrid trucks on specific market segments — Class 4-6 trucks with heavy start-and-stop demands.
Assemblers at the Harbinger Motors production plant in Garden Grove, Calif. (Harbinger Motors)
The company introduced an electric medium-duty model equipped with a gasoline-powered range extender at the 2025 Advanced Clean Transportation Expo in April. The vehicle offers a range of up to 500 miles on a single charge.
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Harbinger is finding success by bringing down the total cost of ownership and focusing exclusively on fleets that stand to benefit the most from electric vehicle and hybrid technology, said John Harris, the company’s co-founder and CEO.
“People have this tendency to think that electrification is a one-size-fits-all solution, and they want to come and wedge it into every corner. Our approach has been very different than that,” Harris said.
The company believes that within medium-duty applications, electrification is a good solution for 60-80% of the market. As a result, it markets its vehicles to that specific portion of the market, not the entire industry.
“We often have fleets that are shocked to hear that we don’t think we can electrify their whole fleet,” Harris said. “It’s just not feasible.”
Economic and freight market conditions have a big impact on the willingness for fleets to purchase new hybrids, which makes the payback period and total cost of ownership conversation even more important. However, hybrid technology is here to stay, said Eaton’s Dorobantu.
“In the short term, the market in general faces a lot of uncertainty, which is probably not conducive to more investment,” he said. “I think in the longer term, we believe that this is the future.”
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