On the road to vehicle electrification, cars and small trucks are on their way to achieving this goal. Large drills, however, present greater obstacles.
The problem with tractor-trailer electrification is that the tractor components require more power than current charging infrastructure can handle, and the required charging times are long.
Major truck manufacturers such as Volvo and Freightliner Tesla Electric tractor-trailers are being introduced, but this is still a small and inefficient market. Large drilling machines account for only 10% of the vehicles on the road, but they account for nearly 30% of total vehicle emissions.
Now, instead of focusing on tractors, a California-based startup called Range Energy is focusing on trailers. They are introducing electric trailers that can power and propel themselves, reducing the pulling power of a tractor.
“Everything built into the tractor is actually designed to properly manage the load on the trailer, and we wanted to say, ‘Well, why don’t we just do that through our Range system, in some way. What about electrifying the trailer? Has this never been done before?
The Range Energy system consists of batteries, a motor that powers one of the trailer’s twin axles, and what Javidan calls a “smart kingpin” to make the truck more efficient.
“When I press this button to activate the system, the trailer follows me,” Javidan said during a demonstration of the system. “It doesn’t matter whether I’m pulling an old Peterbilt semi or a brand new Tesla semi or just me pulling it with the system activated. The mission of a tow truck is to make it feel weightlessness.
The electric trailer can also cool itself and power onboard communications and security systems. It does all this at a fraction of the cost of diesel.
“If we took one of those 3,000-trailer fleets and integrated the Range system into their fleet, we would save 100 million pounds of CO2 emissions per year,” Javidan said. “But it’s even better than that. Yes, that equates to approximately $50 million in fuel savings alone.”
Northern Refrigerated Transport is trialling Range trailers in California. Ricky Souza, chief operating officer of Northern Refrigerated Transport, said the company had tried electric tractors before, but long charging times were an obstacle.
Range Energy’s “trailers seemed like a better fit for us because we have to load them at night while the trailer charges,” Souza said. “So it’s no longer dependent on waiting drivers.”
However, Northern Refrigerated Transport had to overcome some major obstacles before it could electrify its entire fleet of more than 300 trucks.
“There are definitely some infrastructure challenges, such as power and access to the building or property, and the cost of the equipment is higher,” Souza said. “That’s part of the due diligence to see if you can get fuel savings back.”
Range Energy has raised $31.5 million to date and is backed by R7, UP.Partners, Trousdale Ventures and Yamaha Motor Ventures.
R7 founder and general manager Tyler Engh said the appeal of Range Energy’s technology lies in the startup’s different approach to the challenge of electrifying tractor-trailers.
“Seventy percent of freight in the U.S. is moved by trucks, and no one touches the trailer, so if we can electrify the trailer, we can accelerate the mass adoption of hybridization or electrification of the existing diesel semitrailer fleet,” Engh said. . “The scale of this company is exactly what venture capital is for. This could be a huge return for us.”
As with the EV market, charging infrastructure is still imperfect, but Javidan said trucking companies could tap into power at loading docks, as Northern Refrigerated Transport is doing. Javidan added that Range Energy was able to size the battery packs closer to those found in passenger cars than in the larger commercial vehicles produced by other big rig companies.
—CNBC Producer Lisa Rizzolo contributed to this article.
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