Range Energy’s electric trailer, which allows fleets to effectively hybridize by adding a battery and motor to the trailer, has been put into service by Petaluma Egg Farm to improve efficiency of its diesel shipping fleet by 50-70%.
The concept behind Range Energy’s trailer is relatively simple. Instead of the diesel-engine tractor having to do all the work to pull the trailer, Range adds a battery and motor to the trailer to help it push its own weight forward, effectively cutting the amount of weight the diesel engine has to pull and therefore increasing efficiency.
It sounds like a bit of a hack, but the purpose behind it is that electric tractors are quite expensive and are still ramping up in production. Meanwhile, trucking companies already have working diesel tractors that could be expected to have many years of life left, and aren’t necessarily excited to scrap their expensive tractors for an expensive new electric one.
While the swap works out for many companies, especially if it fits into the fleet buying timeline and a company is ready to replace its diesel trucks, there are other fleets that might benefit from an easier, more short-term drop-in solution.
And that’s what Range Energy’s trailer provides, because it doesn’t require any sort of retrofitting of the diesel engine, it’s just a pick-up-and-go solution.
It works with what Range calls the “smart kingpin,” which is packed with sensors to tell the trailer how hard the tractor is pulling. It then adds its own torque proportional to the amount the tractor is asking for, making loads feel lighter.
We got a chance to see a demo of it in action at ACT Expo last year, and let me say, it was one of the coolest demos I’ve experienced.
Since then, Range has had its trailer validated through independent testing, which said it can improve efficiency by 36% in average use cases. Given that fuel costs are a large part of any trucking company’s outlays, and that diesel fuel burned in heavy duty vehicles creates an outsized portion of smog-forming pollutants, this is a quick way to get some real improvements.
The trailer can also be used on electric trucks as an impromptu “range extender,” essentially just adding a larger battery carried by the trailer, in addition to whatever amount of energy storage the tractor has onboard.
There are some other companies with a similar solution, including a company called Trailer Dynamics in Germany. But the US and European markets are different, so there’s room for both in this realm.
Petaluma Egg Farm improves mpg by “50-70%” with electrified trailers
The news today is that Range Energy’s trailer has been put into service in a real-world test, including taking advantage of its large battery for refrigeration. Refrigerated or “reefer” trucks are used widely throughout the industry, but this is the first order Range has gotten for its electrified reefer solution.
The company in question is Petaluma Egg Farm, a family-owned business that serves Northern California grocery stores. It ordered and will deploy 10 of Range’s trailers over the next 12-18 months.
The order follows a successful pilot by the farm which it ran in July, testing the trailer on routes between 100 and 440 miles, and also on city distribution routes consisting of more than 15 delivery stops.
During the trial, the trailer had 100% uptime, and did not need any additional time for charging beyond typical downtime. Range says it delivered “up to 70%” mpg improvements. We followed up on that (since it sure seems like “up to” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there), and were told that “average” improvements tallied between 50-70% – but this is highly dependent on a number of factors, so take it with a grain of salt, especially given that the third-party test above showed 36% improvements on a standardized route.
Nevertheless, it shows that in this real-world circumstance, the trailer has worked well to reduce fuel costs for the company in question. And on routes that are perhaps easier-than-average, improvements better than 36% are possibly.
Electrek’s Take
We’ve been quite interested in Range Energy ever since demoing their system at ACT Expo and talking to their leadership.
While the system isn’t fully electric – the Range trailer is electric, but is still driven by a diesel tractor – it’s still a great way to drop in to a fleet and get an improvement right away.
We’d rather have everyone go all electric, which they will in the longer term. But in the short and medium term, this will still reduce pollution quickly.
The one thing we’re worried about is what Range will do once every truck already is electric. There’s still some use for these trailers in those circumstances, as they might fit into an ecosystem where tractors can be sold with a relatively smaller amount of energy storage for shorter routes that don’t need much energy, and then Range trailers can be added to those tractors for longer routes.
But this does feel like a more niche application. However, Range’s leadership seems to have good heads on their shoulders, and they’re a quickly moving company, so we think they’ll be able to figure something out.
Regardless, in the short term, this is quite a boon and we’d love to see more of these out there in the wild. Good on Petaluma Egg Farm for taking the initiative here.
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