Finally! Innovation For Semi Truck Trailers - Range Energy Is Electrifying Trailers To Extend Range

Ajouté : 2026-05-14

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[00:00:11]Reliable, fast, and easy to use. Every Ayana Rechargery is built with the customer in mind. Hello and welcome to another Out of Spec Reviews video. You actually join me right now in the mountains of North Carolina, uh my favorite place in the whole world. But I realized I never actually shot an intro for the video that we're about to play you. I recently went to ACT, which is a whole uh clean tech conference regarding transportation topics. That's where I shot the Tesla Semi video and a few others that are about to come out. And uh I ran into my buddy Ali there and he runs a company called Range Energy. And the whole purpose of their company is to put electric powertrains on semi-truck trailers to help reduce diesel fuel consumption or extend the range of an electric semi. It's such a cool concept and I wanted to really dive in and figure out the whole concept, the ROI, the process that a company would need to go through. And they just got a huge contract with Cisco. I'm sure a lot of you guys are familiar seeing the Cisco foods trailers going everywhere. This is a perfect application for a refrigerated trailer. So, in this video, we're going to do a interview. I'll be behind the camera. It's super lowkey um video about range energy and sort of this next generation of trucking, which hasn't really changed in years. You know, 60 years ago, trucking was largely similar to what it is today. Diesel pulling tractors. No innovation on the trailer side. And now we're starting to see electrified tow uh trailers that work perfectly with the tow vehicle. So, let's talk about how it's done, what the costs are more or less, and I think you guys will really enjoy it. So, let's roll the tape.

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[00:03:23]We always have amazing outcomes with this program and I really appreciate the SECAN Action Fund working with Out of Spec for another year. Well, you guys join me over here with Ali, my friend who is running this company. Dude, first of all, >> I saw this thing on a drag strip in Matt's video, which was crazy. What was going on that day?

[00:03:42]>> Uh, we were doing like a customer day.

[00:03:44]One of our investors um is Marcus Smith and the Smith family. They own Soma Raceway amongst other racetracks. So, we did a really fun customer day at Soma Raceway. And you know me, I'm like an old race car guy, so I like to have some fun. And and Matt and Zach came out, the folks from the Smoking Tire, and we ended up doing a Sapphire Lucid Sapphire versus the versus uh um one of our a regular semi- towing one of our trailers. And it was uh it was really, really fun to see.

[00:04:13]>> It was amazing. It was a great video. I loved their reactions to everything.

[00:04:16]Also, them and the Sapphire was hilarious. Yeah, exactly. But we really got to hook this thing up to like a powerful electric truck cuz then it would be insane.

[00:04:25]>> Yeah, exactly. I think at some point when we get I mean we've done a bunch of tests already with electric semis hooked up to this thing and and it's just you know you get that really cool kind of all the electrification drivability things that you get in the electric semiis. But then now all of a sudden you get a lot more torque. You get a lot more confidence. I think the real benefit for the the hardened driver are the safety benefits when you're coming down a long grade and you don't have to hover your foot on the brakes because the the trailer is automatically regening enough to keep the the system at the speed that you've defined. Um those are the pieces that really make a difference and then it kind of abstracts away whether you're an electric tractor, an old diesel tractor or anything in between. Yeah, I mean it it seems like a nobrainer to make your trailer electrified, assuming you have I mean there's fleet logistics where like people drop trailers and move around.

[00:05:15]That's not this. But if you own a fleet of trailers, right?

[00:05:18]>> All right. So, let's go zoom out.

[00:05:20]>> Walk me through the trailer, where that comes from and then where your pieces fit in. And I saw the ZF partnership.

[00:05:27]I'd like to show that as well. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:05:28]>> And maybe help us piece this whole thing together.

[00:05:31]>> Yeah. So, typically how it works, and we'll take Cisco, one of our um primary customers, as an example on that. That's a great thank you. They we're incredibly excited to work with them to help them see their decarbonization goals, but also for me more importantly, driver safety, driver satisfaction, driver retention, all of that stuff is super critical. Anyway, so how this works is a fleet like Cisco who owns and operates their own fleet across the country or across the world will work with their standard trailer OEM. In this case, this is a Hyundai trailer.

[00:06:02]>> And is this a 53 footer? This is a 38 footer.

[00:06:06]>> Okay. But can it work on any size trailer?

[00:06:08]>> It works on everything from a I think 36 is as small as we go. Um all the way up to 53 ft. And and eventually we'll be able to do single axle pup trailers and and all of that stuff as well.

[00:06:18]>> But our go to market is this kind of like, you know, 53 to 38T uh refrigerated um trailer.

[00:06:25]>> And the refrigerated portion makes sense of course because then you're taking a whole diesel system away.

[00:06:30]>> That's right. So essentially our system ballpark depending on route and and environmental conditions is about reduces your fuel consumption on your diesel tractor by about 40%.

[00:06:41]>> That's crazy.

[00:06:42]>> It's crazy, right? Everybody's here like 3 to 5%. We're like saving the world.

[00:06:46]We're doing 40% right off the bat.

[00:06:47]>> Of course, you still have to pay to put electricity in, but it's so much cheaper than diesel.

[00:06:51]>> That's right. But compounding on that on a refrigerated fleet, that thing is burning, you know, 1 gallon, maybe 2 gall of diesel an hour just sitting idle 10, 12, 14 hours a day. We're taking that completely off of the diesel as well and powering it with our system.

[00:07:09]We're actually capturing regen and using that regen energy to power the refrigeration system. So then there's an additional 20, even 25% of fuel savings that you can get in your daily route. So we can compound up to 65% of combined fuel savings on a typical daily route uh uh for these these systems.

[00:07:29]>> That's amazing. So then what you guys come in with is really the integration of the e- axle, the battery pack, the software between >> and the sensing that kind of provides the functional safety. It provides the driver satisfaction, driver experience.

[00:07:44]I I came from racing. I was a race engineer before I was doing any of the electrification stuff. So, for me, if the driver doesn't feel more confident with our system, not the same, but more confident with our system, then we're not doing something right.

[00:07:58]>> It's such a great idea. It's like a no-brainer regardless of the tractor that you're pulling this thing with.

[00:08:03]>> So, walk us through the system hardware.

[00:08:05]So, I'm seeing battery packs in front of me here.

[00:08:07]>> Um, is that what this is?

[00:08:09]>> So, in this case, because it's refrigerated, we have a 300 kWh battery pack. If it's non-refrigerated, we would typically specify a 200 kWh battery pack. I was going to say 300 is pretty big for a trailer. Semi-truckss are 300.

[00:08:21]>> You get about 300 m of full function usable range and then after about 300 m it goes into a mild hybrid mode where we capture enough energy in regen to power the refrigeration unit completely on electric. Oh wow.

[00:08:34]>> Plus gets somewhere around 10% better fuel economy as a baseline to your tractor brakes. You're just regening.

[00:08:41]>> That's right.

[00:08:41]>> But that's so smart to operate in that mode. So you leave a tiny reserve at the bottom of the battery to power the AC.

[00:08:47]>> Exactly. And so this pack in this case has 300 kwatt hours. We've actually provided the fleets with a couple of different charging opportunities here.

[00:08:55]>> Can we open those up?

[00:08:56]>> Yeah, absolutely.

[00:08:56]>> So you've got CCS1 and you've got CCS2, but it's really just type two connection.

[00:09:02]>> That's right. And this allows for three-phase shore power >> to then interphase, right? Because they they typically will have three-phase shore power at a loading dock for the refrigeration unit. Yeah.

[00:09:11]>> So, we just provide we work with folks like ESL Power and a couple of other partners to get the, you know, couple thousand $5,000 interface rather than a $100,000 DC charger.

[00:09:23]>> Right. And then you can do three-phase 32 amp.

[00:09:25]>> Exactly. We can go even higher than that.

[00:09:27]>> Oh, wow. That's awesome.

[00:09:28]>> Here. And the nice thing is this asset is meant to be parked at night when the driver's at home. So, we're not taking operational opportunity away because the tractor has to be parked. You know, the tractor needs to be moving to make money. this has to get loaded and unloaded and we can charge in the DC case we can even charge uh at the same time it takes to load and unload one of these trailers. So, this is all really good information and I wanted to explain to the viewers, they're going to see on forklifts, on medium and heavy duty trucks, the type two connection. That's right. Because our US standard CCS1 or J1772 or Knack J3400, they only support single split phase.

[00:10:05]>> They don't support three-phase. So, having this is actually going to be pretty common in the US. Um, which is kind of cool. Now, from a DC charging perspective, um, what So, it's 300 kwatt hours. Yeah.

[00:10:18]>> How what's the peak charge rate? What's the curve look like on something like this?

[00:10:21]>> I don't remember. What's the peak charge rate?

[00:10:24]>> 150 kow.

[00:10:25]>> So, couple hours. Let's say 2 and 1 half 3 hours to to do a full charge.

[00:10:30]>> It's really not bad.

[00:10:30]>> It's not that bad. And and frankly, you know, if you think about the highest performing dry fleets, you're seeing somewhere around a 1 hour dwell time if in the most extreme kind of like high throughput, maybe a little bit less than an hour, but that's about the scale. So >> in those cases, if you're thinking about, you know, how those fleets run and the predictability of those fleets, we can easily come up with an AC or a DC charging kind of routine that works on this daily fleet. The cool thing is this is all commercial stuff. So it's relatively predictable and it's and there's a relative amount of planning that goes around the daily operation.

[00:11:07]>> Sure. There's so many use cases for something like this where it's like, okay, there will be odd use cases of people driving across country non-stop with multiple drivers. Maybe not the best use case for this today, but there's so many use cases that this fits into that you could never build enough trailers.

[00:11:23]>> That's right. It's just like unlimited demand.

[00:11:26]>> Think about pharmaceutical deliveries.

[00:11:28]Think about the security that we can provide now that we have a power platform. So, what I didn't mention is that this is also two-way. So, we can actually power not only the reefer unit, but we can power at 24 volts the lift gate. We can power all of the different accessories. Now, this unlocks things like, well, if you want to add cameras to close the perception loop on your autonomous tractor, we have the power and data now. That didn't exist before.

[00:11:53]>> That's really cool. I mean, once you've got energy, you can do whatever you want with it. Which is so cool.

[00:11:57]>> Exactly. Especially when you have energy generation on board as well, right? And that's the thing is, so this whole system is meant to retrofit on an existing trailer in about 4 hours with two techs using standard tools.

[00:12:09]>> So you don't even need to buy a brand new trailer.

[00:12:11]>> Nope.

[00:12:11]>> This goes on whatever trailer.

[00:12:13]>> Three and a half million boxes on the road in America. Why do we need to replace them?

[00:12:17]>> Oh, such a smart idea. I I actually did know that, but I forgot that. And I'm like, "Oh, yeah. Duh. That's so cool."

[00:12:23]>> And so we take this this clips into the I-beams. Y >> um it's it's a 4hour total process.

[00:12:29]Forklift lifts this up. We have some really cool rapid connectors that connect this into the I-beams.

[00:12:34]>> You replace this what was a passive axle with an E axle that we'll show you in just a moment.

[00:12:40]>> This front axle, >> the forward axle gives us the the most amount of control and predictability.

[00:12:44]>> And does that still allow some kingpin adjustment?

[00:12:47]>> Exactly. So, the whole system here is connected by this what which we call the energy chain. It's kind of hidden. Sorry about the the lack of contrast, but as you see this pocket, this entire slider maintains functionality.

[00:13:00]And in fact, in a more advanced version of our software, it's not deployed yet, but we can imagine where we can actually because we're measuring load and and and we're estimating weight, we can actually do the slider adjustment without the driver even getting out.

[00:13:14]>> How about that? That would be really cool. And then you could just say, "Hey, set it here." Basically, >> it can actually make its own assessments and and in the future as our software gets more refined, then we can even skip the weigh station. that whole process of, okay, move your slider forward a little bit, go do another loop, and like all of that kind of starts to disappear, >> right? You could actually just transmit that data straight over to DOT at that point.

[00:13:35]>> That's right. That's right.

[00:13:36]>> Um, wow, dude. That's amazing. So, I've got two questions. The weight, because of course any weight you add is less weight you can carry. That's right.

[00:13:44]>> Um, so what is the total weight change for this?

[00:13:47]>> So, the 60 this 300 kWh uh configuration weighs about 6,000 lb.

[00:13:53]>> Mhm. these um you know you have a 80,000lb on the road limit. The tractors weigh between 12 and 15,000 lbs. We found that a lot of our fleets especially in these 38 ft cases they run out of volume to pack before they run out of weight allowance. And in fact, >> especially for food, I would imagine.

[00:14:11]>> Exactly. You know, and if you if you take a survey across all three and a half million trailers in North America, class 8 trailers in North America, it's about 80% run out of volume before they run out of mass allowance. Interesting.

[00:14:24]>> And so, but even remember physics, the heavier this is, the more regen we can capture.

[00:14:30]>> So, even if you are a heavier load, you'll be able to get a little bit more efficiency at those heavy loads as you start to unload through your body.

[00:14:37]>> To how we tow with electric trucks, arrow is your biggest problem. The weight when you're towing with an EV, you recaptured a lot on the down run.

[00:14:44]>> Um, the cost in terms of first of all, how would a company finance this? So, like in the car world, let's say you come out with a retrofit technology, right? You'd have to then go buy that technology and add it to your vehicle.

[00:14:56]>> Yeah.

[00:14:56]>> Versus if you sold a new car with new tech, you could finance the whole thing.

[00:14:59]That's right.

[00:15:00]>> Is that the same way businesses operate?

[00:15:01]Do they not care? I mean, Cisco's got all the money in the world.

[00:15:04]>> Yeah. So, there's there's a few different ways. So, um, the way that we've seen our customers is you have some of these larger fleets that are that just have the balance to the the balance in their account to just pay up front. Um a lot of them will have either internal or adjacent financing arms that help them um finance systems like these.

[00:15:27]And then the third is that we work through a leasing partner.

[00:15:31]>> So a leasing partner will then carry the the burden of the asset and then a smaller fleet or a medium fleet will then go to that leasing partner and lease it out.

[00:15:41]>> So what is the cost? And I know this really only works for companies when there's an ROI benefit, which you know that's the number that matters. Exactly.

[00:15:49]So not the big upfront sticker shock number, but >> So we're not going to give you the sticker shock number.

[00:15:53]>> Okay. I was curious if you were going to share that.

[00:15:55]>> We talk we we talk in ROI. We talk in payback period.

[00:15:59]>> Okay. And so typically at launch a product like this sees typically about a 4 to 5 year payback period.

[00:16:07]>> Oh, that's way less than I would have expected.

[00:16:09]>> It lasts about 12 plus years in the fleet. So you have a good amount of gravy kind of at the end of this where you're saving between 25 and 30 maybe $40,000 in some cases a year in net diesel consumption after you charge and all of that stuff.

[00:16:23]>> Okay.

[00:16:24]>> That's all $3 a gallon.

[00:16:25]>> That's all at 350 a gallon by the way.

[00:16:27]>> Oh wow.

[00:16:27]>> Every $1 a gallon that everything has gone up. So we're let's assume that we land back after all of this craziness at 450 a gallon.

[00:16:35]>> Sure.

[00:16:35]>> Every dollar that the price of diesel goes up reduces the payback period by a year.

[00:16:40]>> Wow. So, right now it's like almost no time.

[00:16:43]>> Right now, it's in like the two-year realm.

[00:16:45]>> Holy moly.

[00:16:45]>> And if you think about some fle some uh areas in Canada where we may start to qualify for some of the incentive programs, it's like sub one year in the most extreme case. I >> was going to ask because incentives always or at least up to this point have been centered around the tractor.

[00:16:58]>> That's right.

[00:16:59]>> And so what >> or the infrastructure.

[00:17:01]>> Okay. Yeah, good point. So, what are the incentives for a retrofit to a trailer that doesn't like have logged miles on it? Yeah. So, up until the last few years, when folks like, you know, um, California Air Resources Board, um, DOE, when those folks think about decarbonization, they think about the primary mover and they think about the infrastructure. The box has just been a dumb box that carries the important stuff, >> right?

[00:17:27]>> We're making this not a dumb box anymore. And so, they never really thought about the trailer as a opportunity for decarbonization. They saw the trailer as the burden, >> right?

[00:17:35]>> And we're flipping that 180. And so over the last 24-ish months, we've really become part of the conversation. And so a couple years ago, we qualified for the core program from California Air Resources Board as a offhighway energy storage product.

[00:17:50]>> Oh, interesting.

[00:17:51]>> Um that program has since expired and all of that stuff and we're working to bring opportunities of incentives across all of our different uh deployment areas to our customers. But more important than all of that, the idea here is let's build a system that the customers will want to pay for without any incentives.

[00:18:10]And if they can if we can together get incentives, then that's great. It just makes everything a lot easier.

[00:18:15]>> Absolutely. And you know, I would think for a large company, Cisco, etc., etc., just hearing a 2 4 6 payback time with another, you know, 50% of life left after that would be a no-brainer. just let's just do it to every >> especially an asset that where if you run this thing into a tree or a building, you can take this whole system out in the same day and put it in the trailer next door and get your asset back out on the road, >> right? So like maybe you don't put it in your long haul operations to start, but there's so many like we mentioned short hall that you can do this with. And 300 kW hours seems like a lot, but of course that's for the reefer unit. Now the reefer unit probably gives you the best payback because you're not just burning diesel all day.

[00:18:54]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and and the target is to get to this kind of like 3 to 5 year whether it's reefer or drive van >> we're not quite there on the drive vans yet we will be but also this is >> this is all modular and and as much as we don't want to say it is a software definfined vehicle right and so what we're going to what we know is going to happen is we're going to deploy and then a company like Cisco or others will come back and say you know what >> uh we need 80% 300 kwatt hours and 20% 200 kwatt hours because these routes are only 120 m per day. So, we don't want to carry that extra energy around.

[00:19:29]>> So, we have flexibility.

[00:19:31]>> So, talk to me about the hardcore componentry. Then the batteries are sourced. Are you able to share where you get them from?

[00:19:37]>> Uh, not yet. Not yet. So, the battery the battery packs we're using LFP uh pack uh um battery packs.

[00:19:45]>> Um they come in 100 kilowatt hour increments.

[00:19:48]>> Okay.

[00:19:49]>> A lot of people can kind if you know the industry, you probably know where they're coming from. Um, and then that's the top.

[00:19:54]>> Are they thermally managed or are they just air cooled?

[00:19:56]>> Uh, we have um in this system we have water cooling. We have the we have the um the thermal management. We just don't have any of the more advanced chiller systems and things like that.

[00:20:06]>> But you know, you're not talking about charging it more than >> Exactly. Our charge rates are low, our discharge rates are low, and we have a lot of capacity here. So >> you don't need a ton of cooling.

[00:20:16]>> Exactly. Exactly.

[00:20:17]>> Now, if this was like a you need to charge it in 30 minutes, well then cooling requirements go up.

[00:20:21]>> That's right. If we have a if we all of a sudden now go from 150 kW to 300 kW or higher >> and we need to and we're working in more extreme cases, maybe we have a 200 kWh battery pack, then we need to start talking about active thermal management.

[00:20:35]>> But right now, what we found is the the really the stability of the system and our ability to um to recirculate the waste heat cuz really it's about getting the temperatures up to operating temperatures in a lot of cases. Yeah, >> that really allows the system to perform very well.

[00:20:54]>> Um, I want to talk about e axle. You've got one over there. Before we get there, let's run over to where it connects to the truck because that is how So, I've I've experienced um like the uh light ship RV recently with their whole um truck drive system.

[00:21:09]>> I imagine you do a similar force sensing or you tied into the CAN data on the truck.

[00:21:14]>> We don't touch any CAN data. Our >> So, it works with every tractor. Our force sensing is done at a smaller scale for small scale trailers. We do a different type of sensing here that leverages the IMUs that are onboard our system plus a few other signals that are native to the trailer and we're able to abstract driver intent in real time.

[00:21:35]>> Oh, interesting.

[00:21:36]>> So, the connections here are all standard.

[00:21:38]>> Yeah, that looks like a normal stand.

[00:21:39]>> 1 2 3 and that's it.

[00:21:41]>> Yep.

[00:21:41]>> Nothing unique. This is our controller.

[00:21:44]>> Okay.

[00:21:44]>> This is the TRU controller, the refrigeration unit controller. And is this this just an offtheshelf electric >> this is off the shelf. It just has to have the um electric standby option.

[00:21:53]>> Okay.

[00:21:53]>> Which allows you to plug into shore power which pretty much all of them are coming with anyways.

[00:21:57]>> And then this this is our interface. So this comes out of our battery pack and our our power system and it powers the TRU uh on electric.

[00:22:05]>> Now this particular trailer and a lot of them will have the diesel backup >> for for now. We are launching, we are shipping all of our units with diesel backup mostly because you can't really get a full electric TRU at this point right now.

[00:22:19]>> And also we need to provide peace of mind to the fleets >> once they realize >> at the end Exactly. Let them let them run with a 10gon tank for a year and notice that it's dry at the end of the year. Fine. I would rather have that with my customers being happy with peace of mind >> than for them to be nervous every time one of our trailers hits the road.

[00:22:37]>> Exactly. I I think that's the correct approach. which is all about being smart here and that that makes a lot of sense.

[00:22:42]>> So, help help walk me through again the the communication between the trailer and the truck. There is no communication. No, >> but is there's there there has to be some force sensing, right? Or is it just the electric motor sensing speed ramp?

[00:22:56]>> It's kind of all of that.

[00:22:57]>> Okay.

[00:22:58]>> And we're resolving force based on some of those sensors that you just mentioned plus the IMUs, right? So you can imagine if I were to pull on this kingpin really nothing is going to happen for me until like maybe 2 or 3 km/h until we start to get a little bit of dynamics. Then the system wakes up and it's like ah this is happening.

[00:23:19]>> I can't pull on it. We have a small trailer a king like a a gooseeneck like flatbed race car trailer.

[00:23:26]>> Goose neck on a Rivian which hilarious.

[00:23:28]>> We have that where you can do this whole thing walk it around the yard like >> I just saw you doing that online. It was like popped up on my Instagram feed like yesterday or the day before.

[00:23:36]>> So we have that working but that is really the smaller scale stuff where we can actually we where we should be sensing strain at the interface mechanical interface here. After hundreds of thousands of miles of testing, a lot of really hard work by our controls engineering team behind you. Um we've been able to abstract that direct strainbased sensing away.

[00:24:00]>> Wow. and really focus on the suite of sensors that exist. This really allows us to up the reliability of the total system.

[00:24:08]>> It allows us to integrate with far greater grouping of trailers than we had before, >> right? Cuz I would imagine you would need to certify every trailer with your system at that point, which probably gets real complicated.

[00:24:19]>> And you have to remember, just like some inside baseball, these when these big trailers get built, Whoops. When these big trailers get built, the kingpin, the the mechanical interface is the datim of the whole system. So they start with this plate and then they build the entire trailer around that plate.

[00:24:36]>> So what we're doing is we're saying, "Okay, let's leave that alone >> and really focus on the other sensors that we bring to the system to continue to uh um >> imply drivers intent." And what I mean by that is, for example, drivers facing up a hill. They start going up a hill and we know that it's got a semi-automated gearbox. We have a load estimation. We kind of know where where they're at and what they're doing. We can fill torque in between that semi-automated gearbox as gear shift.

[00:25:04]>> Oh, nice. So, it just feels like an electric.

[00:25:06]>> It feels like an electric truck.

[00:25:07]>> That would be wild to experience. So, I we really have to go for a ride in one of these at some point soon. Um, I'm already mentioned to the viewers probably going to go get my CDL and do some R testing as well.

[00:25:18]>> Come drive our our Freight Liner.

[00:25:19]>> I want to come take one and uh, you know, experience what that's like with with diesel and electric. And I would imagine most of your customers of course are going to tow this with a combustion truck.

[00:25:28]>> Uh, I would say right now it's looking like somewhere between 60 and 80%. And it's a lot lower than I thought. I thought it was gonna be like 90% 100% and maybe we'll test a couple of things.

[00:25:40]Yeah. But you have to remember a lot of these fleets have made an investment in electric tractors. Yeah. And at this point the promises unfortunately for range have not been met by some of these I I don't want to go too far. Right.

[00:25:52]>> You don't need to call anyone out but I'll do that.

[00:25:54]>> In real testing we have demonstrated that we as a baseline nominal add at least 100 miles of range to your electric tractor when you hook up to us.

[00:26:04]>> Wow. That is a game changer because a lot of these fleets >> would a normal tractor have a,000 800 miles of range.

[00:26:10]>> Normal tractor could have anywhere between 6 800,000 mi of range.

[00:26:15]>> Um, and you know, but again, a lot of these folks are driving between 160 and 280 m a day on their like typical like daily route.

[00:26:24]>> Sure. Sure. Right.

[00:26:24]>> So, I assume you can up the force. Like if you're doing a daily route and you just want to get the most benefit from the trailer, can you dial it up a little bit? I mean, obviously all of the different algorithms can be tweaked for more assist, less assist, like we can do drift mode, we can do all kinds of really crazy stuff at some point, but really we focused on the one nominal set of um of assist kind of algorithms and routines that provide that right balance of driver confidence, safety, and then as a byproduct, efficiency. So, so far I'm looking into a pretty minimal change to the trailer. At least very adaptable change to the trailer.

[00:27:00]>> Fully reversible, too.

[00:27:01]>> Let's see the E- Axle. I know it's pretty busy around here, but I do at least want to show everyone. So, what trailer axle or what EBA beam axle, however you want to call it, are you using for this application?

[00:27:12]>> So, this uh this axle comes from ZF ZF uh in America. Um uh this is their Axe Tracks 2. This axle was developed for things like electric buses and electric primary movers.

[00:27:26]>> Um, and what we've done is we've essentially adapted what they've built for the primary mover market into a trailer application. There are some very specific changes that needed to be made to the internal architecture of things like the gearbox and some of the controls and safety.

[00:27:41]>> Yeah. So, it is still a 3-speed, right?

[00:27:43]>> They It is a 3-speed, but we are not using the first gear.

[00:27:47]>> Oh, okay. Okay. So, it's a two-speed in your application.

[00:27:50]>> Yeah. And and the reason is that we don't need that low speed torque. The tractor takes care of that.

[00:27:54]>> Sure. Sure.

[00:27:55]>> Um, and then there's some other things like the trailer has a different track width than the tractor does.

[00:28:00]Interesting.

[00:28:00]>> Some of the the suspension interface pickup points are slightly different.

[00:28:04]The shock pickups and stuff like that.

[00:28:06]So, essentially this is offtheshelf axe tracks too with some internal modifications specifically for our application.

[00:28:12]>> And then this wheel end here is standard offtheshelf. And the casting here is essentially special for for the trailer widths and and some of the other elements.

[00:28:21]>> And how much regen can this do? I mean to the point where you may not be using the friction brakes very often, right?

[00:28:27]>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean we are we we don't want to make any claims on brake life extension, but I mean my old EVs went over 100,000 mi without touching the brakes. And we have a lot of the similar types of one pedal driving thinking in in this. We want to try to minimize brake wear. All obviously full brake capacity available all the time. In fact, this >> hopefully will make more brake capacity available cuz you're not in this like high temperature domain going down a hill, >> right? You could come at the bot, you know, coming into Denver, these will still be cold.

[00:28:59]>> That's right. That's right. Um and yeah, so these are all standard offtheshelf.

[00:29:03]Uh this whole system puts out continuous 200 kW up to 250 kW.

[00:29:08]>> Wow. That that's pretty good.

[00:29:10]Continuous. Yeah, >> exactly. Um, it has the integrated, the inverter is integrated, the VCU is integrated, or the the sorry, the controller is integrated, and it's, you know, it's a it's a hardened system from folks that know how to build big, heavy uh, roadw worthy components.

[00:29:24]>> ZF's been in the game forever. So, >> I mean, yeah, it was really cool. When I went and visited their headquarters uh, to talk about their latest state-of-the-art axle in their museum, I saw the old little Alpena Motorsports steering box that's in my 2002. I'm like, that's I got one of those. they they have just been involved with everything. So that's a really cool combination. So you've got, you know, the the integration all done on your side, obviously putting it all together with the secret sauce. You have some cool customers, some cool hardware. It seems to all be coming together, dude.

[00:29:54]>> I mean, we got we got, I would say, we still have a lot of hard work to do, right? We're we are passing the final development stages and now it's really validation. make sure that the safety systems and and all of the different elements that we've put together meet all of the different corner cases we want to address and and all of that stuff. Make sure that our supply chain is going to be capable of delivering the to the quality levels that we're requiring for our customers. Um and if we can continue to deliver that through the rest of the year and the plan is to do the first customer deliveries to folks like Cisco and and a couple of others uh at the end of this year. If we nail those, fingers crossed, lots of hard work, then I think it's really just keep working hard and keep getting these things on the road and and hopefully all the trailers will be electric.

[00:30:39]>> I mean, coolest idea. Love to see it.

[00:30:41]Can't wait to experience it. We got to do all the testing and uh yeah, congratulations on just like really doing something awesome.

[00:30:48]>> Thanks for being such a huge supporter.

[00:30:49]Thanks for being such a a rad addition to the to the decarbonization game. A real petrol head in this world. So, >> yeah, that's true. I mean, I still take the the three pedals out for the weekends. Yeah, of course. Of course we all will.

[00:31:01]>> We got to do it.

[00:31:01]>> Thanks, Ali. Good luck to you guys. I'll leave your website linked in the description below. Hopefully, the next time we see you, it's when we're pulling this thing for a test.

[00:31:09]>> Yeah, let's do it.