Electrified trailer cuts fuel consumption in semi-trucks by 36%

In semis, this effectively gives you the battery swap ability. I also think you can do battery swaps by just doing a second trailer that is a "range extension trailer" (kind of like you see UPS trucks with two trailers, at least in the midwest you do).

The range extension trailer could also do hydrogen (I am NOT a propoent of hydrogen in general consumer/commercial applications, too much trojan horse from the oil companies and other fraud, but it probably has its uses, and might here as well).

It might also give a braking regeneration ability. Driving a hybrid / EV makes me think of the 100 years of auto driving where we have wasted all the braking energy of our cars to heat in brake pads and how much carbon that must represent in the atmosphere, it is insane.

Seems like a shame that you can't just put a control in the cab to control the amount of trailer braking, like how the Jake brake is separate from the brake pedal. But I get that they want to maintain backwards compatibility with existing semis.

Seems like a neat idea, will be interesting to see how far it goes.

I often wondered why the main part of batteries for e-trucks dont just go into the trailer instead of the cab, since thats what you change a lot and what stands around somewhere more often then the truck itself. Glad to see someone is actually working on this!

59,000 Lbs? no 59,000 TBS, total bull. Almost all loads are at the limit of what the trailer can carry. I waxed my truck, ran 10% over pressure on my tires, and use fuel saving throttle. 2nd best mileage in the fleet. No one was interested. I begged for side foils. Its only a PR move. You may use part of the trailer for batteries, but that lessens the load. The only drive wheels are on the tractor. You push from the tandems, and as soon as you hit ice, you are wrapped up. No sane driver would use this system. They cannot even get DOT Bumpers right.

There is a reason this has never been done before. When the trailer pushes harder than the cab, you get a nasty wreck.

I hope there's a remove cutoff that puts the trailer into freewheeling mode!

Maybe they've figured out a way to implement a fool-proof strain gauge, but if it goes out of control once every 1,000,000 miles they will have problems.