We are joined by Thomas Healy Founder and CEO at Hyliion and we learned a lot about the developments for their truck solutions. Hyliion is developing trucks that incorporate an impressive electric powertrain that is powered by a generator that is fueled with renewable natural gas (RNG). Listen to the full episode here:
How the idea of the Electric Truck fueled by RNG came to be
Hyliion started its journey with a passion for electrification and the way that it can be used to reduce emissions. And in the first place they spotted and developed a solution to reduce operational costs. With that in mind, the first step was the Hybrid solution, which ultimately evolved to their flagship product the Hypertruck ERX.
But what’s very interesting about the Hyliion journey is that they didn’t start thinking about using natural gas in the first place. The decision to use natural gas for their solutions came after a thorough analysis of what fuel is «the winner» when it comes to class 8 trucks.
The lightbulb moment came as the passenger vehicle industry was evolving to Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs). But how can it be brought to trucks? For long-haul trucks, you can’t put batteries onboard to get +1000 miles the weight makes it impossible. That without entering into the topics of charging infrastructure or battery production issues. So Hyliion was thinking about the idea of bringing range extenders to overcome the issues of electrical vehicles. At that moment they devised Renewable Natural Gas, that can be extracted from manure (animal waste), landfills, or water treatment plants. Being exposed to RNG for the first time was a game-changer for Thomas. It was a great way to use the current technology to deploy carbon-negative solutions.
The Hybrid Truck Solution
Thomas started to work with the e-axle system to solve the problem of underpowered natural gas trucks. Even when CNG trucks can reach high horsepower, they still lack some torque. Well, the Hybrid Solution can add 20-25% more power and torque and make it work more like a Diesel vehicle. On one end, it saves money with better fuel consumption and on the other end it can give that extra boost when needed and meet today’s driver’s need.
The evolution to an Electric Truck and the Hypertruck ERX
Thomas acknowledges there’s a lot of excitement with hydrogen-fueled trucks, but… How do we get there? Infrastructure needs to be built and readily available, Green Hydrogen needs to be produced rather than the grey or blue hydrogen options, and then it can be fully used in transportation. For now, there are way too many hurdles. So Hyliion is delivering on the concept of using a fully electric driven truck with a generator that charges a smaller battery onboard. And that generator can be fueled by natural gas or Renewable Natural Gas which already has a built out infrastructure.
So the Hypertruck ERX takes advantage of the regular EVs like great acceleration, or not having to switch gears repeatedly, but also gets rid of its disadvantages while not having to carry heavy batteries or building humongous facilities for recharging which ultimately create a heavy upfront cost and eventually can saturate the grid as it’s already happening in California where EV drivers were asked to practice energy conservation by charging electric vehicles before the time period covered by the alerts.
This unique Hypertruck solution combined with RNG makes possible to reach over 1000 miles of range using basically pollution that otherwise would get into the atmosphere.
Understanding the efficiency behind onboard generation
Having a setup like the one of the Hypertruck ERX allows a generator to be always working on a sweet spot. Using a regular combustion engine to produce movement means that it needs to be extremely responsive and that’s when inefficiencies happen. Once you need to go uphill, the RPMs go up, you need to downshift and the vehicle starts operating at a low efficiency point. But with Hyllion’s solution, the responsiveness is delivered by the battery and the electric powertrain, so the generator is always going to be in a sweet spot delivering energy constantly to the batteries and increasing the overall efficiency.
Now, optimizing the solution is not only about getting more efficient batteries, but instead, it’s mostly about how to make the engine to recharge more efficiently or how to generate energy in a more efficient manner which will make the product better.
The roadmap for the years to come
Thomas told us that the Hylion journey will move to a Hydrogen fueled cell solution in a 3 step plan:
- Conventional Natural Gas Engine
- Fuel Agnostic generator (not ICE).
- Hydrogen Fuel Cell Solution
So the road is clear and the second part of the roadmap is one of the most interesting because it will allow the transition into the future with Hydrogen Fuel Cells entering the post-combustion era. It also is very important to dimension this solution for hauling trucks correctly.
The Challenges
Hyliion understands that the big hurdle they’re facing is commercialization. And that’s understandable. One thing is having a design in place, and a prototype but we’ve understood that make it available for commercial use is a hard thing to do. Thomas told us in the podcast about where are the difficulties of getting the product out and deploying it while scaling up.
Now, the cool thing is that those challenges are in total control of Hyliion and not out of their control. Other technologies trying to build class-8 solutions need major breakthroughs that don’t correlate to logical progressions on their products but things out of their control.
The importance of a Hypertruck Council
Then, when the first prototype units were being tested, Hyliion was receiving a lot of feedback and they were tackling some of the issues mentioned by some customers and then others and others. To optimize this process, they came up with the idea of the Hypertruck Council
The Council will collaborate closely with Hyliion to provide key user insights in the development of the Hypertruck, the company’s electric powertrain that will translate into superior performance, emissions reductions, and lower operating costs.
For Thomas “Our customers are at the core of our business. Their feedback and collaboration are crucial to the success of our Hybrid solution, which has already logged millions of real-world miles. That’s why we have brought together the Hypertruck Innovation Council, a group of commercial transportation industry leaders, who will be the first to test and review demonstration units of the Hypertruck ERX and whose feedback will be essential as we improve upon our technology». A great idea in my perspective.
The future of electric trucks
To me, the long-term future of vehicles (passenger and heavy-duty) will definitely mean to remove the internal combustion engine that so many good things have brought to human success, for the electrical motor and powertrain solutions. It is also the view for Thomas who visualizes his trucks being even fuel agnostic in the mid-term future.
Now, the future will tell us what solution can perform better in terms of availability, of real well to wheel emissions, and also in terms of truck performance and efficiency. We believe that Hyliion is hitting that sweet spot and has a lot of chance of becoming a key player in the industry, also indirectly allowing CNG station owners to take part into the electrification of class-8 trucks for years to come.
Good luck Hyliion!