march2022 - 32

SPOTLIGHT ON DRIVETRAIN
» The Hyliion Hybrid eX
Photo: Hyliion
Hyliion's Healy talks
roadmap to hydrogen
Hyliion founder and CEO Thomas Healy
discusses the benefits of the company's hybrid
powertrains and hydrogen-powered future.
By Tyler Fussner
A
s the industry continues to announce and reveal
electrified vehicle solutions and technologies,
fleets must contend with finding solutions that fit
their operations efficiently. There are many questions
fleets bring to the electrification discussion,
such as when to adopt and for what applications.
What to do about charging infrastructure and
what duty cycles make sense for battery-electric
vehicles (BEV) are two other big ones.
Today, fully battery-electric trucks are
range-limited, offering less than 300 miles per
charge, so one powertrain
manufacturer
seeking
to
own a chunk of the market,
Hyliion, chose to offer a different
approach.
The Hypertruck ERX (electric
range extender) generates
its own electricity from
compressed natural gas for a
range of nearly 1,000 miles.
Kenworth tried and abandoned
a similar concept with
the T680.
The lighter Hybrid eX solu»
Thomas Healy, founder
and CEO of Hyliion
Photo: Hyliion
tion drops an electric axle
onto a diesel or CNG truck's
chassis to reap the benefits of
electrification, such as regen32
Fleet Maintenance | March 2022
erative braking and less power train maintenance.
Cummins and Navistar unsuccessfully tried that
over a decade ago.
But the future is not yet written, so Fleet
Maintenance spoke with Hyliion Found er and
CEO Thomas Healy to gain some insights into
how the company fits into the current electric
landscape, and how hydrogen may power its
longterm success. (Edited for length and clarity)
Fleet Maintenance: Can you tell us about Hyliion
and your journey into hybrid electrification?
Thomas Healy: Electrifying trucking has been the
mission of Hyliion since day one. We wanted to
find ways that we can come in and provide emission
reduction technology-coupling that with a
cost-saving technology as well-in order to get
fleets to move over to electrification.
When we looked at this landscape, we asked,
'Well, does it make sense to become an OEM to
make an entire vehicle? Or does it make sense to
become a powertrain company where we have the
ability to work with all the OEMs? And then, we can
let fleets adopt our solutions, but do it on a platform
and a chassis that they already know and love.'
That's why Hyliion is focused on the powertrain.
We can bring forward electrified solutions in that
capacity and do it in an expedient and low capital
way compared to building a whole truck.
I think every fleet is excited about electrification,
but they're really trying to figure out what
solution is going to be right for them. There are
two different parts of the market: BEV plug-in and
electric range extender vehicles.
With BEV, you drive a couple hundred miles,
come back, plug it in, and charge it overnight.
Range extenders, though, are fully electric-drive
vehicles, but you have an onboard generator in
order to recharge the batteries. The question after
that is what fuel to use: natural gas or hydrogen?
BEV plug-in makes a ton of sense for a small part
of the market-those that are driving 100 miles a
day, the truck gets domiciled at one location. For
the rest of the market, the fleets that are driving
400, 500, or more miles than that a day, you really
need a range-extender solution.
We created a roadmap where we're able to start
with natural gas today, then we can evolve into
hydrogen as we go forward.
FM: What should fleets look at while deciding
which electrification model to adopt?
TH: Fleets are really going to look at the emissions
profile of the truck, the cost of operation, and the
existing infrastructure to run the vehicle.
Infrastructure is probably the biggest hurdle
with electrification. If you're going to BEV plug-in,
you need charging pedestals and a lot of upgrades
to the grid to support that charging pedestal.
With hydrogen, hydrogen stations aren't out
there yet today. They will be at some point in
the future. It's tough to know when, but that's
where we see natural gas, which already has
700 stations built out across the U.S., as being a
very viable, very available solution that we can
start with.
march2022

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