At this year's ACT Expo, Clean Trucking Senior Editor Jay Traugott interviewed Range Energy president and CTO Ali Javidan, a former Tesla and Zoox engineer, about his company's innovative and highly advanced battery-powered "smart" trailer.
In our in-depth interview and walkaround, Javidan explains the e-trailer's most interesting components, specifically the drive and energy modules, safety features, and the thinking behind this innovative approach to electrifying freight.
One surprising thing we learned is that this e-trailer can be used with any tractor regardless of powertrain. Could this be the future of trailers? Mr. Javidan offers a ton of interesting details in this new video.
Ali Javidan
We sense in real time how hard the tractor or the truck is pulling on the trailer, and we provide just enough propulsion to make the trailer feel completely weightless to the tractor. And so now what we've built is this really smart trailer that is capable of essentially doing all of its own work, waiting for direction. And that direction, again, can come from your favorite old Peterbilt or a brand new Tesla Semi.
Ali Javidan
So my name is Ali Javidan I'm the founder and CTO here at Range Energy. We are, essentially electrifying the class eight trailer industry. Everybody's focused on the primary movers. We see an opportunity here in the trailers. A little bit of background on myself and on the team. Yeah.
Ali Javidan
I'm 27, 28 years in vehicle development. About 17 years of that have been laser focused on developing electric vehicles. I was one of the early team at Tesla. I was responsible for vehicle prototyping during the era of late Roadster, model S, model X, and a bunch of other different vehicle programs that we were dealing with. Went to Google after that, worked on a bunch of different programs there, and then went to Zoox to help develop the robotaxi.
Ali Javidan
From there. And in 2021, I decided to start this company. And the concept was that the idea was that decarbonizing is very, very important for all of us. What what can we develop, as technologists that will have an immediate big impact. And commercial industry came up really quickly. And as I looked at the commercial industry, I saw a bunch of really great technologies being developed for the primary movers, but the box stayed the same.
Ali Javidan
It was a dumb box on wheels, and so this was actually a weird idea that was on the cutting room floor in the early days of Tesla. And so I picked it back up. And now over the last couple of years, we've been focused on the classic commercial trucking industry. We have, I think, over 100,000 miles on the road now.
Ali Javidan
We're really, really proud of what we've been able to accomplish here.
Jay Traugott
So, you know, let's take a look at it. What exactly do we have here? This is a class eight trailer. But yeah, already looks different from the outside.
Ali Javidan
Yeah. So essentially from this belt line up it's a box. It's a trailer just like you've all seen. But essentially a lot of the the magic kind of happens down below and hidden. This trailer specifically has a few, let's say add-ons or accessories that a typical fleet may see. In this case, this is a side liftgate.
Ali Javidan
This has nothing to do with our system. But interestingly, we actually provide the power for the side liftgate and the rear liftgate and any other accessory. So we don't require a 12 volt infrastructure. We provide that. So talking about our system, our system really consists of two major subsets. The first is the drive module that's behind you here.
Ali Javidan
The drive module sits here, on this axle. And this drive module contains an E axle, which is an electric motor. And then all of the ancillary components that make that work, the sensing systems, all of that. The second system is over here is all our energy module. And so here in this large black box is our energy module.
Ali Javidan
In this case it's 288 kilowatt hours of energy. And this provides all of the power that the trailer needs to operate. And what do we mean by operate. We mean provide enough propulsion to make the trailer feel weightless to whatever is towing it, whether it's a diesel tractor or an electric tractor or whatever space fuel we come up with in the future, but also provide power for things like the refrigeration unit and, like I said, the liftgate and other components.
Ali Javidan
But what puts all of this together and what makes what we've built here really special is that kind of systems engineering and the control system and the software stack that makes all of this an intelligent trailer, not only a powered trailer, but an intelligent trailer. We sense in real time how hard the tractor or the truck is pulling on the trailer, and we provide just enough propulsion to make the trailer feel completely weightless to the tractor.
Ali Javidan
That includes region as well. And so we have a lot of different algorithms that do things like torque fill in between shifts, assist up a hill, highway acceleration. A lot of these different algorithms that are built into our drive system that look at that sensor system that we've put together. And so now what we've built is this really smart trailer that is capable of essentially doing all of its own work, waiting for direction.
Ali Javidan
And that direction, again, can come from your favorite old Peterbilt or a brand new Tesla Semi. Doesn't really matter.
Jay Traugott
You. Actually, that was my next question. Does the tractor hauling this, does it have to be battery electric powertrain?
Ali Javidan
Yeah, it could be anything. We don't have a data connection between the tractor and the trailer we're using on board sensing, and a whole bunch of really fancy software and systems engineering to provide the functional safety that we need and the the assurance that we need to be able to propel this without a data connection.
Jay Traugott
Right now. We were talking before we started the interview here about weight. Obviously, batteries are not exactly light weight, and I can imagine this is a heavier than average trailer.
Ali Javidan
Yeah. So if we go back to that thought of electric primary mover. Yes. Those primary movers typically have between 6 and 800 kilowatt hours of energy on board this battery. This trailer here, in fact, is a 288 kilowatt hours, because we're the trailer and we're being towed by a primary mover, a tractor, for example, we can run out of energy and still get to our destination.
Ali Javidan
We're not stranding anybody. We have clutches on the axle that disengage. So then essentially, it's just a free wheeling trailer with, to answer your question, the entire system adds about 5,500 pounds to the trailer. And so it's just the weight that you're carrying. But even in that case, most cases, we actually reactivate the region and we reach an energy every time you break to recharge that battery.
Ali Javidan
So we technically never go down below about 20%, and we go into a mild hybrid mode when the battery pack gets into a low state of.
Jay Traugott
Charge, will the driver notice any difference with their driving a battery, electric semi, or a traditional diesel?
Ali Javidan
There's a couple of differences that you'll notice if you now couple our trailer with an electric tractor. We increase the performance of electric tractor notably, but where the real big benefit comes is to those other diesel tractors that are on the road today, 99.9% of the tractors are diesel, and they will be for one reason or another, for a long time to come.
Ali Javidan
And so what we've done is we've actually developed a specific set of drive algorithms that can sense things like acceleration up a hill, fill torque in between shifts on a semi-automated diesel tractor, anti jackknife, anti mitigation controls. We can decrease the braking distance by an entire trailer length on snow and ice. That's 2 or 3 SUVs full of folks right.
Ali Javidan
And so the tractor sees a lot less load. And because the tractor sees a lot less load, we have customers saying, hey, can we buy the small block engine. What does this do to our transmission? Like now our transmissions are five times longer lasting because we're not wearing through clutches in between shifts. Our brake duty cycle is 3 to 5 times longer now because we're using region instead of friction brakes.
Ali Javidan
And that's not just on the trailer, that's on the entire stack. And so there's a bunch of really great benefits for maintenance that we're working through with each individual fleet based on how they use, their assets.
Jay Traugott
When does it go on sale?
Ali Javidan
So we are doing pilots and reservations and purchases now. Fleets are making commitments now. And we are we are seeing a lot of really great commercial traction. And the first customer deliveries are going to start in early 2026.
Jay Traugott
Everybody, I hope you enjoyed this video. Be sure to like and subscribe. And if you have any more questions, be sure to leave them for me in the comments below.
Ali Javidan
All of those things are built into the foundation of what we're doing today, and the idea there is so that we can notably increase the experience for the driver.
Ali Javidan
And the. The idea. Idea there is so that we can notably increase the experience for the driver. And it's really because the trailer is not jerking these folks around, and they feel like they have absolute control of the 60,000 pound boxes behind them.
Jay Traugott
That was the ask about the safety, because obviously this is heavier than normal. What if something goes wrong and you're saying the drivers are already feeling less of less resistance?
Ali Javidan
Yeah. You know, when you talk about safety, I encourage you and all your viewers to go to our YouTube channel and look at our four minute safety video, our winter test video that we have on our website. And that really gives you some insight into how deeply we're looking at every element of this, not only just fuel savings.
Ali Javidan
And yeah, does this work on that charger and our fleets, but we understand that there are some major positive safety implications here for all of our roadways. And if we can, if you'll see in one of the videos.
Jay Traugott
What about maintenance? Something goes wrong. You know, you said it's available in all 50 states. Where do you go.
Ali Javidan
So we have a network of thermo King dealers that's coming on board. We have a bunch of other dealer, partners throughout the country that are going to be helping us with the distribution, the maintenance, the parts, all of that stuff, the maintenance on our core system is meant to be essentially, touchless. We have, because it's an electric system.
Ali Javidan
It's most of the items are sealed. We don't have clutches that where we don't have a bunch of other, bits and pieces. There will be an axle oil change periodically and stuff like that, but nothing.
Jay Traugott
That's just regular maintenance.
Ali Javidan
When it comes to things like brakes on our axle. They're the same wheel ends that you would stock normally, and you could specify what wheel ends you have. Now. A cool secret weapon on the maintenance is because the trailer is doing all of its own work.
Jay Traugott
All right. Well, everybody, I hope you enjoyed this video. Be sure to like and subscribe. And if you have any more questions, be sure to leave for me in the comments below.
