How BMW is lowering its diesel truck CO2 emissions by 50%
How do you make a long-haul diesel truck emit 50% less CO2 without changing a single thing about it? Sounds like a riddle, right? A new pilot solution embraced by BMW Group Logistik and supplied by partner firm Trailer Dynamics here in Germany, though, can do just that. I spoke with Mo Koellner from BMW and Michael Nimtsch from Trailer Dynamics about this tech on a call earlier in the week.
As to the answer to the above riddle: This is a semi-truck trailer that has a massive battery pack (up to 600 kWh) installed in its floor, and that battery powers an electrically driven axle underneath the trailer. The solution isn’t conceptually novel; e-trailers, or electrified trailers, have been on the market in various forms for a number of years now (though the technology is still in a relative stage of infancy). The basic principle is simple, too. By adding a battery-electric driven power source to a diesel tractor-trailer, you reduce the fuel consumption of the diesel portion of the system. In other words, you’ve created a plug-in hybrid-electric big rig. Pretty straightforward, yeah?
What makes Trailer Dynamics’ solution cool is just how “plug and play” it is. In fact, the company says that its electric trailers can work with any truck they are physically capable of hitching to. No trailer-to-truck connection is utilized; the e-trailer operates totally independently. Trailer Dynamics says this makes its product unique* in the space, as most other e-trailer solutions require active communication with the connected truck to enable the electric-assisted drive. BMW is currently testing TD’s solution on its BMW Group Logistik fleet. (*US-based Range Energy also claims to work with basically any truck, and their solution seems quite similar to Trailer Dynamics. We covered them back in May. The biggest distinction I’ve seen is that Trailer Dynamics offers far larger batteries and is designed for use with European tractor-trailer configurations. BMW’s fuel consumption figures also seem to indicate TD’s solution may be more efficient, but it’s hard to know how apples-to-apples these numbers are given the pack size differences.)
The way TD achieves this is down to a proprietary sensor pack that lives in the kingpin of the trailer. There, a computer control model takes input from the sensors (used to monitor various forces on the kingpin) and converts that data into a decision about when and how much power to apply to the electric motors in the axle. The logic of the system takes into account the sort of things you’d expect. For example, if the trailer knows the truck is currently stopped and is beginning a start — when large trucks tend to make use of their fuel most inefficiently — it will apply very substantial power to get the truck rolling. The result is a huge reduction in the amount of diesel used. Similarly, if the system detects the truck is going uphill, electric assist will be applied generously to minimize the effects of an otherwise high fuel consumption situation. According to TD’s website, factors like weather conditions, route topography, and traffic can also be considered, though it was less clear to me how these play in to when the trailer applies power. The system can also be configured to disable itself if the battery capacity reaches a predefined cutoff point (important, as fleet operators ideally want a minimum level of charge guaranteed at any moment).
The system itself is, by the standards of passenger electric vehicles, some very heavy-duty stuff. Battery packs of either 400 kWh or 600 kWh are employed (a 200 kWh unit is coming later), with the 600 kWh configuration being the most desirable among TD’s prospective customers. That’s because the economics of efficiency apparently pay off best for longer routes, where a larger battery is going to be necessary. The electric motor unit outputs up to 580 kW (777 hp), which is impressive, but it’s the insane 13,000 nm of torque that’s doing the heavy lifting (literally). Charging is also pretty damn quick, with the 800V architecture supporting 44 kW AC and up to 350 kW DC fast charging. The supersized figures here make sense when you consider the weights at play — BMW is testing TD’s trailers with a payload of 16 metric tonnes, or over 35,000 pounds. (Specifically, BMW has been using them to haul electric drive units for its passenger cars.)
As for the end efficiency, BMW is seeing fuel consumption lowered by nearly 50% on some of the long-haul routes it’s testing, meaning emissions on those routes are cut in half. Even on shorter routes, the figure is in excess of 45% fuel savings. Because BMW is using 100% carbon-neutral sources to recharge the trailer batteries, it estimates that each e-trailer could cut up to 120 tonnes of CO2 emissions from its fleet each year. For comparison, assuming a “typical” ICE car emits around 5 tonnes of CO2 annually, each trailer optimally utilized is like taking 60 cars off the road. All that is to say: It’s hard to overstate how much fuel a real big truck uses.
BMW has also been testing TD’s trailers with electric trucks, where the system effectively acts as a range extender. Depending on the specific truck, payload, and route, BMW says the range of an electric truck could be extended by a factor of 2-3x, opening up entirely new scenarios for the use of BEV tractor units. In one test, BMW used an unspecified Volvo e-truck in combination with a TD mega trailer to go over 600 km (373 miles) without recharging.
In a perfect world, diesel trucks would be replaced with electric ones wholesale. But in reality, the design principle of trucks as long-life assets means that ICE trucking will stick around a fair bit longer than combustion passenger cars. If we can reach a point where e-trailer systems like Trailer Dynamics’ are minimizing trucking fuel consumption at scale, though, we can still have a real net-positive impact on emissions while that transition occurs. And because this kind of system benefits both ICE and EV tractors (arguably, the latter even more so), this is a scenario where the hybrid step-transition makes much more sense. There’s nothing redundant being engineered here for the sake of ICE trucks; these trailers will retain their usefulness in the age of BEV trucking.
For BMW, the EV trucking side of the equation has an added bonus — the low-liner “mega trailer” configuration it uses for a large amount of its transport fleet greatly limits the range of available EV truck options. Using TD’s mega trailer solution as a range extender is thus an excellent way to work around that challenge. (Mega trailers are a high-capacity trailer class specifically developed for use in the EU, where they remain extremely popular. These space-maximized trailers require a particular class of truck chassis with a very low deck floor for towing, and that leaves very little room for a battery.)
As for the challenges of stuffing a massive battery in the bottom of an already super-heavy-laden trailer? They’re not nonexistent. According to BMW, TD’s solutions are best for shipping in “cubed out” configurations — that is, utilizing the maximum volume of a container, not its maximum weight. And sure, the battery cannibalizes some of the available space for cargo. But, over time and with the evolution and refinement of the system (weight reduction is one of TD’s immediate goals), greater and greater payloads will become feasible. Human behavior is another big factor to consider. Suppose a tractor operator is still driving like a leadfoot. In that case, it’s possible to mitigate a fair bit of the system’s fuel savings (BMW saw fuel consumption variability of up to 20% during testing based on driver). On the economics, BMW believes that e-trailers will significantly lower fleet operating costs, offsetting initially higher acquisition costs for the equipment.
Down the road, TD suggests it could also start using its tech to assist in the on-road safety of tractor-trailers, applying power or engine braking force for stability management (for example, if a truck is in danger of jackknifing). Right now, the company is just getting started, and currently has seven trailers in operation (an eighth was just delivered).
While cleaning up our passenger cars will have a real effect on global CO2 emissions, the impact of trucking transport is something we should all be considering, too. According to data from the IEA, road freight accounts for 30% of all global transportation emissions, making it the second-largest contributor behind passenger vehicles — and by a wide margin. (For comparison, all air and sea transit contribute just above 10% of global emissions each. Rail sits at a measly 1%.)
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Environment
Trump’s Russia oil sanctions could just be starting as low prices leave room to escalate
President Donald Trump could further rachet up sanctions against Russia’s oil sector, with an expected global surplus of crude next year leaving the U.S. room to escalate while insulating American drivers from a price shock.
The Treasury Department on Wednesday announced sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia’s two largest oil exporters, citing Moscow’s “lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine.”
The sanctions mark the “most material move to date by the United States to shutter the Russian war ATM,” Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital markets, told clients.
The sanctions took the oil market by surprise. U.S. crude prices spiked nearly 6% to trade above $60 per barrel in response after many traders had discounted the risk of escalation due to Trump’s focus on keeping energy prices low.
Benchmark West Texas Intermediate U.S. crude oil prices hit five-month lows Monday and are down nearly 14% this year. The market has been under pressure as OPEC+ increases production and renewed trade tensions between the U.S. and China trigger fears of a global economic slowdown.
Weaker oil prices have given Trump scope to act against Russia while shielding U.S. motorists, said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy and a former energy advisor to President George W. Bush. The White House likely saw this as an opportune moment to hit Moscow, with the U.S. midterm elections still a year away, Croft said.
“It’s about hurting the Russian finance ministry while protecting the U.S motorist,” McNally said.
Escalation on the horizon
Trump’s sanctions, which take full effect Nov. 21, are likely designed to force Russia to sell its oil at a steeper discount to global benchmark Brent rather than immediately targeting Moscow’s export volumes, McNally said. This would reduce Russia’s petroleum revenue while avoiding a price spike that pinches Americans’ pocketbooks, he said.
But the oil market faces a looming surplus in 2026 that would give Trump more leeway to escalate sanctions against Russia further next year, by directly targeting its export volumes, according to the former Bush advisor.
This would carry the added benefit of aiding U.S. shale oil producers who are under financial pressure from low prices, McNally said. U.S. shale executives have been deeply critical of Trump’s push to lower crude prices in anonymous responses to a quarterly survey conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
“You can afford to do it because next year it won’t cause $100 oil — if anything it will help oil prices from dropping to $20 a barrel and killing shale,” McNally said.
“Next year somebody has to cut big – OPEC, Russia, Iran or shale,” he said. “Take your pick. The president doesn’t want shale to lose 2 million barrels a day plus like it did in 2020. He may want $40 oil but he doesn’t want $20 oil.”
Immediate market impact
The oil market may be close to pricing in the sanctions after the announcement caught traders by surprise, McNally said. Where prices go from here depends on how the measures are implemented. If the sanctions are loosely enforced, U.S. oil could dip back into the $50s but there’s also a risk that prices could push higher if the administration takes a hard line, the analyst said.
Lukoil and Rosneft account for more than half of Russia’s more than 5 million barrels per day in exports, according to data provided by Kpler. Trump’s sanctions come after former President Joe Biden in January sanctioned Russia’s third and fourth largest producers, Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegaz.
India remained the largest buyer of Russia crude oil in September followed by China and Turkey, according to Kpler data. Trump has been pressuring India with tariffs to stop its imports of Russian crude.
“Refiners in India, China and Turkey are expected to conduct internal risk assessments on dealings with the sanctioned Russian firms while waiting for clarifications from their governments,” Matt Smith, an oil analyst at Kpler told clients in a note.
That could lead to oil being “being resold — at steep discounts — to refiners willing to take the risk, such as already-sanctioned entities” or small, independent, privately-owned refineries in China, Smith said. “However, a major disruption to Russian crude exports appears unlikely,” he said.
Belgian aviation support brand Shire is hoping to change the airport ground support equipment (GSE) game with a line of purpose-built baggage and cargo tractors engineered from the ground up as electric vehicles.
A spinoff of M-ECS (Mertens Electrification & Control Systems), a Belgian engineering company with expertise in automation, electrification, IoT, and smart systems, Shire is leaning on its decades of engineering know-how to develop purpose-built electric GSE that, they believe, is vastly superior to retrofit designs that put electric motors in spaces originally designed for ICE.
“Retrofitting remains essential in the short term,” explains Toon (his real name) Mertens, founder of M-ECS. “But purpose-built electric machines are the real path to long-term efficiency, safety, and resilience.”
With the short distances driven at limited speeds under extreme loads, ground handling and support equipment (GHE/GSE) at airports present a nearly ideal use case for battery-electric vehicles. That’s a good thing, too. As demand for on-road fossil fuels drops, airports and airlines – historically responsible for about 4% Earth’s global warming – are becoming a bigger and bigger slice of a rapidly shrinking pie when it comes to the fossil fuel emissions generated by the aviation and air travel industries as a whole.
Shire’s first products are the all-electric baggage and cargo tractors shown, above. Shire calls these “a natural starting point,” as these vehicles alone can account for nearly 30% of ground emissions at major airports. But, as significant as those vehicles are, GSE is already looking into other vehicle families specifically tailored to the unique needs of its airport customers.
Shire product line
- Shire_TT22e: Electric baggage tractor with lead-acid battery (battery included). Li-ion option 50–70 kWh.
- Shire_TT22e-DC: Double-cabin (5 seats) baggage tractor, 80V 67.2 kWh Li-ion.
- Shire_TT30e: 4-ton cargo tractor, high-voltage 70 kWh Li-ion.
- Shire_TT40e: 6-ton cargo tractor, high-voltage 140 kWh Li-ion.
No word yet on whether or not Shire’s products will make it to North America — if they do, zero emission initiatives like those at the new JFK ONE terminal could make a great home for them.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Shire, via Airside.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk managed to find a way to turn lobbying, which is typically one of the most efficient ways to spend money as a company, into a net revenue loser for his company – flipping the script again from a true “innovator” in the field of corporate destruction.
Tesla released its 10-Q filing today, to supplement its Q3 shareholder letter and conference call from yesterday’s quarterly report.
The filing gives us more detail about what’s going on with Tesla’s financials, namely, how Tesla managed to have record revenue last quarter and yet still have a 40% drop in operating income from the year-ago quarter.
One explanation for this drop is lost revenue from regulatory credits. Regulatory credits have been a relatively stable portion of Tesla’s earnings over the years, as it is one of few companies producing more electric vehicles than it is legally required to.
What are regulatory credits?
Several governments have committed to reducing pollution, and one way that they can do so is by requiring automakers to make less-polluting vehicles.
Generally, if an automaker fails to meet the guidelines set up by government, they have to pay a penalty for polluting the air too much and harming everyone with that pollution. Or, instead of paying that penalty, they can buy credits from a company that exceeded the guidelines, thus transferring money from the companies that are doing a bad job to the companies that are doing a good job.
Every government has a slightly different way of implementing requirements and credit swaps, but this is generally how it works on a high level.
Put aside for the moment that these penalties, or the cost of credit swaps, are almost always far lower than the actual amount of damage done by pollution, this is at least one method that governments can and have used to try to encourage cleaner air and lower health costs for the populations they govern.
Rules changed by republicans to cost you more money
That is, until the republican party came along. Buried in the $4 trillion giveaway to wealthy elites passed by republicans earlier this year was another provision to reduce the cost of regulatory fines in the US to $0.
Congress could not legally eliminate the fines, since they are mandated by the Clean Air Act, and republicans in Congress didn’t want to modify the Clean Air Act because it would be more obvious to everyone that they want dirty air, and because they didn’t have the votes to do so. But they did have the votes to do an end-run around democracy and eliminate the fines, which makes the regulation effectively useless.
So now, automakers have less incentive to work on making their cars more efficient. This means you’ll be buying more gasoline, that each gallon will have higher prices (and the increased price won’t go to any social good, but rather to line oil companies’ pockets), and that you’ll suffer from more air pollution which leads to higher health costs for everyone.
When, in contrast, President Biden had strengthened this rule, just the modifications made by his administration were estimated to save $600-700 over the lifetime of each vehicle, or $23 billion in total across the US. But that’s only from Biden’s improvement of the rule; the rule in total saves much more, in comparison to not having the rule at all.
But what does this all have to Elon Musk?
Elon Musk lobbied to have these rules removed, harming his company
During the 2024 US election, Elon Musk spent a total of $288 million on bribes to get anti-EV candidates elected. He did this despite full public knowledge that these candidates opposed electric vehicles, and had promised to harm them.
But, due to Musk’s social media addiction to his bizarre upside-down twitter feed, he and many others convinced themselves that somehow, harming EVs would be good for EVs.
So, Musk spent the millions, got what he wanted, claims it was all because of him (egotistical much?), and as a result, his company… is worse off.
According to the company’s 10-Q filing, Tesla lost $1.41 billion worth of revenue in just the last 9 months that it would have had if not for changes in regulatory regimes. Here’s the passage, in financial speak:
Automotive Regulatory Credits
As of September 30, 2025, total transaction price allocated to performance obligations that were unsatisfied or partially unsatisfied for contracts with an original expected length of more than one year was $3.27 billion. Of this amount, we expect to recognize $877 million in the next 12 months and the rest over the remaining performance obligation period. Changes in regulations on automotive regulatory credits may significantly impact our remaining performance obligations and revenue to be recognized under these contracts. In 2025, governmental and regulatory actions have repealed and/or restricted certain regulatory credit programs tied to our products, contributing to the $1.41 billion decrease in our remaining performance obligations as of September 30, 2025 compared to December 31, 2024.
Translated, that means that the value of the various contracts that Tesla has to sell regulatory credits to other companies has reduced by $1.41 billion dollars as compared to where they were at the end of last year. Tesla says that the specific reason for this is due to the change in regulatory credits that its bad CEO lobbied for.
Some could argue that the value of Musk’s lobbying was to get a foot in the door, and to be able to influence republicans to do less anti-EV stuff than they might have otherwise done, but that hasn’t turned out to be the case. There is no indication that republicans have softened their anti-EV position, and in fact, they keep doubling down on trying to harm you and ignoring science. And besides, Musk hasn’t even maintained any relationships, after a very public breakup.
So, somehow, Musk managed to turn lobbying spend from one of the most efficient possible ways a corporation can spend money, into one of the most inefficient ways.
Lobbying is generally highly efficient spend; Musk flips the script again
Normally, lobbying is considered an incredibly efficient way for companies to make money. Various analyses have suggested that the average return on investment from lobbying dollars is anywhere between 22,000% and 104,000%. (Yes, this is a problem, but it’s not what we’re discussing at the moment).
However, in this case, lobbying produced a loss of 489% of the money spent – and that’s just counting the losses caused by the last 9 months, and only in regulatory credits. Those credits are pure profit, too, with no cost of revenue associated with them, so this is just a straight loss of money for the company and its shareholders.
In addition to those losses, there’s the lost revenue from vehicle sales. While this has not yet been recognized by the company, going forward Tesla sales will experience a dip now that all of Tesla’s automotive and home energy products – essentially, all of the products that Tesla sells – have been made more expensive in the US due to political changes.
Either Tesla can choose to lower prices to maintain post-credit pricing and take a hit to margins of $7,500 per vehicle and 30% on home energy products, or it can hold prices the same and lose customers due to lower affordability of its products, or it can release subpar long-awaited products that cost more and are worse than the thing they’re replacing.
Needless to say, none of these options are great for business.
And so, since vehicle credits didn’t end until the end of Q3, and since home energy credits go away at the end of this quarter (and if you want your last chance to get in before they do, get started here), that means business going forward from this quarter will be a lot worse.
In addition to the lost revenue from credits, there is another issue which is more difficult to track, but is definitely happening.
That is the issue of brand damage that Musk’s political activities have had on the company. Tesla is the only EV brand with negative perception, and it’s directly correlated to Musk’s political activities. His actions haven’t just harmed Tesla domestically, but abroad, where the company has lost business opportunities in in the UK, Australia, Germany, Denmark, and has seen falling sales in most territories, along with protests and embarrassed owners.
Tesla has already lost a lot of sales and will lose more, which means less revenue, and less profit. That $1.41 billion is just a start.
Despite directly harming Tesla, Musk wants you to pay him $1 trillion to stay on
Despite this horrendously inefficient use of funds by a CEO who has shown time and time again that he is outright hostile to the company he runs, Musk has also directed the company to spend more funds on an advertising effort to give him up to $1 trillion worth of Tesla stock.
The trillion-dollar number takes into account some optimistic stock growth for the company (which is unlikely given Musk’s recent performance as CEO, where earnings have dropped precipitously), but is still around 40x more than Tesla has ever made over its entire history. It’s also the largest CEO payday in history by multiple orders of magnitude.
Regardless of whether stock appreciates enough to give Musk all the shares covered under the plan, there is still room in the proposals for him to be granted well over 200 million newly printed shares of stock for doing nothing whatsoever, leading to dilution of voting rights and share value for current shareholders. The plan gives Musk’s personal friends on Tesla’s board significant discretion in this matter, and saddles the company with his poor leadership for another decade.
It would also give him a huge source of wealth, which he could turn into cash, to spend on other lobbying activities to harm Tesla’s business, as he has proven above that he is happy to do. If Musk can manage to lose Tesla $1.41 billion plus with $288 million, imagine what he could do with $1 trillion.
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