Electrification's impact on commercial-vehicle chassis design

Electrification in the commercial truck and off-highway sectors is ramping up at an increasingly rapid pace. This fundamental change in propulsion will be one of the most significant shifts in the industry's history and is having ripple effects on various aspects of chassis design, validation and reliability. Making matters more complicated is the lack of fully defined standards in this segment. This issue was discussed at length by an expert panel at SAE's 2022 COMVEC conference in Indianapolis.

The panel was moderated by Amrut Patki, director product group RCB & steering column at Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems. The panelists were Colm Bloomer, manager of systems and attributes at Ricardo North America; Somnath Ghorad, director of durability simulation and development at Nikola Motor Corp.; Collin Milliken, director of chassis engineering at Navistar; and James Turney, director of chassis engineering for Daimler Truck North America.