The electrification of off-highway vehicles is no longer a niche experiment—it has become an industrial trajectory.
Tractors, excavators, forestry and construction equipment are undergoing a structural transformation that involves not just the power source, but the entire vehicle architecture. The sector is evolving rapidly: traditional mechanical and energy systems are giving way to increasingly digitalized, electrified, and interconnected solutions. This transition is resulting in growing hybridization and, in many cases, the progressive adoption of fully electric powertrains, with direct implications on design, control, and maintenance. In this context, energy management—from conversion to distribution—takes on a central role. It has become a strategic technological node, enabling new frontiers in efficiency, performance, and operational sustainability. Performance, autonomy, and environmental impact are now tightly interdependent, governed by the quality with which energy is converted and managed onboard the machine.
This shift is driven by the convergence of several forces: increasingly stringent regulatory pressures, digital acceleration, and new economic models focused on reducing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The ecological transition no longer affects only on-road transport: off-highway machinery is also fully engaged in the decarbonization paths outlined by the European Green Deal and the Fit for 55 directive. As a result, intelligent energy management becomes a systemic challenge—requiring the coordinated integration of power electronics, flexible software architectures, and advanced sensing technologies. Within this complexity lies the real competitive edge for OEMs and system integrators.
Conversion and Distribution: The Backbone of Energy Efficiency in Off-Highway Vehicles
In mobile off-highway vehicles, energy management presents a highly complex technical challenge. Harsh operating conditions, load variability, and the demand for high power in constrained spaces call for tightly optimized engineering solutions. This has accelerated the shift toward electronic architectures with increasingly high power density and improved efficiency, aimed at reducing weight and volume while extending the vehicle’s range. In this context, next-generation semiconductors such as SiC (silicon carbide) and GaN (gallium nitride) are becoming pivotal, enabling more compact, responsive, and sustainable energy handling.
Prima Electro has been a long-standing player in these technologies, developing high-performance power electronics solutions for energy-intensive applications—including V2G-ready modules designed to operate in bidirectional mode. This capability is key not only to power the vehicle’s subsystems but also to exchange energy with the external grid, making vehicles an active part of intelligent energy networks.
Once generated or stored—via high-capacity batteries, fuel cells, or hybrid generators—energy must be accurately transformed and distributed to the machine’s subsystems: electric traction, actuators, pumps, and auxiliary functions.
This is achieved through DC/DC converters, multi-voltage inverters, and flexible electrical architectures, engineered to dynamically regulate voltage levels, minimize losses, and adapt to highly heterogeneous loads. Distribution efficiency has a direct impact on key performance factors such as vehicle autonomy, workload endurance under heavy-duty cycles, and energy consumption reduction. In off-highway environments—where machines often operate in remote, grid-disconnected, and rugged conditions—the ability to locally optimize energy flows is not only a decisive competitive advantage, but also a critical enabler for future grid integration scenarios such as Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G).
Connected, Sustainable, and High-Performance Machines
Energy efficiency is no longer a purely internal engineering exercise—it is now part of a broader ecosystem that includes grid connectivity, remote management, and fleet-wide integration.
Open and interoperable architectures now enable:
- Real-time energy data sharing with cloud platforms
- Smart scheduling of charging cycles based on usage peaks
- Dynamic adaptation of subsystem configurations to changing operational conditions
These functions are also foundational for emerging Vehicle-to-Grid models, where vehicles are not just energy consumers, but dynamic buffers for the local electrical grid.
Designing high-efficiency mobile systems today requires a systems-level perspective, one that integrates hardware, software, and real-time data intelligence. This is the vision that Prima Electro is committed to advancing—combining deep technological expertise with a focus on interoperability, to support the industry’s shift toward a more autonomous, sustainable, and connected off-highway mobility future.
