Commercial Vehicle Technologies
NREL's commercial vehicle research develops innovative solutions to advance the efficiency, reliability, and affordability of commercial vehicles across land, air, and sea.
Our work overcomes the most challenging barriers to advancing cost-effective, next-generation commercial vehicle technologies.
Capabilities
Our deep commercial vehicle engineering, transportation systems analysis, and data science expertise spans:
- Advanced powertrain research and development
- Artificial intelligence solutions for advanced vehicles
- High-resolution data capture, advanced analytics, and insight generation
- Modeling and simulation for on-, off-, non-road, marine, rail, and aviation applications
- Customized evaluations of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, infrastructure, operations, fleets, ports, and transportation hubs
- Strategic blueprinting to guide advanced technology implementation
- Optimized freight logistics at national, regional, and local scales
- Thermal management and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning research for mobile applications.
Combined, this expertise allows us to measure, analyze, and provide optimized, commercially viable solutions for every application, all while meeting vehicle performance requirements.
Research and Development
Vehicle Performance Evaluation
Our leading capabilities in data logging and best-in-class modeling and simulation tools give us an unparalleled ability to generate high-resolution datasets and conduct detailed analysis of vehicle operations. These insights help transition commercial fleets to high-performing, cost-effective models and operations.
Our unrivaled data analysis stems from the Fleet DNA data warehouse and FleetREDI data analysis pipeline.
Modeling and Simulation
To generate deep, strategic insights into commercial vehicle operations, we develop first-of-their-kind modeling and simulation tools for commercial vehicles. Our analysis tools span alternative fuel, electric-drive, hydrogen fuel cell, and conventional medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, in addition to non- and off-road vehicles such as freight trains, marine vessels, mining and agricultural equipment, and aircraft.
Data and Tools
See our full collection of data and tools.
Strategic Blueprinting
In partnership with fleets, manufacturers, transportation hubs, and governments, we create strategic blueprints that guide cost-effective transitions to advanced fleets. Our customized blueprints are grounded in highly accurate total cost of ownership analyses that reflect real-world operations and considerations, such as dwell times, cargo capacity impacts, and infrastructure costs.
Thermal Management and Controls
Our vehicle thermal management research helps optimize the thermal performance of both conventional and alternative fuel vehicles. We assess the potential benefits of thermal design options to the range and performance of advanced vehicles.
Publications
NREL researchers publish journal articles, conference papers, and reports about emerging commercial vehicle technologies. Check out our list of publications on Google Scholar.
Customized Solutions
We partner with fleets, manufacturers, and transportation agencies to conduct customized research, development, demonstration, and implementation of advanced vehicles, technologies, and solutions. Contact Jason Lustbader to learn more.
Contact
Reach out to learn more about our commercial vehicles research or explore partnership opportunities.
Share
Last Updated Nov. 19, 2025