As fleets look to reduce emissions across every part of their operations, even refrigeration units are going electric. We stopped at Thermo King’s booth at the 2025 ACT Expo in Anaheim, California and learned about its new Advancer E, a new fully electric trailer refrigeration unit, or TRU. Available in both single and multi-temperature configurations and already in serial production and operating on roads across Europe, these engineless TRUs are now being adopted for North American fleets. The company expects it to be commercially available in Canada and the U.S. at the end of 2025.

Tyler Luzinski, senior product manager of trailers at Thermo King, told us that while European models use their proprietary battery storage system, the version coming to North America will work with third-party trailer storage systems.

Luzinski: This is our first step towards engineless TRU future. So it kind of carries over a lot of proven legacy major components. For instance, our X430 reciprocating compressor that, you know, if you’ve worked in this industry, you’ve probably worked on one. So this utilizes that compressor. It’s got a standby motor and generator combo machine that powers forty-eight volt DC variable speed airflow, so it’s quite efficient.

And then this is our multi-temp version that, it’s the Whisper Pro package, so it’s got sound dampening. So it operates at only 60 decibels, so it’s quite quiet as well.

James Menzies, editor of trucknews.com: For a technician or a fleet that’s used to dealing with diesel TRUs, what do they have to know about this? Is this a simpler design than a diesel machine, or is the maintenance somewhat or fairly similar?

Luzinski: It’s a great question. So there are quite a few things that are more simple. If you think about there’s no engine in it, so you don’t need oil changes, you don’t need air filter changes on the engine, you don’t need fuel filter changes, sometimes multiple fuel filters, especially with more modern engines. Like high-pressure common rail engines have a lot of electronics, so you’re simplifying the system dramatically. However, I will say, there are a lot of power electronics that are involved. So, to run this unit, you would have some power electronics that require some additional maintenance, but overall, you’d expect the total maintenance to be reduced quite drastically.

While removing the diesel engine out of the equation reduces its weight, the battery pack needed for an electric TRU does add significant weight back. And while it’s not a pure weight reduction, it’s a different weight distribution between engine and battery components, Luzinski explained.

Luzinski: There’s a trade-off there, but for the front of the TRU perspective, there’s a lot less weight when you take the engine out of there. Weight’s very important to fleets as they weigh out trailers. The other piece, like we said, is just kind of streamlined, reduced total maintenance, so not having to work on the engines. You could potentially get extended life of the TRU. And then as mentioned, it’s quieter. So the diesel engine is the primary contributor of noise. There is more noise than you would expect though from the airflow and the compressor of the system, so it’s not silent. However, it is a lot more quiet.

Menzies: Okay. And obviously, refrigerated applications cover the gamut. What types of routes or what types of duty cycles would be ideal for electric TRUs?

Luzinski: That’s a great question. So the easiest space is distribution. So where units go to sleep, where they wake up is what we like to say. So when a trailer is leaving a yard to make deliveries during the day and then coming back at night, that allows the trailer to be charged overnight versus our long haul segment where trailers are running all around North America, and it’s very difficult in that environment to have electric solutions that need to be charged. And these being closer to home, as this new technology gains maturity, it’s a lot better to have them close to home and be able to work on them closely, versus them running all around North America. So distribution, more specifically, I’d say grocery lends well to it, but food service does as well.