Hyliion rolls out maintenance-free Karno generator

TOM QUIMBY, CCJ SENIOR EDITOR

While OEMs contend that liquid and gaseous fuels will continue to play an important role in decarbonization for years ahead, picking winners is anything but easy.

That’s where Hyliion says its Hypertruck Karno can help.

The fuel agnostic generator was displayed for the first time Wednesday at the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo in Anaheim, California. It was also mounted close by inside the hybrid Hyliion Karno, a Class 8 long haul truck advertised to run on hydrogen or renewable natural gas.

Capable of running on more than 20 fuels, Karno is probably unlike any generator you’ve ever seen. Its long, cylindrical-like shape does not make it a candidate for conventional engine bay installation. Instead, Hyliion has mounted four Karno generators along the truck’s frame rail.

“These four linear generators on the truck can produce about 200 kilowatts of power as they’re running,” Hyliion CEO and founder Thomas Healy said. “The generators sit in there constantly just charging up the batteries as you’re going down the road.”

Karno does not require any mechanical changes when switching fuels.

“The generator really doesn’t care what fuel it’s running on unlike some of the other fuel agnostic solutions where you have a platform and if you want to run it on hydrogen you have to spec it this way and if you want to run it on nat gas, it’s a little bit different,” Healy said. “This generator can from one second to the next switch what fuel it’s actually running on.”

Hyliion acquired Karno from GE last year. Josh Mook, the chief engineer responsible for Karno system development, was on hand at Hyliion’s presentation to explain more about the generator.

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