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By Subhash Dhar
Subhash Dhar is Founder, Chairman and CEO of American Battery Solutions (ABS). With more than 40 years in the energy storage industry, he is a pioneer of early advanced batteries who has held multiple CEO positions and led the group that developed and commercialized the nickel-metal hydride battery technology for hybrid electric vehicles like the Toyota Prius.
As I look across the industry, the momentum behind electrification is both real and accelerating. But progress will not be uniform. It will be shaped by cost, infrastructure, regulation and, above all, the evolution of battery technology. Here’s how I see the path forward — and what will determine the speed and scale of adoption.
The core drivers pushing off-highway equipment toward electrification are the same ones shaping broader EV markets: battery cost and battery life. But the off-highway world has an added layer of complexity — charging infrastructure in remote locations.
In mining operations, equipment often runs underground and/or far from the grid, making infrastructure just as important as the battery itself. Policies and regulations will continue to influence how quickly new systems are deployed. In underground mining especially, electrification is becoming essential. Workers simply cannot tolerate emissions in constrained environments, and companies cannot sustain the ventilation costs required for diesel operations.
As costs fall and infrastructure expands, adoption will only accelerate.
Among all off-highway sectors, underground mining is moving fastest toward electrification — and for good reason: emissions, safety and ventilation cost savings make the economics undeniable.
Agriculture will follow; forestry will move more slowly because of lower equipment volumes and fewer commercial incentives. And even within construction, I expect to see different adoption rates between dense urban environments — where regulations and emissions restrictions are stronger — and rural areas, where the economics are more challenging.
Globally, uptake will vary based on energy policy and grid makeup. Countries like China and the Nordic nations, with significant nonthermal generation capacity, will advance electrification more aggressively than regions still dependent on fossil-based power.
Reaching cost parity with diesel equipment will require one thing above all else: scale.
The industry must move toward common battery architecture and shared chemistries that can be applied across multiple vehicle types and industries. This is no different from how diesel engines are built today — common platforms, tuned for specific applications.
Modularity will play a critical role. If we can build battery systems that serve multiple end uses with minimal variation, we can drive down cost, increase availability and simplify integration for OEMs.
At ABS, OEMs ultimately own the responsibility for total cost of ownership (TCO) — but we play a major role by designing energy storage systems that are as economical, durable and as long-lasting as possible.
Longer battery life is one of the most powerful levers for reducing TCO, especially in mining and agricultural equipment that run long duty cycles. Operators want lower upfront costs, but TCO improves dramatically when batteries last longer and deliver consistent performance over time.
Electrification in off-highway cannot advance through siloed development. It requires collaboration — between OEMs, suppliers and technology innovators.
At ABS, we partner with advanced chemistry companies working to deliver higher performance at lower cost. We work deeply with our customers to understand what truly matters to their applications, then design battery systems built around those priorities. That combination — emerging technology plus practical integration — is what will make electrification more affordable and more scalable.
The biggest breakthrough needed for widespread adoption is clear: We must lower the cost of batteries by removing expensive materials like nickel and cobalt.
The next generation of chemistries — solid-state, lithium-air and others still in development — will be essential. But these advances take time. I expect meaningful progress over the next five to 10 years, but we should not expect lab-scale innovations to immediately translate into off-highway use.
Looking ahead, the biggest trend shaping off-highway electrification will be the use of modular, scalable lithium-ion platforms that reduce cost and allow OEMs to electrify entire fleets with a shared architecture.
At ABS, we are preparing for this future by building systems that maximize performance today while allowing customers to transition to next-generation chemistries tomorrow. We don’t research and develop chemistry in-house — we rely on the global ecosystem — but we design our platforms to adopt new chemistries as they mature.
That flexibility will be essential.
When looking back at the history of the battery industry, it all starts with a small battery and evolves into larger applications. Computers and telephones were some of the first adopters, then consumer electronics followed by electric vehicles and, ultimately, deployment in heavy-duty and off-highway applications.
Off-highway demands uncompromising reliability and cost efficiency, so you can’t just go straight from the lab to off-highway applications.
Electrification will come, and it will come steadily. But the industry must balance innovation with practicality. Long life, affordability and modularity will determine success — and battery systems must be proven long before they reach the field.
At American Battery Solutions, that’s exactly what we’re focused on: Delivering lithium-ion technology engineered for the realities of heavy, hard-working equipment — today and for the decade ahead.
Learn more about how ABS can help meet your energy needs by contacting us at americanbatterysolutions.com/contact.
Advances in battery durability, power density and thermal management are making electric systems valuable for off-highway equipment, which operates in harsher environments, often remote or underground, and often works far from established charging infrastructure, placing a critical demand on durability and reliability.
Underground mining is already leading in adoption due to the strong economic and safety benefits of eliminating diesel emissions and reducing ventilation costs. Agriculture and construction will follow, though adoption rates vary based on operating environments and regulations. Forestry and low-volume applications are expected to transition more slowly.
Cost parity depends largely on scale and standardization. As battery production increases and modular platforms become more common, costs will continue to decline. While full parity will not happen overnight, the gap is narrowing quickly in applications with the right scale and duty cycles.
Electrification cannot advance in isolation. Collaboration aligns battery technology with real-world applications. It helps reduce risk, increase speed deployment and deliver solutions that are practical, reliable and cost-effective at scale.
Battery life is one of the most powerful levers for reducing TCO. While upfront cost matters, longer-lasting batteries that deliver consistent performance over thousands of cycles significantly reduce replacement costs, downtime and overall operating expense for high-utilization equipment.
