Vehicle makers court Europe’s militaries with hybrid, electric rides

PARIS — Gone are the days when military vehicles simply need to roll. Now, they must come equipped with complex communications systems, radars, lasers, jammers and other electronic systems, turning battlefield rides into mobile power stations.

European vehicle makers have been quick to jump on the business case for electric propulsion, offering products that promise to satisfy militaries’ needs for more efficient energy storage, quieter motors and lower thermal signatures. Last week, they showed their latest and greatest tech on the floor of the biennial Eurosatory trade conference, held outside Paris.

But while the civilian vehicle world has successfully deployed hybrid and electric cars onto city streets, the defense sector — now able to take advantage of those civilian technological advances— is just getting started.

Industry leaders told Defense News how the rhetoric around hybrid and all-electric vehicles, particularly tactical versions, has shifted over the past few years, as nations balance increasingly augmented energy needs against rising fuel prices, while also tackling challenges brought on by climate change within their services.

Nexter has been working on hybrid technology for about 20 years, said Sebastien Roy, the company’s energy research and technology leader. The French firm developed an initial hybrid demonstrator from 2003 to 2004 — not in response to a specific requirement, but merely to begin evaluating the technology, Roy said in an interview at Nexter’s pavilion.

Since then, the company has been able to take advantage of the new hybrid propulsion technologies under development in the civil vehicle industry, some of which are more compact and capable, especially when it comes to batteries. “It’s really those technological evolutions in the civil world that have allowed us to say: ‘OK, we will soon be able to integrate them into military vehicles,’ ” Roy said.

The rhetoric around electric and hybrid tactical vehicles at the convention center was much louder than what attendees heard at the same show four years ago. Demonstrators were spread across the corners of the show floor, from Arquus’ Scarabee light armored vehicle with a fully hybrid powertrain to FFG’s bright-blue, eight-wheel drive Genesis armored personnel carrier.

FFG developed the Genesis demonstrator purely to examine the possibilities of a hybrid system on a tank, said Michael Moller, the German company’s vice president for special technology.

Engineers wanted to “have the knowledge, to be … a very early one on the market to know how to handle this technology, high-voltage systems, how to build it, to maintain it,” he told Defense News at the company’s booth. The Genesis was developed five years ago, and debuted at an FFG event in 2021, he added.

French company Texelis displayed a full-scale model of its four-wheel drive MR400 armored vehicle at its booth, which features a new in-wheel, electric-hub drive developed jointly with U.K.-based QinetiQ. The MR400 is derived from Texelis’ vehicle design for the French Army’s VBMR Serval multirole vehicle program. Texelis — which was part of the Volvo Group until 2008 — and Nexter are co-prime contractors for the program.

When the Serval design was undergoing development four years ago, Texelis was already thinking about integrating a hybrid propulsion system, said Sebastien Guillon, the company’s export sales director. While no one has requested that requirement, talks are ongoing and Texelis is “already thinking about what the configuration will be,” he told Defense News at the conference. “What we understood is that it should be something very quick” to integrate and install onto a future Serval vehicle, he added.

Meanwhile, General Dynamics European Land Systems introduced a fully electric version of its four-wheel drive DURO all-terrain tactical vehicle at the conference. The DURO-e features a variable powertrain that includes a diesel engine and a pure electric powertrain that comes in either a battery- or fuel cell-powered version, along with capabilities including silent drive, boost and extended silent watch, per the company. The DURO-e claims a low heat and noise signature, along with high-energy efficiency and a self-sufficient energy supply.

General Dynamics partnered with Magna Powertrain’s Austria-based Engineering Center-Steyr and Switzerland-based Phi-Power AG to produce DURO-e, the company said in a news release. The original DURO was designed for the Swiss military.

Rheinmetall also is evaluating hybrid and electric technologies for its future vehicles, company officials said at the show. On the sidelines of its pavilion at Eurosatory, the German firm set up a space it called the Technology Cube, designed for discussions about future vehicle requirements with existing and potential customers. Delegations could be seen moving in and out of the space, including senior leaders of the Hungarian army, which committed to procuring Rheinmetall’s Lynx infantry fighting vehicle.

The French Army’s hybrid future

The French Armed Forces Ministry has particularly focused on finding solutions for more efficient energy storage, as military vehicles are increasingly used for more electronic capabilities, such as communications systems, lasers, radars and jammers.

Former Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly oversaw the release of the ministry’s first defense and energy strategy in 2020 , and several months ago released the first defense and climate change strategy . The recommendations in those documents include a hybrid vehicle demonstrator based on the Griffon light armored vehicle, meant to complete testing by 2025 and inform future hybrid truck requirements.

Arquus, Nexter and Thales are jointly developing the hybrid demonstrator, and the team is undergoing testing, evaluation and integration efforts that will help the ministry decide whether to launch large-scale production, according to an Arquus spokesperson.

The French Army’s future program to build a new armored engagement support vehicle, dubbed VBAE, may include a requirement for hybrid propulsion. Arquus pitched a hybrid light armored vehicle, likely based on its Scarabee light reconnaissance vehicle, in anticipation of that requirement, the spokesperson said. The Scarabee vehicle debuted in 2018 and was developed to respond to what Arquus thought could be the VBAE requirements, and to reflect the company’s vision of what a next-generation reconnaissance vehicle could look like, the spokesperson added.

Nexter, which has employed hybrid propulsion on its robotic systems already, is also exploring the technology for its own submission to the VBAE program, Roy said. It expects to have a demonstrator ready around 2025.

Soframe, a subsidiary of the French group Lohr, revealed last year its planned submission for the VBAE program, which will also undergo designs to integrate a fully electric or hybrid propulsion mode, according to local reports .

The future Main Ground Combat System — a tank in development by France and Germany — might also feature hybrid propulsion technology. KNDS, the joint holding company that includes Germany’s Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and France’s Nexter, is developing the tank that is expected to be fielded around 2035. Arquus is a subcontractor on that program.

Technical challenges

One ongoing challenge relates to the cooling system of a hybrid vehicle, which makes it difficult to integrate hybrid propulsion into military applications, Nexter’s Roy noted. But as this technology matures in the civilian world, the company imagines being able to overcome this problem in the near future.

Energy storage also remains a challenge. “Batteries are changing very fast,” said FFG’s Moller. Developing batteries that have better performance and are lighter and more easily replaceable will be key moving forward, he added.

Some stakeholders noted that the market for hybrid military vehicles remains limited. The demonstrators on the Eurosatory show floor were overwhelmingly tactical vehicles, and officials may not be ready to expand their interest in hybrid technologies beyond those capabilities, industry leaders noted.

Sweden’s Volvo has been developing hybrid and electric vehicles for nearly two decades now, primarily to serve its customers in the civilian sector. Its defense subsidiary focuses on heavy vehicles, such as logistics trucks that drive over extended distances.

So far, while officials are expressing interest in alternative fuel solutions, there has been little demonstrable effort to actually “hybridize” those types of vehicles for the military, Andreas Svenungsson, head of Volvo Defense, told Defense News at Eurosatory.

For now, tactical vehicles appear to have the best use case scenario for hybrid or electric propulsion vehicles due to the operational benefits of quieter motors and lower thermal signatures, he noted. But for the vehicles Volvo produces, “we have not seen it [hybrid or electric propulsion] in the tenders or the requirements so far,” he added.

He also noted that military programs have the added considerations of maintaining a secure supply chain and steady access to fuel, that remain challenges for the hybridization of ground vehicles.

But thanks to Volvo’s ongoing electric and hybrid propulsion efforts for civilian trucks and buses, “if they want to procure this for the defense segment, we are ready,” he added.

It was clear to these companies that the drumbeat for hybrid military vehicles is only getting louder. Years ago, officials were talking about the possibility of hybrid vehicles, but without any “real requirements,” noted Texelis’ Guillon.

“Now, I think they have a clear vision,” spurred by environmental targets or the need for “silent mode” capabilities and energy storage, he said. “It will help us because the way we want to develop something, it should be useful for the customer, and not just be hybrid by name.”

Vivienne Machi is a reporter based in Stuttgart, Germany, contributing to Defense News' European coverage. She previously reported for National Defense Magazine, Defense Daily, Via Satellite, Foreign Policy and the Dayton Daily News. She was named the Defence Media Awards' best young defense journalist in 2020.

巴黎——军用车辆只需行驶的时代已经一去不复返了。如今，它们必须配备复杂的通信系统、雷达、激光器、干扰器和其他电子系统，将战场上的车辆变成移动的动力站。

欧洲汽车制造商迅速抓住电动推进的商业机遇，推出的产品有望满足军方对更高效储能、更安静的电机和更低热特征的需求。上周，他们在巴黎郊外举行的两年一度的欧洲防务展（Eurosatory）上展示了其最新最先进的技术。

虽然民用车辆领域已成功将混合动力汽车和电动汽车部署到城市街道上，但国防领域——现在能够利用这些民用技术进步——才刚刚起步。

行业领袖向《防务新闻》透露，过去几年，围绕混合动力和全电动汽车（尤其是战术版本）的言论发生了转变，各国在不断增长的能源需求与不断上涨的燃料价格之间寻求平衡，同时还要应对气候变化给军队带来的挑战。

Nexter公司能源研发和技术负责人塞巴斯蒂安·罗伊表示，该公司已在混合动力技术领域耕耘了约20年。罗伊在Nexter展馆接受采访时说，这家法国公司在2003年至2004年间开发了首个混合动力示范装置——并非为了响应特定需求，而仅仅是为了初步评估这项技术。

自那时起，该公司便得以利用民用车辆行业正在研发的新型混合动力推进技术，其中一些技术更加紧凑、性能更佳，尤其是在电池方面。“正是民用领域的这些技术进步，让我们能够说：‘好的，我们很快就能将它们集成到军用车辆中，’”罗伊说道。

与四年前同一展会相比，本次会展中心关于电动和混合动力战术车辆的宣传声势浩大。从Arquus公司配备全混合动力系统的Scarabee轻型装甲车，到FFG公司亮蓝色的八轮驱动Genesis装甲运兵车，各种演示车辆遍布展厅的各个角落。

德国FFG公司负责特殊技术的副总裁迈克尔·莫勒表示，FFG开发Genesis演示器纯粹是为了检验在坦克上使用混合动力系统的可能性。

他在公司展位上告诉《防务新闻》记者，工程师们希望“掌握相关知识，成为市场上最早一批了解如何操作高压系统、如何制造和维护这项技术的公司之一”。他还补充说，Genesis系统五年前就已研发成功，并在2021年的FFG展会上首次亮相。

法国泰克利斯公司在其展位上展示了其四轮驱动MR400装甲车的全尺寸模型。该车配备了与英国QinetiQ公司联合开发的新型轮毂电机驱动系统。MR400源自泰克利斯为法国陆军VBMR Serval多用途车辆项目设计的车辆方案。泰克利斯（2008年之前隶属于沃尔沃集团）与奈克斯特公司是该项目的联合主承包商。

泰克利斯公司出口销售总监塞巴斯蒂安·吉隆表示，四年前“薮猫”（Serval）装甲车研发阶段，公司就已开始考虑集成混合动力推进系统。虽然目前尚无人提出此项要求，但双方仍在进行磋商，泰克利斯公司“已经在考虑具体的配置方案”，他在会议上告诉《防务新闻》。“我们了解到，这套系统应该能够快速集成并安装到未来的‘薮猫’装甲车上，”他补充道。

与此同时，通用动力欧洲陆地系统公司在本次大会上推出了其四轮驱动全地形战术车辆DURO的全电动版本。据该公司介绍，DURO-e配备了可变动力系统，包括柴油发动机和纯电动动力系统（可选电池或燃料电池版本），并具备静音驾驶、加速和延长静音监视等功能。DURO-e号称具有低热量和低噪音、高能源效率以及自给自足的能源供应等优点。

通用动力公司在一份新闻稿中表示，该公司与麦格纳动力总成位于奥地利的工程中心-斯太尔以及位于瑞士的Phi-Power AG公司合作生产了DURO-e。最初的DURO是为瑞士军方设计的。

莱茵金属公司官员在展会上表示，该公司也在评估未来车辆的混合动力和电动技术。在欧洲防务展（Eurosatory）上，这家德国公司在其展馆旁设立了一个名为“技术立方体”的空间，旨在与现有客户和潜在客户讨论未来车辆的需求。可以看到，包括匈牙利军队高级领导人在内的各方代表团进出该空间，匈牙利军队已承诺采购莱茵金属公司的“山猫”（Lynx）步兵战车。

法国军队的混合未来

法国武装部队部尤其关注寻找更高效的储能解决方案，因为军用车辆越来越多地用于配备更多电子设备，例如通信系统、激光器、雷达和干扰器。

前武装部队部长弗洛朗丝·帕利于2020年主持发布了国防部的首份国防和能源战略，并在几个月前发布了首份国防和气候变化战略。这些文件中的建议包括基于“格里芬”轻型装甲车的混合动力车辆演示车，计划在2025年完成测试，并为未来的混合动力卡车需求提供参考。

据 Arquus 发言人称，Arquus、Nexter 和 Thales 正在联合开发混合动力演示器，该团队正在进行测试、评估和集成工作，这将有助于该部决定是否启动大规模生产。

法国陆军未来计划建造一种名为VBAE的新型装甲交战支援车辆，其中可能包括混合动力推进系统。发言人表示，Arquus公司已针对这一需求提出了混合动力轻型装甲车的方案，该方案很可能基于其Scarabee轻型侦察车。发言人补充说，Scarabee侦察车于2018年首次亮相，其研发目的正是为了满足Arquus公司对VBAE未来需求的设想，并体现该公司对下一代侦察车的愿景。

罗伊表示，奈克斯特公司已在其机器人系统中应用了混合动力推进技术，目前也在探索这项技术，计划将其应用于VBAE项目。该公司预计将在2025年左右完成演示样机的研制。

据当地报道，法国 Lohr 集团的子公司 Soframe 去年透露了其参与 VBAE 项目的计划，该项目还将进行设计，以整合全电动或混合动力推进模式。

未来主战坦克系统（Main Ground Combat System，简称MAGS）——一款由法国和德国联合研制的坦克——也可能采用混合动力推进技术。KNDS是一家合资控股公司，旗下包括德国的克劳斯-玛菲·韦格曼公司（Krauss-Maffei Wegmann）和法国的奈克斯特公司（Nexter），该公司正在研发这款预计将于2035年左右投入使用的坦克。Arquus是该项目的分包商。

技术挑战

Nexter公司的罗伊指出，目前面临的一个挑战是混合动力汽车的冷却系统，这使得混合动力推进系统难以应用于军事领域。但随着这项技术在民用领域的日趋成熟，该公司预计在不久的将来能够克服这一难题。

储能仍然是一项挑战。“电池技术发展日新月异，”FFG公司的莫勒表示。他补充说，开发性能更佳、重量更轻、更易于更换的电池将是未来发展的关键。

一些利益相关者指出，混合动力军用车辆的市场仍然有限。欧洲防务展上的演示车辆绝大多数是战术车辆，业内人士指出，官员们可能尚未准备好将对混合动力技术的兴趣扩展到这些功能之外。

瑞典沃尔沃公司近二十年来一直在研发混合动力和电动汽车，主要服务于民用市场客户。其国防子公司则专注于重型车辆，例如长途运输的物流卡车。

沃尔沃防务公司负责人安德烈亚斯·斯文松在欧洲防务展上告诉《防务新闻》：“到目前为止，虽然官员们对替代燃料解决方案表示出了兴趣，但几乎没有采取任何实际行动来为军方“混合动力化”这类车辆。”

他指出，就目前而言，由于更安静的电机和更低的热信号特征，战术车辆似乎是混合动力或电动推进车辆的最佳应用场景。但他补充说，就沃尔沃生产的车辆而言，“到目前为止，我们在招标或需求中还没有看到混合动力或电动推进系统。”

他还指出，军事项目还需要考虑维持安全的供应链和稳定的燃料供应，而这些对于地面车辆的混合动力化来说仍然是挑战。

但他补充说，得益于沃尔沃在民用卡车和巴士领域持续推进的电动和混合动力推进技术，“如果他们想为国防领域采购这项技术，我们已经做好了准备。”

这些公司都清楚地意识到，混合动力军用车辆的需求呼声越来越高。Texelis公司的Guillon指出，几年前，官员们就讨论过混合动力车辆的可能性，但当时并没有任何“实际需求”。

“现在，我认为他们有了清晰的愿景，”他说道，这或许是受到环保目标或对“静音模式”功能和储能的需求所驱动。“这对我们很有帮助，因为我们想要开发的产品应该对客户有用，而不仅仅是徒有混合动力之名。”

薇薇安·马奇是驻德国斯图加特的一名记者，主要负责《防务新闻》的欧洲报道。她此前曾为《国家防务杂志》、《防务日报》、《卫星通讯》、《外交政策》和《代顿每日新闻》撰稿。2020年，她荣获防务媒体奖最佳青年防务记者称号。