Full Shift, No Refuel: Hydrogen Drayage Has Arrived

Savage and Symbio commission the lightest zero-emission Class-8 drayage truck in the US, built for 24/7 port operations

25 Mar 2026

Savage Services and Symbio North America have commissioned the first hydrogen fuel cell Class-8 drayage truck in the United States, marking an early test of the technology's viability in one of the country's most emissions-intensive freight sectors.

The vehicle, built on a Mack Anthem platform and fitted with Symbio's 150-kilowatt multi-StackPack fuel cell drivetrain, carries 34 kilograms of compressed hydrogen in high-pressure tanks supplied by automotive components group FORVIA. Its kerb weight of roughly 17,000 pounds makes it the lightest known zero-emission tractor in the Class-8 segment, a category that covers the heaviest commercial vehicles used in long-haul and port operations.

Refuelling takes under 15 minutes, a significant advantage over battery-electric alternatives in port environments where vehicles operate continuously and downtime is costly. Savage currently runs more than 70 drayage trucks in California, and the company has indicated the commissioned vehicle represents the opening phase of a broader fleet shift away from diesel.

California's ports handle some of the largest freight volumes in the country. Drayage trucks serving those facilities are a significant source of regional air pollution, and the state has introduced some of the tightest zero-emission mandates in the US. Federal pressure is also building. Hydrogen's weight and refuelling advantages give it a competitive case in high-utilisation settings, though questions around infrastructure and total operating cost remain unresolved at scale.

Symbio operates fuel cell manufacturing facilities in both California and France, and its modular StackPack architecture is designed to support competitive lifecycle economics as adoption broadens. Performance and duty-cycle data gathered during the truck's commercial operation will feed back into Symbio's development process.

Whether port operators will move quickly toward hydrogen, or whether battery-electric alternatives narrow the gap as charging infrastructure expands, remains an open question. The deployment provides the industry's first real-world dataset against which those decisions will be assessed.