A new partnership to produce hybrid EMS vehicles and mobile clinics reflects the benefits of the tech, and the limitations of fully electric vehicles.
Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Rivian
Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital was ahead of the curve when it introduced an all-electric ambulance.
The fictional Grey’s Anatomy hospital debuted a custom Rivian vehicle in the show’s 22nd season. After more than two decades of running emissions-spewing diesel-powered vehicles on set, show leaders embraced the chance to provide a cleaner environment for cast and crew members.
Although there are emerging efforts to electrify vehicle fleets in the IRL healthcare sector, cost and charging challenges have made it a difficult proposition. For now, some are leaning into a middle-ground solution: hybrid-electric vehicles, which pair an internal combustion engine with an electric motor and battery.
Frazer, which designs and builds EMS vehicles and mobile healthcare units, recently announced it would offer a plug-in hybrid vehicle built in partnership with Harbinger Motors. Frazer has had ongoing discussions for years with customers interested in electrification, CEO Laura Griffin told us, but up until recently there haven’t been viable options.
“At least for the last 10 years, it’s been an undercurrent of the discussion,” she said. “When will we do this? When will this make sense?...Now is the time.”
In March, the two companies announced that Frazer would use Harbinger’s “plug-in hybrid vehicle chassis and battery technology to electrify emergency medical response vehicles and create next-generation mobile healthcare products.” Frazer also made a financial investment in Harbinger for an undisclosed amount.
In a statement, Griffin said that the partnership “demonstrates Frazer’s move beyond the traditional ambulance model and into a mobile healthcare solutions provider that supports new care delivery models.”
The companies will work together on a hybrid-electric EMS vehicle, a hybrid mobile healthcare unit, and on advanced auxiliary power systems.
In a news release, the companies said that fully electric vehicles “have struggled to meet the complexities of emergency medical operations due in part to charging constraints, unpredictable duty cycles, and power redundancy,” and touted hybrids as a better solution. Harbinger’s hybrid chassis comes with a gas-powered range extender to recharge the battery as needed.
The companies also noted an increase in demand for mobile healthcare due to health systems facing “capacity constraints, workforce shortages, and rising costs.”
“Today, there are only a few thousand mobile clinics nationwide,” according to the release. “That number is expected to triple or more by 2030 as health systems are seeking lower-cost, more scalable healthcare delivery models.”
Harbinger Motors makes electric chassis for medium-duty commercial vehicles, offering multiple configurations and body types like flatbed trucks and RVs.
Griffin’s grandfather founded Frazer 70 years ago. The Texas-based company got its start serving the oil field industry, then pivoted in the early 1980s in response to that era’s energy crisis. In the 2000s, Frazer left the oil field industry to focus entirely on emergency vehicles.
“We’ve looked at electric vehicles before. But there are some federal specifications that require you to be able to go a certain number of miles on a tank of gas, basically, or diesel,” Griffin said. “And the electric—while it does have its place—in our industry, it can’t go as far as we need to go and meet that federal specification. So the hybrid that Harbinger builds really fits with what we want to do.”
She expects the hybrid option to gradually gain traction with Frazer’s customers, but for there to be quicker uptake of the battery auxiliary system Harbinger is developing for Frazer because that solution works with internal combustion engine chassis, as well.
“We want to give the end user, the first responders, different options,” Griffin said. “And this one really fits a lot of those things as far as reduced maintenance, fewer moving pieces and parts. And we just think it’s gonna be a great thing to have in the portfolio for them to choose from.”
Industry stakeholders and experts believe that EVs will have an important role to play in the healthcare industry in the future—but first, the EV sector might need to reduce the up-front costs of electrification, build more charging stations, and reduce charging times.
One of the major barriers to electrifying ambulances is that these vehicles need to be ready to go at a moment’s notice—which doesn’t square with hours-long charging sessions, Eleftheria Kontou, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, told us. Plus, healthcare providers would need to invest in on-site chargers.
Until those barriers are removed, Kontou sees hybrids as a good solution for healthcare providers looking to reduce emissions and save money on fuel: “You get the majority of the benefits of electrifying your vehicle, but without the huge concerns of running out of battery and scheduling your charging sessions.”
Another barrier is simply that manufacturers aren’t yet producing many electric vehicles for the healthcare industry, according to Trey Patterson, VP of sales at Wisconsin-based CGS Premier, which specializes in the buildout and fabrication of specialty vehicles. CGS Premier makes vehicles used for diagnostic work, mobile imaging, primary care, and more for customers in healthcare. Most popular, according to Patterson, are smaller commercial vehicles like Mercedes-Benz’s Sprinter vans.
CGS is turning electric and hybrid versions of these vehicles into mobile clinics, and electric Class A RVs are starting to hit the market, according to Patterson. He reports seeing interest from customers in any viable options to reduce emissions and replace onboard diesel- and gas-powered generators.
“Hopefully we’ll have a lot more options in the next couple of years for the larger-style units,” he said.
Patterson expects to see more mobile healthcare units on the road in the near future, thanks to funding made available to states in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act for rural healthcare initiatives, including mobile clinics.
“The mobile healthcare landscape is expanding rapidly,” he said. “The money’s gonna start flowing, and there’s going to be a large influx with the entire industry [needing] to build out these mobile health clinics.”
Frazer’s Griffin noted the emergence of healthcare deserts across the country due to hospital closures, and ongoing efforts to keep hospital beds open for patients who need them the most.
“So the ability to go to them with everything that’s needed, or we’ll say 80% or 90% of what they would have in a brick-and-mortar facility, is becoming more important,” she said.
“We need great power sources, air conditioning and heating, the ability to do that mission-critical job, and not have the chassis or the chassis power source potentially be an impediment to doing that,” Griffin added.
Mobile clinics could be a better fit for electrification depending on their access to charging stations and how many miles they’re driving. But they’re often operating in rural areas where charging infrastructure is nonexistent or limited, a challenge Kontou said could resolve as more charging stations come online.
“The question is, can these companies save [by] transitioning to hybrid-electric, battery-electric vehicles? Is infrastructure out there to support them? I think we are moving to a place where that could be feasible, but it’s totally reasonable that many of these…healthcare providers are still worried about their operations,” she said.
“And they aim for an alternative [like hybrids] that reduces emissions, but also maintains the reliability of their operations,” she added, “which is extremely needed for this use case.”
