PACCAR CTO Offers Insights on SDVs, AVs and BEVs

John Rich kicked off SAE COMVEC 2025 by presenting the keynote address that covered a range of workforce and technology topics.

November 10, 2025

Ryan Gehm

John Rich (right), SVP and CTO at PACCAR, answers questions at SAE COMVEC 2025. (SAE International)

PACCAR provided the executive leadership guiding this year’s SAE COMVEC conference held in mid-September in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was fitting, then, that John Rich, senior vice president and chief technology officer at PACCAR, kicked off the event as the featured keynote speaker.

His presentation centered around the event’s theme: “Shaping the Future Together” by embracing advancement, empowerment and exploration in the commercial vehicle industry. He also answered a range of questions during a sit-down with Phil Stephenson, general manager of PACCAR Technical Center, who served as the COMVEC executive chair. Following is a few of the key insights Rich shared with attendees in the packed venue:

On engineering skills – “Like every industry, the skills we need evolve over time. We’re going through a natural transition for a historically mechanical industry. Technology shifts place increasing importance on electrical, software and data in our business. Every one of us makes machines that do work. We do some amazing things with some very heavy loads, so don’t think that mechanical is somehow less important. But there is a shift underway.”

On BEVs and hybrids – “Despite major revisions to greenhouse gas policy over the last several months, BEVs [battery-electric vehicles] are not there. On shorter routes and in congested areas, especially back-to-base operations, they can be great solutions. And done right, they will lower operator costs. For the heavier and longer side of our business, hybrids are a really nice solution. They reduce fuel costs with no operational tradeoff. Sometimes it feels like the obvious solution that gets ignored, but we shouldn’t. Hybrids can be a winning solution.”

On systems engineering – “Commercial vehicles have too often been a collection of subsystems rather than cohesively designed. Emerging technologies like hybrids and electrics mandate that we incorporate full system design more than we have in the past. The complete vehicle is more than the sum of its parts. That means new skills and tools like simulation will be much more important. It also means that suppliers and OEMs will have to work in a much more coordinated manner at the start of the V-cycle. This is true for both hardware and software.”

On SDVs – “Software-defined vehicles require an expensive tear-up of our long-established electrical architecture. That is a huge liability if executed poorly. Commercial vehicle complexity makes the problem especially hard for us, and our scale is relatively low, making the payback harder. If we are to do this successfully, we have to focus on finite solutions with clear customer benefits. We need to do this in tight coordination with the supply base, methodically, carefully and selectively.”

On autonomous vehicles – “Ten years ago, the underlying technologies really didn’t exist. Everything was an expensive invention. Today, it’s no longer a science project; it’s an engineering exercise. The underlying technologies support commercialization.

“At PACCAR, our strategy is straightforward – it’s to stay in our lane. We engineer and build the digitally controlled truck that enables the driver, we deliver cybersecure controls and software to actuate all vehicle functions, we deliver redundant steering and braking, and high reliability in all our systems. But we are not the autonomous driver, it’s not our space. We work with developers to integrate their autonomous driving systems, and our job is to bring down the cost of [AV] hardware and support the vehicles on the road.”