Trailer Manufacturing: Fruehauf to ABB Robots

Most of what reaches a shop shelf spends part of its trip in a trailer, behind a tractor unit that may be swapped at the next depot. Trailer manufacturing is a mix of heavy welding and careful finishing: long steel chassis beams, axles and springs, then side walls, floors, doors and often a refrigeration unit. This post looks at trailer manufacturing from horse drawn wagons and August Fruehauf's first semi-trailer in 1914 to the robot welding cells and automated spring plants of 2026, and at what electrified trailers mean for the factories that build them.

A Freightliner tractor hauling a refrigerated semi-trailer on Interstate 90 near Spokane, Washington, 2024. Photo: Ewkada / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

From horse drawn wagons to Fruehauf's semi-trailer

Before engines, freight moved on wagons pulled by teams of horses or oxen, and the men who built them were wheelwrights, carriage builders and blacksmiths. Those trades did not vanish when the motor truck arrived. In rural Queensland, as the photo below from around 1925 shows, a long horse team could still haul a wagon piled high with sacks across open country. The first semi-trailer came out of the same craft, from a blacksmith and carriage builder working near Detroit.

A long horse team hauling a wagon loaded with sacks in Queensland, Australia, around 1925. Photo: Queensland State Archives via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

In 1914 August Fruehauf, a Detroit area blacksmith and carriage builder, was asked by a local businessman, Frederic M. Sibley, to build a trailer that a Ford Model T could pull, so Sibley could take his boat to upper Michigan. Sibley then ordered more for his lumber yard. Fruehauf called them semi-trailers and sold them on a simple pitch: a horse can pull more than it can carry, and so can a truck. He incorporated the Fruehauf Trailer Company in Detroit in 1918.

A 1952 Federal 45M tractor with a 1946 Fruehauf semi-trailer at the Henry Ford Museum. Photo: Michael Barera / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Fruehauf grew into one of the big names of the business. The company developed hydraulic dump trailers, bulk tankers and automatic fifth wheel couplings, held more than 1,000 patents and built trailers and missile equipment for the US military. It also patented a shipping container design in 1956. Financial trouble led to bankruptcy in 1996, and Wabash National bought its US manufacturing and sales business in 1997. Fruehauf firms in France and the UK carry on under the old name.

An old orange Fruehauf box semi-trailer parked beside a church, 2010. Photo: Joost J. Bakker / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Robots, springs and welding lines in trailer manufacturing today

Some of the newest automation sits in the suppliers. On 7 October 2026 EMCO Industries said its new 30,000 square foot plant in Claremore, Oklahoma, is in production and dedicated to heavy duty trailer springs. Twelve robots work in tandem along the line, taking raw steel bars through shearing, tapering, forming, heat treating and quenching. EMCO says the plant more than doubles its capacity, makes about a dozen spring designs, including the mono leaf spring it launched in January, rated for 22,400 pounds per axle. That spring weighs 40 pounds against 53 for the part it replaces, a 25 percent cut. The plant should add about 20 jobs.

The axles, suspension and twin tyres under a Groenewegen semi-trailer. Photo: Bertux / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Trailer makers themselves are automating the welding of the chassis, the backbone of every trailer. In November 2025 Fruehauf in the UK announced a MIG welding robot, built on Panasonic arms, for main beams and coupler plates, aiming at up to three chassis frames a day, with skilled welders moving into operating and programming the machine. ABB sells the same kind of equipment: arc welding robots such as the IRB 1520ID and IRB 2600ID, larger arms like the IRB 6700, and positioners that turn a heavy part so the torch always welds downhand.

An ABB arc welding robot with a positioner that turns heavy parts. Photo: Ana 2016 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

A long chassis beam is often welded by two or more robots at once, coordinated by one controller; ABB calls this MultiMove. Programs for cells like these are usually built and tested first in RobotStudio, so engineers can try a new trailer length on a virtual model while the real cell keeps welding. For short runs and repairs, the GoFa cobot arc welding package lets a welder guide the torch by hand and have the cobot repeat the seam. Truck cabs and frames are a different story, told in our post on truck manufacturing.

ABB arc welding robots at work on a long vehicle frame, from ABB's Robotic Arc Welding brochure. Photo: ABB

What comes next for trailer manufacturing

The trailer itself is getting electric parts. In June 2026 the Swiss dairy group Emmi put three refrigerated trailers into regular service whose cooling units run from the trailer's own batteries instead of a diesel engine, with seven solar panels on each roof. Ackermann Fahrzeugbau built the trailers with technology from Nivalis Energy Europe. Each one covers 200 to 400 kilometres a day. Emmi's routes are short and urban, so these trailers did without a regenerative electric axle, which some electrified trailers use to recover braking energy.

ABB's GoFa Cobot Arc Welding Package on a welding table. Photo: ABB

For factories, that means wiring harnesses, battery boxes and electronics on a product that used to be mostly steel, aluminium and plywood. Batteries and cables need careful handling, testing and tidy routing. Robots can take the repeatable steps, such as welding battery frames or driving fasteners, while people keep the routing and checks that change from one order to the next. Using ABB welding and handling robots for battery frames and side wall assembly on trailer lines is a possibility; we have not found a trailer maker that has announced such a project with ABB.

The rear doors of an insulated semi-trailer on a California freeway, 2023. Photo: Eric Polk / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Cost is the hard limit. Trailer makers build many variants in modest volumes, and closures this autumn, including a trailer plant in Westmoreland, Virginia, with 179 jobs and a PJ Trailers plant in Ohio with 116, show how tight the business can be. A welding cell has to pay back across many lengths and axle layouts. Skills are the other problem: welders who can program robots, and electricians who understand high voltage trailer systems, are scarce. EMCO took one route out of that bind: a narrow product range on a dedicated robot line, with an eight week average lead time.

A refrigerated trailer for a UK supermarket chain, with its cooling unit at the front, 2010. Photo: Graham Richardson / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

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