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I see huge potential for hybrid trucks, but I can't figure out how one could optimize operation and fuel economy without a healthy dose of operator intervention.
Ideally the engine would be sized just a tiny bit more powerful than needed to cruise down the highway at near peak efficiency. The electric motor would supplement the engine for acceleration and hill climbing.
On shorter trips you would want to use EV only. On longer trips with hill climbs, you would want to preserve enough of the battery capacity to assist the pull up the hill, and if pulling a large load, that could require nearly the whole battery capacity. That would take some prior planning to preserve the EV charge for the hill climb, or even instruct the engine to charge the battery prior to arriving at the hill.
Without proper planning and operator intervention, plug-in vehicles get poorer fuel economy on long trips than their non-plug-in counterparts. This is seen in EPA MPG ratings on vehicles like the Ford Fusion hybrid (41 MPG) vs the Ford Fusion Energi plug-in (38 MPG).
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