Construction’s bold future

The construction industry faces many pressing challenges today: labour, tight timelines, productivity gaps, and decarbonization are a few. We regularly discuss OEMs' solutions to alleviate these challenges, but construction has long been an inherently conservative industry. As a contractor, you need to know how technology and equipment solutions will help you meet your targets, retain your workers, and make you money today, next month, and next year. This is vital information for your business, but sometimes it's also essential — and fun — to look at construction with a far broader time horizon.

In 2024, we were treated to a vision for the future of construction that not only addresses your pain points today, but incorporates a creative imagining of what construction can look like 10, 20, or 50 years from now. At CES 2024, HD Hyundai's keynote address and booth demonstration delivered a vision of construction that is clean and efficient, incorporating emissions-free power, digitalization, and automation. And Hyundai isn't the only OEM that is experimenting with a vision for the future of construction: In 2024 we saw more innovative, outside-the-box equipment concepts and continued advancement, and upsizing, of hydrogen-powered construction equipment development. As we move into 2025, lets explore what your job site could look like a little farther down the line.

HD Hyundai's immersive vision of the future of construction 

HD Hyundai has a bold vision it calls a "living blueprint of what the future construction site will look like."

Offering a sleek and inspiring glimpse of the future, HD Hyundai displayed two autonomous machines at CES 2024. A cab-less, autonomous electric excavator concept which, aside from being a remarkable design, featured an array of advanced technologies, including a safety system that, with radar and a smart AAVM (all-around view monitoring) 360 degree camera system, detects nearby obstacles and minimizes the potential for accidents while moving autonomously. The excavator concept is designed to be a versatile, modular robotic machine capable of performing various tasks in challenging environments. It features an interchangeable upper body and undercarriage modules, including track systems and battery packs.

The machine is equipped with four independent adaptive track systems that enable it to climb steep hills and navigate difficult terrains, reducing the need for human operators in potentially hazardous sites. Key features include an operation status and working load indicator, an offset boom swing, and extended arm systems for flexible movement and long reach tasks. 

Additionally, it has a rotator capable of accommodating various attachments, including an integrated tiltrotator, boom-integrated perception sensors for improved navigation and operation, and a combined auto-balancing counterweight. 

Also on display was the DEVELON X2 dozer concept. Teleoperation, as well as an application concept for entirely autonomous machines, was presented as a solution to future skilled labour shortages.

We had the opportunity to talk with Young-cheul Cho, president and CEO of HD Hyundai Xite Solutions and Hyundai Infracore, who laid out HD Hyundai's goal to become a leading global player in construction innovation. "Xite Transformation is HD Hyundai's vision for future construction sites that aims to solve pressing industry challenges designed to improve safety on the job site, the environment, and job site productivity," said Cho. 

All areas of the job site need to be integrated with technology, and HD Hyundai is looking to combine multiple currently separate technologies together to unify both equipment and the entire job site. 

"We are already connecting machine monitoring and machine control systems," said Cho.

HD Hyundai plans on expanding these features across most of its product lines. The integration of technology is driving the greatest innovation at a time when, according to Cho, the construction industries are "facing difficulties, ranging from a lack of skilled operators, site safety, and an overall decrease in productivity."

New concepts break the rules of equipment design

Bobcat has openly worked on some very cool futuristic construction equipment concepts for a couple of years and in 2024 advanced its RogueX platform with the RogueX2, an all-electric autonomous concept loader that uses some of the technology already commercially available on Bobcat's unique-to-the-industry all-electric compact track loader.

Bobcat has pushed the possibilities of autonomy and electrification on the visually striking, futuristic cab-less tracked RogueX and wheeled RogueX2, which feature a lithium-ion battery, electric drive system, and electrically actuated lift and tilt kinematics with no hydraulics — the same kinematics already used on the electric T7X compact track loader.

Joel Honeyman, Doosan Bobcat vice president of global innovation, calls the RogueX platform a proving ground for Doosan Bobcat to look at designs and potential technology that could be applied to future work vehicles.

Taking the cab off a traditional loader allows for lift geometry experimentation that wouldn't be possible on a machine with a cab. On the RogueX and RogueX2, that meant combining vertical-path, radial-path, and variable-path lift capabilities in one machine.

As Honeyman noted in conversation at CES, Bobcat's legacy as the originator of the skid-steer loader makes this reimagining a particularly suitable project for the company.

"Our roots are in the skid steer. We invented the skid steer, so if we're going to do a really cool future vehicle, let's make it a skid steer."

Kubota showed a cabless tractor vehicle for agriculture at CES 2024 and has been recognized ahead of CES 2025 for its development of another concept for a robotic all-terrain vehicle, KATR. Kubota North America has earned the Best of Innovation title in the Industrial Equipment and Machinery category ahead of the 2025 show.

This four-wheeled multi-functional robot is designed with advanced stability control that adjusts the robot's four legs to maintain a level cargo deck, keeping the platform stable on uneven and sloped terrain in off-road construction and agriculture applications.

According to Kubota, a proprietary algorithm processes sensor data in real-time, then commands the robot's four hydraulically actuated legs to extend or retract to maintain stability. Four independent motors provide robust all-terrain capability to navigate challenging environments.

KATR can be powered by either an electric or combustion engine, load capacity is 284 pounds (129 kilograms), and it can be controlled either remotely or via an on-board controller.

Hydrogen-powered equipment development goes big

Hydrogen combustion engine development has been ongoing despite the significant hurdles to widespread viability at present. While access to hydrogen fuel is limited, engine OEMs, including JCB and Liebherr, have invested heavily in preparing for the day that robust fuel distribution infrastructure makes this technology widely viable.

In 2024, Liebherr advanced the size of hydrogen-powered earthmoving equipment with its demonstration of the world's first hydrogen-powered large wheel loader, a 26-tonne L 566 H. Liebherr partnered with STRABAG to test the wheel loader at a quarry in Austria and will continue that testing program for the next two years.

To meet decarbonization goals, the wheel loader is powered by green hydrogen supplied by Energie Steiermark. Green hydrogen is produced without the use of fossil fuels via electrolysis, which uses wind or solar energy to break down water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen.

Holistic technology solutions will drive construction's greatest transformation

It has become clear that combining these innovations — decarbonization, autonomy, and connectivity — will deliver the greatest transformation that the construction industry has experienced, and your construction job site 20 years from now may be almost unrecognizable from what it is today. Innovation, however, isn't just a product of the future. Turn the page to discover the most innovative construction equipment and technologies introduced in 2024.