50 years of the same old standards. Two engineers decided that was enough.

pbx cooling was founded in Korneuburg, Austria in 2019 – by people who knew the transport refrigeration industry from the inside, understood its dependencies, and chose to build something different. The ecos M24 is the result.

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In conversation with Filip Kitanoski & Dominik Radler

What was the exact moment or idea that led you to found pbx cooling?

Filip: “I had spent years on the inside of the transport refrigeration industry — at a Tier-1 supplier, developing systems for commercial vehicles. I knew exactly how these systems were built, I understood the dependencies embedded in them, and I knew the industry had no interest in dismantling those dependencies because their business model was built on top of them. The trigger was simple: I realised that waiting for someone else to solve this was not a strategy. The electrification of the last mile was accelerating, and the cooling unit on the roof was still the same technology it had always been. In 2019, I decided to stop waiting.”

Dominik: “For me it was a technical conviction that came before anything else. The hermetically sealed refrigeration circuit — the core principle behind the ecos M24 — is not a new idea. Stationary refrigeration has worked this way for decades. What nobody had done was apply it consistently to the transport context. When Filip brought me the challenge, the engineering answer seemed clear: a system that doesn’t leak doesn’t need servicing. Everything else followed from that.”

Which problem of your customers do you solve best with your product?

Filip: “Dependency. That’s the problem we solve. Conventional transport refrigeration creates three layers of dependency: dependency on F-gas refrigerants that are being regulated out of existence, dependency on certified technicians and service intervals that cost time and money, and dependency on the major system providers whose business model locks you in. The ecos M24 eliminates all three. For a fleet operator, that means lower TCO and no regulatory risk. For a body builder, it means the freedom to build and service vehicles without being tied to anyone’s ecosystem.”

Dominik: “From an engineering standpoint, it’s installation risk. A conventional system is assembled and charged on-site — every joint, every connection is a potential point of failure, and the outcome depends on who did the work. The ecos M24 is factory-sealed before it ever reaches a body builder. There’s no leak-tightness guesswork, no certified refrigeration technician required on-site. That shifts the risk profile entirely.”

What nearly stopped them. What they’re proudest of. And where they see the industry in five years — the answers continue in the full interview.

"The shift to natural refrigerants is inevitable. The only question is who shapes it – and who follows."

Filip Kitanoski

Founder & Managing Director

Filip has spent twenty years on one question: how do you keep a vehicle cold without wasting energy?

He started out researching thermal management and mobile air conditioning at Virtual Vehicle in Graz. At Liebherr, he went on to head product management for commercial vehicle refrigeration, where he created Celsineo – the electric truck and trailer unit developed with Krone.

Having built the industry’s most advanced system from the inside, he knew exactly where its limits were. So he founded pbx to build what comes next.

PhD in engineering.

Dominik Radler

Co-Founder & Chief Technical Officer

Chemical and Process Engineering — MSc from TU Wien. He then conducted research on autonomous cooling systems for commercial vehicles at the University of Stuttgart.

Before pbx cooling, Dominik was Lead Engineer at a Tier-1 supplier designing refrigeration systems for trailers. The hermetically sealed architecture of the ecos M24 embodies his conviction: a system that doesn’t leak doesn’t need servicing.

Abuhurayra Bin Ahmad

Chief Operations Director

Industrial engineering background from the University of the Punjab, Lahore.

Before joining the leadership team of pbx cooling, Abuhurayra built operational expertise at Liebherr Aerospace and Transportation — the same environment that shaped Filip and Dominik’s understanding of what precision manufacturing demands.

At pbx cooling, he ensures that what’s engineered in Korneuburg gets delivered without compromise.

Michael Zinnburg

Chief Revenue Officer

Michael spent years on the operational side of last-mile delivery at foodora, building and leading teams, before heading sales for Austria and Switzerland at the solar energy company Otovo.

Add a master’s degree in chemistry and an Executive MBA from TU Wien, and you get real logistics experience paired with a solid grasp of engineered solutions.

That’s why he knows what you’re dealing with before you’ve finished explaining it.