[6][7] During the late 2010s, as part of wider efforts to pursue carbon neutral operations, the Department for Transport (DfT) stated its long term goal of eliminating diesel-only traction from Britain's railways by 2040, despite only 46.5% of all lines being electrified.

[6] However, due to a lack of government support for the rail freight sector, operators have traditionally faced difficulty in justifying sizeable capital investments such as new locomotives, thus many are between 25 and 50 years old as of 2020.

[7] The company observed that rival operators made heavy use of the Class 66, a locomotive introduced in the mid-1990s, and that this would be the base line to innovate against in the locomotive-hauled freight market.

[7][9] The battery packs can be charged either from the overhead AC supply via the onboard transformer, by the diesel engine when the full output is not needed for traction, or by using power reclaimed during regenerative braking.

[7] The Class 93 will have a top speed of 110 mph (180 km/h), and have a maximum of 1,300 kW (1,700 hp) of usable power when running in "hybrid" diesel mode with battery boost.

[3] ROG intends to pair the locomotive with a new generation of freight wagons that would run at a maximum speed of 100 mph (160 km/h), comparable to that of contemporary passenger trains.

[7] In 2021, Revolution Trains announced it was in the early stages of developing a OO gauge model of the Class 93, using CAD data supplied by Stadler.