In the recent years, mechatronic devices with energy harvesting features are becoming key elements in the automotive industry. These technologies lead to emission reduction, comfort and handling improvements. The aim is to push the related industry towards the electrification of powertrain and chassis, making it, as far as possible, environmentally friendly. The present work focuses its attention on regenerative shock absorbers: systems able to set damping or active forces to the vehicle suspension, allowing the efficient management of comfort-handling trade-offs, while also enabling energy recovery from road irregularities. The addressed regenerative dampers in this work arise from a long-term project, whose goal is to provide the design of a regenerative damper for automotive suspensions.