The North American Council for Freight Efficiency has firmed up some initial plans for Run on Less – Messy Middle.

The event, to be held in September, will feature four different powertrain solutions: diesel, natural gas, battery electric and hydrogen fuel cells. 

The Run will track trucks from three different fleets in each of the powertrain categories.

A Focus on Long-Haul Applications

“We chose to focus this Run on the messy middle and specifically on long-haul, return-to-base and over-the-road duty cycles because it is the largest emitting market segment and there is confusion surrounding it,” said, Mike Roeth, executive director, NACFE. 

“By having trucks with a variety of powertrains, we will be able to capture real-world data and bring some clarity to the long-haul portion of the messy middle.”

Rothe said NACFE is talking to fleets to find the right combination of participants. This is important in order to have an accurate representation of what is currently happening in the trucking industry.

NACFE will announce fleet participants in the spring and then will visit each of the 12 fleet locations shortly thereafter.

As in the past, each truck in the Run will be outfitted with Geotab telematics devices. 

Geotab is the official data partner for the 2025 Run on Less – Messy Middle. 

In addition, the Run on Less website will be updated and once again contain fleet profiles, stories from the Run videos and a dashboard that will track various metrics. 

Information from the previous four Runs will be accessible from the Run on Less – Messy Middle website.

Educational Bootcamp to be Part of the Run

Beginning in February, NACFE will conduct a 13-session Bootcamp in conjunction with Run on Less – Messy Middle. 

Three sessions will focus on diesel and natural gas vehicles, three on battery electric vehicles and three on hydrogen. 

There will be a unit recap workshop after each set of technology sessions and a close out session at the end that will focus on other fuel-efficiency technologies.

“Over the years, NACFE has set the bar high for providing timely, educational, and innovative content to the Run on Less Bootcamps and this year, we're excited to go a little further," said Rachel Ellenberger, NACFE industry engagement manager. 

"This year's Bootcamp will include the educational sessions we all know and love along with workshops designed to be more conversational and encourage further audience participation."

The first Bootcamp session is Wednesday, February 11 at 1 p.m. EST. Subsequent bootcamp sessions will be held every other week. 

Initial Run Sponsors Announced

NACFE also is pleased to announce that Cummins and Shell have signed on as title sponsors for this Run. 

To date, event sponsors include Chevron, Clean Energy, The Environmental Defense Fund, Eaton, ExxonMobil, FlowBelow, Geotab, PepsiCo, Prologis and TeraWatt, but NACFE is still looking for additional sponsors.

If you are interested supporting the Run, please contact Mike Roeth at mike.roeth@nacfe.org or 260-750-0106.

More information on sponsorship opportunities is available here.

"This is our fifth Run," Roeth noted. "And we are very excited to take a deep dive into what fleets are doing in the messy middle as the trucking industry strives to deliver goods in a more sustainable manner."