HDT Talks Trucking

With medium- and heavy-duty truck electrification, we’re seeing a unique alignment of traditional truck manufacturers, tier-1 suppliers and start-up companies. As a group, they are simultaneously competing and collaborating on the advancement of truck electrification. Can all these diverse interests play together in the same sandbox?

Are fleets doing enough to keep their technicians ahead of the rapidly steepening technology learning curve? Larry Rambeaux of Purkeys Fleet Electric in Rogers, Arkansas worries truck fleets could soon face a skills deficit as truck electrical systems grow ever more complex.

Engine downspeeding is an elegant way of reducing fuel consumption, and thus CO2 emissions. But if drivers don’t embrace it or won’t use the technology properly, nobody sees its full benefit. Jamie Hagen of Hell Bent Xpress in Aberdeen, South Dakota is an expert on the gear-fast, run-slow concept. He shares his experience learning to love trucking at 900 rpm.

While battery-electric trucks seem to be the darlings of the green movement here in North America, hydrogen fuel cells struggle for acceptance. A recently formed joint venture between Daimler Truck and Volvo Group Company aims to change that. Volvo Group's chief technology officer, Lars Stenqvist, explains the company's strategy to increase hydrogen's market penetration by 2050.

The trucking industry is still in the early stages of electrification. A significant portion of the fleet population will be electric by 2030 or 2035, but much needs to happen before then from electrical grid upgrades to improvements in battery technology. Two senior engineers at Dana outline the challenges that lay ahead on the road to electrification.

Most drivers and carriers seem supportive of the recent updates FMCSA made to its hours-of-service rules. To some, if the trucking industry is happy with a rule change, it must be bad for safety. Are the changes generally good for drivers and carriers? We'll find out on this episode.

Data is the key to profitability. Omnitracs' chief data and AI officer, Dr. Ashim Bose, focuses on how operational data can improve efficiency and productivity. He also explains how smaller fleets can use data and advanced analytics to improve their efficiency and productivity, too.

Data flows by the gigabyte from trucks today. Much of that data can help make your drivers safer and keep your drivers safe. From fatigue warnings and traffic alerts to weather and even Covid-19 hot-spot alerts, Omnitracs' chief data and AI officer, Ashim Bose, discusses how fleets can benefit from this treasure trove of data.

From the latest in data intelligence to effectively using data to improve safety and operations, Dr. Ashim Bose, Omnitracs' chief data and AI officer, discusses how fleets can overcome the challenge of managing vast amounts of data and begin putting that data to work.

As the name implies, self-driving trucks will not require drivers. Does that mean anyone contemplating a career as a driver is heading down a dead-end road? According to Finch Fulton, vice president of policy and strategy for human-guided autonomous truck company, Locomation, anyone driving a truck today is unlikely to lose their job to a robotic truck.

Smart Trailers are upending how truck fleets do business. These formerly brainless boxes are now providing insights and intelligence to fleets that help improve efficiency and productivity while making fleets proactive rather than reactive. Paul Menig of Business Accelerants discusses where this technology can take us, and what we'll need to do to get there.

Hydrogen fuel cells are still a bit mysterious. Are they a solution to trucking's range anxiety? Can they compete with diesel? Are they safe? Loop Energy president and CEO, Ben Nyland, pulls back curtain on fuel cells. He tells us how they work, where they'll work, and what they do best.

Last year, 2020, was a train wreck and 2021 got off to a pretty interesting start. What's ahead in 2021, or in the four years to come of the Biden administration? HDT's editorial team of Deborah Lockridge, David Cullen, Jack Roberts and Jim Park cast a relieved eye back at 2020 and wary eye ahead at 2021.

Bob Wessels and Chuck Blake, despite their competitive positions, understood the need for "real world" fuel economy testing that fleets could believe. The pair worked side by side for a couple of decades pioneering reliable and repeatable test methods. Bob and Chuck accumulated more than a few stories over the years, and they share some of them on this episode of HDT Talks Trucking.

If you're a typical small fleet in North America, you may think you're not big enough to attract a hacker's attention. You may think cyber-attacks happen only to big fleets because they have more of what interests the hackers. But according to our guest, Kevin Linardic of Carrier Logistics Incorporated, you'd be dead wrong.

Forget hours of service for the moment; this episode is about the importance of sleep. Jim Park talks with sleep specialist, Dr. Chris Winter, about why we need sleep, what happens physically and mentally when we don't get enough, and the steps you can take to ensure you get the sleep you need.

As trucking moves to wide-scale adoption of alternative fuels, it's becoming clear that we will need a little bit of everything to keep our wheels turning as greenly as possible. Deborah Lockridge and Jim Park explore the pros and cons of today's most promising alternatives to diesel: battery electric, fuel-cell electric and renewable natural gas.

Penske Truck Leasing has had an electric truck trial and evaluation project underway in southern California since 2017. They are trying to understand everything that would go right and everything that could go wrong with integrating several classes of electric trucks into a traditional fleet environment. Penske's head of fleet procurement and planning, Paul Rosa, shares his experience, so far.

Jim Park speaks with Brad Fulton and Allyson Smith of Stay Metrics to understand why drivers leave, the top 3 things carriers can do to address turnover, and communicating expectations to recruits.

NTSB board members Thomas Chapman and Michale Graham speak with Jim Park about why the agency wants to see certain changes implemented, and how the number of crash fatalities could be reduced substantially if the recommendations were followed by various regulatory agencies.

Jim Park and Deborah Lockridge sit down with three of the six HDT 2020 Fleet Innovator recipients - Darrel Wilson of Wilson Logistics, Danny Lilley of Werner Enterprices, and Roy Markham of Ben E. Keith Foods.

Learn vehicle maintenance best practices from Jim Buell, executive vice president of sales and marketing at FleetNet America, and Tony Morthland, director of equipment and facilities at Nussbaum Transportation.

Jeff Kauffman, an HDT columnist and managing director for Loop Capital Markets and head of Tahoe Ventures joins the podcast to discuss aspects of the economy that affect trucking directly and attempt to make sense of the latest economic forecasts.

HDT speaks with Rick Mihelic, the director of future technologies at the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE), about the necessary resources to power electric trucks, and how they create sweeping change to what we currently know about buying, selling, operating, and maintaining trucks.

Just days before the Entry-Level Driver Training (ELDT) requirements were to go into effect, the FMCSA announced a two-year delay. In this episode, we talk to three guests with stake in the ELDT program, and explore why they are unhappy with the delay and what they believe the consequences of this decision will be.

Mike Ahart, VP of Regulatory Affairs at Omnitracs, and John Seidl, a former commercial vehicle enforcement official-turned transportation-consultant and VP of Risk Services at Reliance Partners, weigh in on what the trucking industry looks like now post-ELD Mandate. It turns out, Dec. 18, 2019 wasn’t the end of the ELD story, and that plenty of issues remain unresolved.

This episode looks at highlights from a Fleet Forward Conference panel discussion, in which HDT Talks Trucking host Jim Park and panelists discuss how electric trucks will work in real-world fleet operations, focusing on integration, cost, and productivity.