Best of LinkedIn: Commercial Fleet Insights CW 26/ 27

00:00:00: This episode is provided by Thomas Allgeier and Frennus.

00:00:03: Based on the most relevant LinkedIn posts about commercial fleets in calendar weeks, twenty-six and twenty seven.

00:00:09: Frenness is a B to be market research company that supports automotive suppliers with building feature by feature competitive intelligence That shows exactly how their product stacks up against The competition.

00:00:20: you can find more info In the description.

00:00:22: welcome everyone.

00:00:23: so uh imagine your spending like A hundred million dollars on this state-of the art fleet of electric buses, right?

00:00:32: You wait a year for delivery.

00:00:34: Oh at least two years.

00:00:34: Yeah Right Atleast a year.

00:00:36: and then they finally arrive And you realize that actually can't plug them in Because you

00:00:39: don't know the Chargers.

00:00:40: Worse because you Don't even Know who Legally owns The Electric meter In your own parking lot.

00:00:45: yeah, I mean That's is the reality.

00:00:47: a Lot Of mobility professionals are facing right now the simple days of just buying a vehicle and handing a driver the keys You know fueling it up at a pump that Is entirely gone.

00:00:56: Yeah, it's an incredibly murky landscape today.

00:00:59: So for you the listener or the professional who is actually trying to make sense of this transition that Is exactly our mission For this deep dive.

00:01:07: we are extracting The top commercial sleet insights from linkedin across calendar weeks twenty six and twenty seven.

00:01:14: Exactly.

00:01:15: We're cutting through all those superficial fluff yeah?

00:01:16: We just want To look at the mechanics Of what's happening on the ground You know like why things Are failing And Who is Actually Solving These bottlenecks

00:01:23: right.

00:01:24: And let's start with a major disconnect I have noticed.

00:01:27: The public, they are completely obsessed with highway fast chargers right?

00:01:31: For sure the public charging network gets all of their headlines.

00:01:33: Yeah but for commercial logistics...the real friction and the real revolution.

00:01:37: it is happening quietly behind the fence in fleet yards.

00:01:42: Tom Butcher brought this up recently which was super interesting.

00:01:45: He pointed out that bus operators' and logistics fleets are basically ripping Decades of old diesel infrastructure.

00:01:53: Yeah, and they're putting in these massive one megawatt plus chargers.

00:01:57: Wow

00:01:57: a full mega watt.

00:01:58: yeah because the goal isn't just to quick top off.

00:02:01: It's about designing these depots To turn an entire massive fleet around overnight using that cheaper off-peak power

00:02:08: Which makes sense?

00:02:09: And I know in the UK The Depot charging scheme is really pushing this forward right there covering like up to seventy percent Of those installation costs.

00:02:17: exactly.

00:02:18: but Buying the hardware is honestly, The easy part.

00:02:22: David Tagliaffero put out this really stark warning about the sequencing of these projects.

00:02:27: He basically sees municipalities making the exact same fatal error over and over

00:02:32: buying the trucks first.

00:02:34: Yes A city council approves This massive EV purchase.

00:02:38: They wait for the trucks to arrive on a lot, and only then do they start drawing up plans for the chargers.

00:02:43: That is just... I mean think about that!

00:02:45: It's literally like going out and buying an incredibly expensive massive four-k TV bolting it into your living room wall and realizing you forgot to wire your house for electricity?

00:02:54: THAT IS THE PERFECT ANALOGY Because by the time those heavy duty trucks arrived You were staring down the barrel of six or eighteen months of utility coordination.

00:03:03: Right because you have to trench through concrete Get permits wait for the utility company to upgrade their local substations, to handle a massive power draw.

00:03:13: It's wild!

00:03:14: That infrastructure planning has to happen on day one parallel with procurement.

00:03:18: Exactly and because of that massive lag time fleets are basically scrambling for stop-yap measures.

00:03:25: Jack C shared some details about these mobile EV charging trailers popping up.

00:03:29: Mobile trailers?

00:03:30: Like big batteries on wheels...

00:03:32: Pretty much they're massive battery rigs completely bypassed by local grid constraints.

00:03:38: They hold about two hundred kilowatt-hours energy and they can deliver a hundred eighty kilowatts of power wherever you need it.

00:03:44: So, you keep your new electric trucks running while you wait for the utility company to finish their upgrades?

00:03:50: Okay that's clever patch.

00:03:51: I have push back here because is this really just hardware or wiring issue?

00:03:56: Look at how municipal fleets actually operate.

00:03:59: if you manage city fleet multiple agencies share one depot

00:04:05: And that is exactly the blind spot Dr.

00:04:07: Yanzi Zhu brought up.

00:04:10: She just finished an electrification strategy for a city in the Pacific Northwest specifically looking at shared spaces like between a fire station and public works.

00:04:20: Oh, That sounds like a logistical nightmare.

00:04:22: oh it is her core insight.

00:04:24: Is that municipal charging?

00:04:26: It's actually an ownership and billing problem.

00:04:28: before its ever-an infrastructure problem.

00:04:30: wait how so

00:04:32: well think about.

00:04:33: You have city-owned vehicles, but they're run by a regional fire authority and that authority pays its own utility bills.

00:04:39: But they share a charging site with Public Works which has a totally different billing account.

00:04:44: uh

00:04:45: see where this is going.

00:04:46: yeah

00:04:46: so when the utility company hits them with a demand charge Which is that massive penalty for a sudden spike in power?

00:04:52: who pays it?

00:04:53: Who legally owns the meter?

00:04:55: if A fire truck In a garbage truck plug in at The exact same moment And spike the grid Who is liable?

00:05:01: Wow.

00:05:01: So if you just base your plan on battery specs and ignore the financial ownership, Your whole project just implodes in first utility network.

00:05:08: Exactly!

00:05:09: It's an operating model problem.

00:05:10: But...

00:05:11: You know If a fleet can actually solve that billing structure And get the operating model right it totally changes The game because then the physical depot stops being A cost center and it Actually transforms into flexible grid asset.

00:05:24: Yeah and Mo Ismail shared a brilliant pilot program Proving exactly that.

00:05:29: It was optimal energy, partnering with First Bus.

00:05:32: And instead of just throwing some chargers in a lot they integrated Siemens EV Chargers on-site solar and stationery battery storage.

00:05:40: So basically build a microgrid

00:05:41: Right operating entirely behind the meter.

00:05:44: They aren't pulling power blindly.

00:05:46: They optimize the exact minute that charge to get lowest energy cost.

00:05:49: Yeah...and uh..they're actively participating in flexibility markets Meaning

00:05:53: they sell Powerback.

00:05:55: Exactly When the local grid is strained, the depot can either reduce its draw or discharge power back which generates actual revenue for the fleet.

00:06:03: That's incredible!

00:06:04: Johan Olsen actually ran numbers on this kind of collective approach.

00:06:07: He said that if you start treating vehicles energy and charging as these separate silos You could cut operational costs by fifty-five percent per kilometer over ten years.

00:06:17: Fifty five percent is huge

00:06:18: Right, and you get that efficiency without begging the utility for a multi-million dollar grid upgrade.

00:06:25: And we're seeing it in public sector too!

00:06:28: Kimberly Freeman posted about Excel energy funding V-to-G vehicle to grid chargers for the Cherry Creek School District.

00:06:34: Oh, school buses are perfect for V-To-G?

00:06:36: Exactly!

00:06:37: They run routes in the morning and afternoon but they just sit there idle during the hottest parts of the day when the grid is begging for power.

00:06:44: so these busses actually feed their stored battery power back into the grid while aren't driving.

00:06:49: It makes sense on paper.

00:06:51: I have to ask, if you're listening this and run a logistics company your job is moving boxes from point A-to-point B. Are we really expecting dispatchers suddenly become sophisticated energy day traders?

00:07:04: That's

00:07:04: the million dollar question isn't it!

00:07:06: It'a massive leap!

00:07:07: And Hydeo Campinga addressed perfectly with what he calls electrification pyramid.

00:07:13: He argues that most organizations are trying to climb this pyramid completely upside down.

00:07:18: They start at the top by buying a shiny new electric truck,

00:07:20: right back to the four KTV analogy

00:07:22: exactly.

00:07:23: but To make energy orchestration and flexibility markets physically work You have to build the foundational layers first.

00:07:30: you need strict governance organizational readiness And just incredibly robust data capability.

00:07:36: Yeah, Daniel Hilson echoed that too.

00:07:38: He pointed out the enterprise operating model absolutely has to precede hardware.

00:07:43: you can't just buy chargers and pray your strategy catches up later.

00:07:47: You design a strategy train people than by the assets.

00:07:50: Right, but I mean if designing that model and trading energy is that far removed from a fleet's core competency you really start to wonder why a logistics company would even want to own this hardware in the first place which

00:08:01: perfectly transitions us into this massive shift toward asset-like financial models?

00:08:05: Yes Mauricio Sardi shared a conversation that illustrates this so well.

00:08:09: he was talking to the CFO of a major European bus operator.

00:08:14: This guy was about to commit a hundred million euros But he hesitated because

00:08:19: of the risk

00:08:20: totally.

00:08:21: He realized The long-term degradation to the batteries, the unpredictable residual value at the buses... ...the downtime risk.

00:08:28: it was all gonna sit squarely on his balance sheet.. ..he Was taking a hundred percent Of the bleeding edge tech risk

00:08:34: trying to finance electric busses exactly like diesel buses

00:08:37: Exactly which is a fundamentally flawed

00:08:40: approach.

00:08:40: It's so similar To how that Tech industry used to work.

00:08:43: Like fifteen years ago A company would spend millions On on-premise servers, stick them in a closet and just pray they weren't obsolete in three years.

00:08:51: Now nobody does that.

00:08:53: you just rent cloud space on AWS.

00:08:57: You don't want the liability of a depreciating server?

00:08:59: You just want the computing power

00:09:01: right.

00:09:01: And for fleets you don't wanna own a depreciated lithium ion battery.

00:09:05: You Just Want The Guaranteed Mileage.

00:09:07: Yeah Which is why sardy at A Company Called ze ports Completely Redefine The Model For That CFO.

00:09:13: They Shifted The Physical Assets Off The Balance

00:09:15: Sheet.

00:09:16: oh nice.

00:09:16: So they just pay for the uptime.

00:09:18: Exactly, The operator pays a fee for guaranteed availability with zero upfront capital expenditure and Patrick Holm highlighted as similar scale-up.

00:09:27: Peter Smith group is using JUNA to run emission free event logistics in Germany.

00:09:34: It's a Trek as-a-Service model.

00:09:36: The fleet gets the green capacity they need to win contracts, but zero asset liability if tech evolves in two

00:09:42: years.".

00:09:43: And innovation doesn't even stop at first life cycle of this vehicle!

00:09:46: Robert Long from Zenova shared some really fascinating stuff on second life batteries...

00:09:51: Oh yeah…the construction site thing.

00:09:53: Right so an electric bus needs a massive high density battery to move thousands pounds all day.

00:10:00: once that battery degrades by like Twenty percent it can't handle the bus route anymore, but Zenobi is pulling those batteries out and repurposing them to replace diesel generators on construction sites.

00:10:10: because a construction site doesn't need high energy density just A slow trickle of power

00:10:13: exactly.

00:10:14: It works flawlessly And gives fleet electrification this massive second commercial payoff.

00:10:19: it really rewrites The whole ROI calculation.

00:10:21: you're not Just appreciating apiece metal any more your managing a mobile energy asset.

00:10:26: hmm.

00:10:27: But To pull off that level of complexity, energy trading uptime contracts battery health your data has to be absolutely flawless.

00:10:37: It does which means we really need to shift our focus from the physical trucks... ...to the software that's controlling them.

00:10:44: Telematics has completely evolved.

00:10:46: for decades it was just a dot on a digital map right?

00:10:48: Right!

00:10:48: Just checking where the truck is exactly.

00:10:51: but Mark M noted this huge shift.

00:10:53: Telematics is moving from proving presence.. ..to proving service.

00:10:57: It's not enough to know a waste management truck was geographically near a dumpster.

00:11:01: You have to combine GPS data with PTO sensors.

00:11:05: For those who might not know, PTO is power takeoff right?

00:11:07: Yeah

00:11:08: it's a sensor that monitors when the truck pulls energy to actually operate the hydraulic arm.

00:11:13: so by merging GPS and video fleets can legally prove they lifted an empty specific container.

00:11:19: And that physical context changes everything especially for drivers.

00:11:24: Chelsea Copeland shared this brilliant example using dashcam footage.

00:11:28: So, say Osdum flags a driver for severe harsh breaking event?

00:11:32: Without context the fleet manager just assumes that the driver was reckless and penalizes them.

00:11:36: Right!

00:11:37: The

00:11:37: data looks bad

00:11:38: But the Dashcam video provides why….

00:11:40: The footage actually shows a taxi aggressively swerving in cutting off of his truck.

00:11:45: The drivers slammed brakes to prevent major collision.

00:11:48: Oh wow so it completely flips the script

00:11:50: Totally.

00:11:51: It goes from a penalty to accommodation for defensive

00:11:53: driving.".

00:11:54: And Steve Lockington reinforced this, he noted that just having visibility doesn't change human behavior.

00:12:00: Raw risk data in the spreadsheet is useless unless you translated it into daily feedback and positive reinforcement.

00:12:06: Yeah!

00:12:07: You have build actual safety habits.

00:12:09: But you know, speaking of collecting all this highly detailed location and behavioral data we have to talk about the regulation side.

00:12:16: And as a quick reminder We have a strict rule on this deep dive.

00:12:20: To stay completely impartial On policy...we just report the mechanics.

00:12:24: So let's look at California's new telematics privacy bill AB- Three Eleven.

00:12:28: Yeah Daniel Weissner recently testified on This..and The core tension there is fascinating.

00:12:33: It's basically A tug Of war between Fleet insurance benefits individual driver privacy.

00:12:39: Right,

00:12:40: because Brandi Hagler pointed out that telematics-driven risk reduction allows fleets to get drastically lower insurance premiums which is pretty much vital for survival right now.

00:12:48: But

00:12:48: on the flip side Weitzner's testimony highlighted California's worry.

00:12:52: This granular location data on human beings Is highly sensitive.

00:12:57: Regulators are concerned That even if an insurance program is quote unquote voluntary Commercial drivers might feel financially coerced To participate just so their employer can afford basic insurance.

00:13:07: So AB- Three Eleven steps in with these strict use limitation rules.

00:13:11: You literally cannot use the data for anything outside of telematics purposes and there are heavy retention limits, but the most interesting part is this mandatory thirty day learning period.

00:13:21: Oh

00:13:21: right where they don't score you

00:13:23: Exactly!

00:13:24: For the first month a driver only gets behavioral feedback on how to drive safer.

00:13:28: Absolutely no risk score can be calculated or shared with insurance companies during that window.

00:13:34: It's a direct legislative attempt to balance those positive habits Lockington mentioned, with fundamental privacy rights.

00:13:41: But let's step back and look at this from the Fleet Manager perspective for a second.

00:13:44: Think about their daily workflow.

00:13:46: They're getting PTO alerts dash cam video flags battery state of charge warnings grid demand alerts.

00:13:52: Are

00:13:52: we just burying these professionals in an avalanche?

00:13:54: Of data they don't even have time to read?

00:13:56: yes It's becoming a massive operational bottleneck.

00:14:00: Alex Mukomolov did this deep dive research project on OEM connected fleet portals.

00:14:05: What he found was just staggering.

00:14:08: There is abundant data, but the user experience Is mostly terrible.

00:14:11: Just noise.

00:14:12: basically

00:14:13: Exactly Managers see these obscure fault codes flashing With no practical explanation of what mechanical steps to take next.

00:14:21: They're drowning in data But starved for actual insight.

00:14:24: And that exactly why Akash Gupta built fleetease.ai.

00:14:28: He realized that legacy ICE software internal combustion software is just fundamentally broken when you apply it to EVs.

00:14:35: Well, yeah traditional softwares built for liquid fuel logs and engine cycles.

00:14:39: It has no logic for battery health degradation or routing based on a charging network

00:14:44: right?

00:14:44: So he had to build a totally new control layer specifically tailored To the operational logic of electric vehicles.

00:14:50: I mean When you lay all this out The eighteen month Gred bottlenecks.

00:14:52: they off balance sheet financing the overwhelming data the privacy laws itself completely paralyzing.

00:14:57: But the wild part is, The sheer momentum of execution happening right now Is absolutely staggering.

00:15:02: This isn't whiteboard planning anymore?

00:15:04: No not at all.

00:15:06: Josh Dorfman published this fantastic breakdown Of Amazon's rollout with Rivian.

00:15:10: The headline is you know... Amazon buys fifty thousand electric vans.

00:15:14: but the geniuses in the micro details Amazon is actively mapping the topography of every single delivery route In America.

00:15:22: Topography?

00:15:23: Like the hills?

00:15:24: Yeah Because taking a ten-thousand pound EV up a steep gradient completely alters the battery's discharge rate.

00:15:31: It can ruin the range calculations.

00:15:33: They're even engineering the driver seats with specific neck air vents to cool drivers down faster because they know they jump in and out of van hundreds of times a day.

00:15:40: That

00:15:40: level of detail is insane and we're seeing scale everywhere.

00:15:44: Allison, Africana Naila shared that Caltrans which is a massive public sector entity is expanding its Rivian order to nearly one thousand vehicles...that's a ninety seven million dollar contract?

00:15:54: And it's moving down market too!

00:15:56: Courtney Richardson highlighted Key as new PV-V cargo electric fan.

00:15:59: It's hitting the Canadian market starting under forty seven thousand dollars, that price point is so critical because it finally makes EVs accessible to smaller local logistics businesses not just massive corporations.

00:16:10: and OEMS are just brute forcing the adoption risk away through engineering.

00:16:15: Fred D talked about harbingers approach.

00:16:17: they aren't just releasing a chassis and crossing their fingers.

00:16:19: They physically tested their platforms for four hundred fifty thousand miles.

00:16:24: Wow!

00:16:25: Across the extreme heat of Death Valley and freezing temperatures in New Zealand, battery thermal management is part of electrification so they are guaranteeing reliability before a fleet ever takes delivery.

00:16:38: Which is so necessary because cutting corners in this industry has catastrophic consequences down the line.

00:16:43: Yeah, do all brain use?

00:16:44: This brilliant analogy he said skipping maintenance or ignoring messy telematics data Is the operational equivalent of a CFO taking out a payday loan with a thirty percent interest rate just to fund daily operations.

00:16:57: ouch

00:16:57: yeah those operational shortcuts compound exactly like A high-interest loan and The mechanical bill always comes due

00:17:03: it always does.

00:17:04: So if we synthesize everything we've unpacked today from these sources, successful fleet management in twenty-twenty six has very little to do with just buying a new truck.

00:17:14: It is fundamentally about securing complex grid connections orchestrating your depot as an energy asset shifting your tech risk off the balance sheet and using smart software to prove that work was done safely.

00:17:26: exactly it's whole different ball game.

00:17:29: so what does this actually mean for you?

00:17:31: The professional building?

00:17:32: I wanna leave you with a final thought to mull over.

00:17:37: Fokundo Kasaram at a great point recently, he said fleet management quietly supports the basic survival of entire city ecosystems from public health supplies to emergency infrastructure.

00:17:47: It's so true.

00:17:48: it is community-survivalist Right!

00:17:50: And then combine that with an update from Samuel Elkins.

00:17:52: He noted that Alberta was building first skilled trade designation formally recognized Class I truck drivers as trained tradespeople.

00:18:00: Its moving way beyond just a basic driving license.

00:18:02: Oh thats massive shift in recognition It

00:18:04: is, so here's the provocative thought to take with you.

00:18:07: With drivers involving into recognized skilled tradespeople and physical depots transforming it complex multi-million dollar mini power plants.

00:18:17: will the fleet manager of next decade even be a traditional automotive role?

00:18:21: Or are looking at future?

00:18:23: where do this job basically have?

00:18:25: to hybrid energy trader software engineer or city planner?

00:18:29: because that era just handing over keys That is permanently over.

00:18:33: We are navigating a totally new ecosystem!

00:18:47: Thanks for taking this deep dive with us today, keep asking the hard questions and we'll see you next time.

00:18:52: don't forget to subscribe.