Best of LinkedIn: Commercial Fleet Insights CW 32/ 33

00:00:00: provided by Thomas Elgair and Frannis.

00:00:02: Based on the most relevant LinkedIn posts about commercial fleets in calendar weeks, thirty-two and thirty three.

00:00:07: Frannes is a BDB market research company that supports automotive suppliers with building feature by feature competitive intelligence.

00:00:14: That shows exactly how their product stacks up against the competition.

00:00:19: You can find more info in the description.

00:00:20: Yeah So if your diesel truck breaks down today you know...you just buy a new one fuel it And your business just keeps moving, right?

00:00:27: Right.

00:00:28: Yeah it's a clean one-to-one swap

00:00:30: Exactly.

00:00:31: But the data we're looking at for this deep dive shows that commercial fleets who try to apply that exact same swap logic To zero emission vehicles they are just slam and face first into a brick wall.

00:00:43: Oh absolutely It is a massive operational wake up call For The Industry Because we're moving out of that safe, you know heavily subsidized pilot phase.

00:00:51: Right and fleets are trying to actually scale these deployments up And what they're finding is at the foundational math infrastructure assumptions Even the way We manage the human beings behind The wheel.

00:01:01: yeah it's all completely misaligned with reality

00:01:04: and That Is exactly our mission today?

00:01:07: You want To cut through the noise and look At What operators and strategists Are Actually dealing With in the trenches across linkedin right now.

00:01:14: Yeah, we're Gonna pull apart the raw economics of this shift, the harsh realities of energy procurement.

00:01:22: The massive software and M&A arms race happening in the background.

00:01:26: Oh yeah that's a big one Right.

00:01:28: And ultimately why local bureaucracy and just basic human psychology are making or breaking these deployments?

00:01:36: Yeah, and I think we really have to start with the baseline economics.

00:01:39: Definitely because you simply cannot scale a commercial fleet if the math doesn't make sense And everyone relies on these total cost of ownership models or TCO models To justify these massive purchases.

00:01:50: right but right now those models Have some pretty dangerous blind spots.

00:01:53: yeah

00:01:54: i was actually looking at a breakdown On this exact problem from angelo e?

00:01:59: It is shocking how much the standard tco models just casually ignore Like they handle the basic upfront vehicle cost.

00:02:05: fine, but they miss the cascading effects.

00:02:08: Yeah like take the US federal excise tax right.

00:02:11: that tax runs at twelve percent of the retail price on heavy trucks.

00:02:17: So if you're buying a standard diesel truck Maybe you pay I don't know twenty two thousand dollars in tax

00:02:23: rate which is already a lot

00:02:25: it Is.

00:02:25: But an electric truck might retail for four hundred thousand dollars.

00:02:30: Wow yeah which pushes that exact same, twelve percent tax closer to fifty thousand dollars.

00:02:36: Wow!

00:02:37: That's a

00:02:38: huge jump.

00:02:38: It scales directly with the sticker price and fleets are just completely missing it in their planning.

00:02:44: And you know...that is just capital expenditure side.

00:02:47: The operational hit is even more severe when you look at the payload, because commercial trucks operate under really strict gross vehicle weight limits.

00:02:55: Right?

00:02:55: You can't just load them up infinitely.

00:02:57: Exactly!

00:02:57: So every single pound of battery that you built onto a chassis... ...is a pound of paying freight that you legally have to leave on the loading dock.

00:03:05: Yeah he pointed out if you wanted two hundred fifty mile range.. ..you're giving up roughly four thousand pounds of payload capacity.

00:03:12: That's a lot of freight

00:03:14: It Is And If you push it into five-hundred mile range You're losing up to seven thousand, seven hundred pounds.

00:03:19: Wow!

00:03:20: I mean in a weight-limited freight operation that isn't just an inefficiency

00:03:24: No it's directly lost revenue on every single run.

00:03:28: Right you either take the revenue hit or have buy and crew additional trucks Just move exact same amount of goods

00:03:35: Which completely throws off your return on investment.

00:03:38: And that, well... That's before we even touch the biggest financial black box in the entire equation which is residual value.

00:03:44: Oh

00:03:45: man!

00:03:45: Residual values?

00:03:46: Yeah

00:03:47: because when a fleet buys a diesel asset they know exactly what they can sell it for five years later.

00:03:53: but with heavy-duty electric trucks there is practically no secondary market yet right?

00:03:58: so the residual value they type into these financial models

00:04:04: And the criteria for that value is completely shifting too.

00:04:07: Francis Hasham was tracking this in the electric fan market, and he noted that resale value doesn't just depend on traditional metrics anymore...

00:04:14: Like age or mileage?

00:04:16: Exactly it's tethered almost entirely to the verified health of the battery.

00:04:21: So if you have two visually identical vans but one was constantly rapid charged at a hundred percent extreme heat its battery has fundamentally degraded.

00:04:30: compared

00:04:33: Right, and if the secondary buyer can't verify that battery's history they basically have to assume the worst.

00:04:39: Exactly!

00:04:39: And then discount price accordingly.

00:04:41: But I actually want to push back on the idea that battery data is going be this silver bullet here.

00:04:46: Okay how so?

00:04:47: Well people assumed once we had perfect state of health tracking The Secondary Market will just magically stabilize.

00:04:55: but Jamie Sands brought up a brilliant counterpoint using the passenger EV market.

00:04:59: Oh, right!

00:05:00: We have had degradation curves and battery health data for passenger EVs...for years now.

00:05:05: Yeah that's true.

00:05:06: But used EV car values still plummeted around sixty percent over a recent two-year period.

00:05:11: Oof...sixty

00:05:13: percent

00:05:14: Right.

00:05:14: so it is crucial reality check.

00:05:16: Data alone does not dictate the market value.

00:05:19: No, because someone still has to put hard capital on the line to buy that used asset and absorb all of technology risk.

00:05:26: Exactly!

00:05:27: All battery data in this world just gives a buyer highly detailed spreadsheet to justify low ball offer they've already decided make.

00:05:36: So assuming data will magically save heavy duty residual values for five years might be walking right into exactly same trap?

00:05:45: But you know when you look at the global adoption curves, The economics actually are working in specific environments

00:05:51: where they operational savings overwhelm those risks.

00:05:54: right.

00:05:54: Gavin Mooney Highlighted what is happening?

00:05:57: In China.

00:05:57: Right now yeah and this beat Is just staggering.

00:06:00: electric truck sales have tripled and battery electric Now accounts for one-in-five new trucks sales over there.

00:06:06: Wow

00:06:06: one in five.

00:06:07: that's huge

00:06:08: because the math became undeniable.

00:06:10: The running costs for electric trucks there have dropped so significantly that the payback period... The

00:06:15: time to recoup the higher upfront cost.

00:06:17: Right, the pay back is down just one year in some applications.

00:06:21: Yeah and once you hit a one-year payback I mean it's no longer an environmental initiative It's competitive necessity.

00:06:28: You literally can't afford not do this.

00:06:30: But then contrast with UK.

00:06:32: Chris Jackson pointed out that zero emission tracks make up just one percent of new sales there.

00:06:38: One percent?

00:06:38: Yeah,

00:06:39: and that one percent is exactly where China stood five years ago.

00:06:43: Wow!

00:06:44: That really illustrates how steep the adoption curve gets once you hit that tipping

00:06:48: point.

00:06:48: And we are seeing isolated flashes in Europe as well.

00:06:52: Steph Cornalis shared data showing Mercedes Benz has taken a commanding forty-one percent share.

00:07:02: Yeah, they're completely ramping up sales right ahead of upcoming compliance deadlines.

00:07:07: And in the last mile delivery sector in India Rajat Singhal noted that electric is just systematically dismantling diesel on cost.

00:07:14: How big is the gap?

00:07:15: It's massive.

00:07:16: A small four-wheel electric delivery vehicle runs at roughly two point seven five rupees per kilometer.

00:07:25: The diesel equivalent runs closer to four rupees, and that can spike up to ten point five rupees on congested low-speed routes.

00:07:32: That is a massive difference!

00:07:34: Yeah When your electric competitor is paying a fraction of what you are to move the exact same package, that's your profit margin.

00:07:41: literally walking out

00:07:54: Exactly.

00:07:55: You secure the funding, you buy the perfect trucks they get delivered and then you hit an absolute wall because you can't actually power them.

00:08:01: Yeah The infrastructure bottleneck is arguably the biggest crisis in the industry right now.

00:08:05: There was this perfect just infuriating example from JSC.

00:08:10: Oh!

00:08:10: The German operator.

00:08:11: Yes

00:08:12: So this logistics operator in Germany ordered fifteen heavy-duty electric trucks.

00:08:17: The supply chain actually works.

00:08:18: so the truck's arrived In just three months

00:08:20: Which is great

00:08:21: Right.

00:08:22: But when they went to the local utility, which

00:08:25: is

00:08:25: a lot of power.

00:08:26: A two-megawatt connection!

00:08:28: They were quoted at twenty four month.

00:08:30: wait and bill for over half million euros

00:08:34: Just for the grid upgrade?

00:08:35: Yes

00:08:36: So you have millions of dollars rolling stock sitting idle in dirt lot waiting on local utility timelines.

00:08:43: That's agonizing And fleets cannot afford to wait two years for copper wire to be laid in the ground.

00:08:49: No, so The workaround they found was deploying mobile battery energy storage systems or BES.

00:08:56: Okay

00:08:57: It's essentially this giant battery pack you park at the depot.

00:09:00: it slowly acts like a sponge trickling power off the weak local grid during off-peak hours.

00:09:06: Oh I see.

00:09:07: then when the trucks return it blasts that stored energy into the vehicles and ultra fast two megawatt speeds, so they completely bypass the local grid bottleneck.

00:09:16: That's a really clever engineering solution but it really highlights a massive shift in the industry doesn't it?

00:09:21: Feeds are basically being forced to act like decentralized utility companies.

00:09:25: They have to manage load balancing storage and distribution all on their own

00:09:30: Which raises the question of whether fleet managers or even looking at the right metrics when they build these depots Right.

00:09:36: Tim Allen argued that the depot is fundamentally complex energy asset.

00:09:41: now He pointed to Warrington's own buses where they had one hundred and nine chargers, but they were strictly capped by their local grid limit.

00:09:49: So what did he do?

00:09:51: Instead of paying for a massive grid upgrade They layered in intelligent energy orchestration software.

00:09:58: Okay

00:09:59: Just by managing when and how power was distributed to specific busses based on the route requirements They squeezed twenty two percent more charging capacity out of the exact same physical infrastructure.

00:10:10: Wow

00:10:11: See, that is the difference between brute forcing a solution with capital and engineering.

00:10:15: A Solution With Software

00:10:16: yeah.

00:10:17: Andy Rees actually echoed this.

00:10:19: he pointed out that Minimizing your energy costs isn't just about you know calling different suppliers to shop for cheaper electricity tariff anymore.

00:10:26: It's entirely dependent on the intelligence of your power draw.

00:10:29: Yeah And Natasha Fry made really a scoot observation About The Mindset Shift Required Here.

00:10:34: She Said That Fleet Managers Invariably Start These Infrastructure Projects By Asking You know, how fast is the charger?

00:10:40: Yeah.

00:10:41: Which seems like a logical first question

00:10:44: Right!

00:10:44: But in reality they should be looking at their vehicle telematics first

00:10:47: Because if data shows your trucks are parked for ten hours overnight you do not need an expensive ultra-fast DC Charger.

00:10:55: Exactly

00:10:56: that's waste of capital.

00:10:57: You

00:10:58: lean into natural dwell time.

00:11:00: Deploying slower cheaper AC chargers that are intelligently sequenced over night Is usually the smartest financial move

00:11:07: Absolutely.

00:11:08: Quick pause here.

00:11:09: by the way, if you are finding this deep dive into fleet operations useful make sure to hit subscribe on your app so you don't miss our future.

00:11:17: deep dives

00:11:18: definitely and we should acknowledge that while grid constraints or dominating the conversation alternative zero emissions supply chains are maturing in.

00:11:32: They are reliably fueling nearly one hundred heavy-duty transit buses every day.

00:11:37: Wow, everyday!

00:11:38: Every

00:11:38: Day.

00:11:39: and they're doing it by using ultra high capacity four hundred twenty bar trailers Essentially the compress hydrogen to extreme pressures so that can move massive commercially viable volumes in a single delivery.

00:11:52: That's incredible.

00:11:53: And if fleet wants bypassed charging infrastructure entirely on long routes The hardware is evolving there too.

00:11:59: Michael W Nimch shared a recent test where a DAFE electric tractor was paired with an e-trailer.

00:12:05: What's in

00:12:05: E trailer?

00:12:06: It is from Trailer Dynamics and it actually has its own integrated battery & propulsion.

00:12:11: Oh wow!

00:12:12: Yeah, that combination achieved an eight hundred kilometer run without single charging stop.

00:12:17: That is wild, that fundamentally changes the calculus for long-haul viability.

00:12:21: It really does.

00:12:22: But you know whether a fleet is orchestrating hundred localized chargers or managing chemical battery health Or tracking advanced e trailers across the country.

00:12:30: The common denominator Is data Not

00:12:32: always data.

00:12:33: Yeah,

00:12:34: the sheer volume of telemetry required to run these new assets is triggering a massive consolidation in this software and AI space.

00:12:41: And This Is Where The Industry's Legacy Processes Are Really Getting Exposed.

00:12:46: Leigh-Anne Hansen pointed out...this incredible absurdity.

00:12:50: Oh well the pizza thing!

00:12:51: Yes He pointed that you can open your phone right now and track A twenty five dollar pizza from the oven all the way To Your Front Door in real time.

00:12:59: Yeah

00:12:59: you literally watch the little car icon drive down your street right.

00:13:03: but if a fleet manager orders a one hundred and fifty five thousand dollar custom work truck it's a complete black hole, You are relying on voicemails and spreadsheets to figure out if its s at the factory ,the upfitter or in transit which

00:13:18: is crazy.

00:13:19: that lack of visibility as massive liability.

00:13:22: He noted that companies offering real-time order tracking portals are now literally winning contracts with municipalities strictly because they eliminate the uncertainty.

00:13:30: It has become a core competitive

00:13:32: advantage.".

00:13:33: And once vehicles actually hit road, AI is increasingly being used to clear operational fog.

00:13:40: Oli Frumman showed great case study involving Avis budget group.

00:13:44: Okay.

00:13:44: They operate one of the largest fleets in

00:13:46: U.S.,

00:13:47: but tracking vehicle availability across one hundred and twenty-five disparate locations was a nightmare, a fragmented legacy system?

00:13:55: Oh I

00:13:55: can imagine.

00:13:56: So they deployed two custom AI agents designed to crawl and connect all that siloed data.

00:14:02: Within eighteen months they achieved live real time visibility on seventy six percent their entire US fleet.

00:14:09: That is huge which means faster vehicles turn around better utilization, and obviously a massive jump in customer experience.

00:14:16: Exactly.

00:14:17: But it's important to remember that all this cloud architecture and AI modeling relies on very fragile foundation.

00:14:23: The physical hardware bolted into the truck?

00:14:25: Exactly Sergey Luchanka brought up a practical reality check regarding video telematics.

00:14:30: Fleets are investing heavily in advanced dash cams but that hardware is completely useless.

00:14:35: if camera simply fails record an accident

00:14:37: Oh man, yeah.

00:14:38: You go to pull the video to exonerate your driver and... ...the file is corrupted or

00:14:43: missing.".

00:14:43: Exactly!

00:14:45: He noted that Telematics providers are finally introducing centralized camera health dashboards.

00:14:50: It allows fleet managers to proactively monitor if cameras are functioning & communicating before a catastrophic event

00:14:57: happens Which is critical Because that raw data, you know the verified speed.

00:15:01: The video...the breaking telemetry it has become so inherently valuable and the companies to capture control are becoming prime acquisition targets.

00:15:11: The M&A activity in this space is aggressively accelerating right?

00:15:16: It really is!

00:15:17: Andrew Jackson reported that the private equity firm Respite Capital just got a majority stake.

00:15:25: They value the company at two hundred and twenty million dollars.

00:15:28: Wow, And we were seeing strategic combinations aimed at locking fleets into single ecosystems too

00:15:33: right.

00:15:33: David shuttle worth highlighted volunteer acquiring Ecos which was a very calculated move to merge cloud-based fleet management directly with the physical fueling in charging hardware.

00:15:42: It makes total sense but the most telling acquisition I think came from the insurance sector.

00:15:47: Oh yeah this is interesting.

00:15:48: Yeah Mateo Carbone pointed out that federated insurance outright acquired high-definition vehicle insurance, or HDVI.

00:15:57: That signals a massive shift

00:15:59: because commercial auto insurance is notoriously difficult to keep profitable

00:16:03: exactly by acquiring a telematics based insurer.

00:16:06: it proves that live vehicle data Is no longer just a dashboard tool for a fleet manager.

00:16:11: It is now a core underwriting asset right?

00:16:14: Insurance companies want to price risk Based on the real time physics of the trek Not historical demographic models.

00:16:21: And that ties perfectly into the final and frankly most unpredictable variable in this entire ecosystem.

00:16:27: You can deploy the most advanced AI routing.

00:16:30: you can orchestrate your grid draw Perfectly, you could lock-in data driven insurance premiums But at the end of day a human being has to sip eye on the wheel and Human policy governs the roads they drive on.

00:16:41: ah

00:16:42: The human factor

00:16:43: the human factor just apes sing shared his story.

00:16:47: That I think perfectly encapsulates the limits of technology.

00:16:52: So a fleet of over two hundred vehicles was struggling with a severely high accident rate, okay?

00:16:58: They threw significant capital at the problem.

00:17:01: they implemented strict monitoring protocols rolled out financial incentive programs installed expensive connected IOT hardware in the cabs.

00:17:09: let me guess it didn't work.

00:17:11: The results were completely negligible.

00:17:13: It didn't change the behavior at all.

00:17:15: Wow so what actually moved the needle?

00:17:17: A sticker A sticker.

00:17:19: They put a simple physical sticker on the dashboard right in the driver's line of sight that read, drive safe your family is waiting back home and their accident rates dropped significantly.

00:17:30: That's amazing!

00:17:31: It is

00:17:32: such a stark reminder.

00:17:33: you can surround a driver with millions of dollars advanced telemetry but sometimes forcing a moment to personal reflection connecting it to core psychology far more effective.

00:17:46: But you know, there are physical human limits that a sticker simply cannot override.

00:17:50: And THAT is where the industry is realizing.

00:17:52: they have to change how they apply data.

00:17:55: Ambili Minnan brought up the issue of driver fatigue.

00:17:58: A recent survey found that sixty-eight percent of Australian fleet managers view fatigue as their absolute biggest daily operational challenge.

00:18:06: Sixty eight percent?

00:18:08: That's

00:18:08: massive!

00:18:09: It IS.

00:18:10: The problem she highlighted was that Managers traditionally treat fatigue as a PEOPLE problem.

00:18:15: You know, they try to manage it through conversations or tweaking schedules based on a gut feeling.

00:18:19: Yeah But the data shows that has to be treated as a strict data problem.

00:18:24: you need active in-cab detection systems monitoring eye movement and head position To objectively intervene before a microsleep causes a catastrophe.

00:18:32: Right but how do introduce that invasive data collection for driver matters immensely?

00:18:37: Oh absolutely

00:18:38: Jeffrey Berry made point.

00:18:39: if management uses telematics purely is surveillance tool They will instantly destroy driver trust.

00:18:47: Yeah, nobody wants to spy in the cab

00:18:49: exactly yeah.

00:18:49: But if you implement gamified scorecards It reframes The entire dynamic.

00:18:54: it turns safety from a punitive measure into A tool for objective positive reinforcement.

00:19:00: right drivers respect fair coaching And that actually boosts retention in a very tight labor market.

00:19:07: So you have to manage the psychology of the driver, but the fleet managers themselves are operating under an increasingly hostile regulatory microscope?

00:19:15: Yeah!

00:19:15: That's getting really tough.

00:19:16: Jerrokay had a very sobering warning about US Federal Safety Audits conducted by the FMCSA.

00:19:22: He stressed that passing a regulatory audit isn't actually about having zero accident record.

00:19:27: Really?!

00:19:28: What is it about?

00:19:28: It is entirely about having documented airtight proof that your compliance processes exist.

00:19:33: You have up-to-date driver qualification files, do you have verified maintenance logs?

00:19:37: Do you have a strict drug policy on file?

00:19:40: Ah paperwork!

00:19:41: Exactly good intentions and safe driving records.

00:19:44: do not pass audits.

00:19:45: Documented proof does

00:19:47: And the regulatory pressure is only going to intensify because the stakes are just so high.

00:19:52: Jack Burton pointed out a staggering metric from the UK, one in three road deaths currently involve someone driving for work.

00:19:59: One and Three!

00:20:00: Yeah

00:20:01: that reality has prompted a major new national road safety strategy targeting a massive sixty-five percent reduction in deaths and serious injuries by twenty thirty five.

00:20:11: And we are seeing local governments design the physical environment to force compliance

00:20:16: too.

00:20:17: yeah

00:20:17: Keith Kerman reported that New York City just mandated audible pedestrian alerts on all non-emergency city trucks to actively warn people when a heavy vehicle is turning or backing up.

00:20:28: That makes sense.

00:20:28: And furthermore, they just hit a milestone of one thousand fleet units equipped with intelligent speed assistance technology Or ISA

00:20:36: Which is critical because I said doesn't just record a driver speeding right it Actively intervenes and hardcaps the vehicles speed to match the local legal limit.

00:20:45: The city is literally removing the driver's ability to make a dangerous choice.

00:20:49: Wow, but you know sometimes local policy isn't just regulating the fleet it actively destroys the underlying business model.

00:20:58: Oh like the car sharing market exactly.

00:21:01: Mark Roberts broke down the details of zip cars massive exit from the UK where they pulled over ninety percent Of their shared vehicles out of London.

00:21:09: right and the immediate assumption for me outside as usually Well, the technology failed or the unit economics of car sharing just don't work.

00:21:16: Exactly but the operational data proved that car-sharing was highly effective.

00:21:21: it was saving users thousands of pounds and pulling dozens of private vehicles off the congested streets for every shared car deployed.

00:21:30: so The tech worked flawlessly.

00:21:31: It worked great.

00:21:32: what broke this system?

00:21:33: Was municipal bureaucracy?

00:21:36: London car sharing had to be negotiated individually across thirty-three different boroughs.

00:21:40: Thirty

00:21:41: three?

00:21:41: Thirty Three!

00:21:42: And they were all operating with conflicting agendas, you have sustainability officers who wanted fewer cars on the road clashing parking enforcement teams whose primary goal was maximizing revenue.

00:21:53: What a mess.

00:21:54: Yes some borrows are charging the fleet over two thousand pounds for single car club parking bay

00:22:00: Two Thousand Pounds For One Spot.

00:22:02: Yep

00:22:03: So an entirely functional data-driven fleet operation was financially suffocated by fragmented, hyperlocal policy meetings where no single entity is looking at the holistic transport needs of this city.

00:22:16: which really brings us to the ultimate friction point for the entire industry.

00:22:20: It really does, because building on the insights from this deep dive you have to consider this given the blinding exponential speed of vehicle technology versus the agonizingly slow glacial pace of grid upgrades and fragmented municipal policy.

00:22:36: are successful commercial fleets destined to evolve beyond just logistics?

00:22:40: Are they going be forced become their own decentralized micro utilities an aggressively embedded policy lobbyist just to keep their trucks legally powered and on the

00:23:01: road.