Best of LinkedIn: Commercial Fleet Insights CW 38/ 39

00:00:00: Brought to you by Thomas Allgaier and Frennis, this edition highlights key LinkedIn posts on commercial fleets in weeks thirty eight and thirty nine.

00:00:08: Frennis supports automotive enterprises and consultancies with market customer and competitive intelligence in the commercial fleet sector with a strong focus on digital solutions and emerging technologies.

00:00:20: Welcome to the deep dive.

00:00:22: Our mission today, well, it's pretty concise.

00:00:25: We're really pulling out the.

00:00:27: top trends we're seeing dominate the commercial fleet space right now.

00:00:30: Right.

00:00:31: And this isn't about you know, future promises, it's about the real, pragmatic, operational shifts happening on the ground taken straight from what industry leaders were sharing online.

00:00:40: Okay, let's unpack that.

00:00:42: Because we definitely saw the conversation shift in weeks thirty-eight and thirty-nine, didn't we?

00:00:45: Moving away from sort of blue sky thinking more towards ground level strategies.

00:00:49: Exactly.

00:00:50: So we're going to drill down into, I think, three really critical areas.

00:00:53: First, where the actual money is going in electrification infrastructure.

00:00:58: Second, that pretty painful math behind the own versus rents debate.

00:01:02: And third, how AI is finally starting to turn fleets from these burdensome cost centers into actual profit

00:01:10: assets.

00:01:10: Yeah, that focus on immediate actionable strategy.

00:01:13: That's really the defining thing we saw.

00:01:15: Fleets are moving past the pilot program stage.

00:01:18: They're looking hard for ROI.

00:01:19: Right.

00:01:20: And that just requires a totally different way of thinking about energy, about data, and of course... Capital expenditure.

00:01:27: Okay, let's kick things off with electrification then because the strategy here seems to have well Fundamentally shifted.

00:01:34: the initial buzz was all about you know those big visible highway charging stations

00:01:38: right than any buy sites

00:01:40: exactly.

00:01:40: But people like Angelo E. We're highlighting that those are proving frankly painfully slow and a bit uncertain.

00:01:46: the real money seems to be flowing elsewhere.

00:01:48: precisely the successful build-out strategy now is hyper focused.

00:01:53: It's all about high dwell time locations, aligning the charging infrastructure with where vehicles actually spend time.

00:01:59: Makes sense.

00:02:00: And we saw really three main winning locations emerging right now.

00:02:04: First,

00:02:05: ports and logistics hubs.

00:02:07: You look at awards like the Port of LA getting that huge four hundred and twelve million dollars from the EPA's clean ports

00:02:12: program.

00:02:13: Wow.

00:02:13: Second, fleet depots.

00:02:15: That covers everything, parcel, municipal, school buses, refuse trucks.

00:02:19: That's where, you know, an overwhelming seventy five percent to maybe even ninety percent of heavy duty charging needs to happen.

00:02:25: Anyone right

00:02:25: at the home base.

00:02:26: Exactly.

00:02:27: And third, airports.

00:02:29: using programs like the FAA's VLE or ZEV funding.

00:02:32: Yeah, that's that shift to depot and municipal focus.

00:02:35: It just makes perfect sense operationally.

00:02:37: But I mean, it still requires massive infrastructure upgrades, doesn't it?

00:02:41: Oh, absolutely.

00:02:41: We did see some real momentum, though, like in Chicago, Republic Services, Tish Powell, and Matthew Healy involved there, targeting fifty percent EV trucks by twenty twenty eight.

00:02:50: That's ambitious.

00:02:51: It is.

00:02:52: And out in Portland, they were celebrating their first electric freight liner, EM-II.

00:02:57: Pria Donna Paul made a good point, noting it was built domestically right there at Danler's plant.

00:03:01: That's

00:03:01: key, linking climate action with local jobs.

00:03:03: Yeah, and supply chain stability too.

00:03:06: But domestic adoption, well it doesn't just magically solve the underlying grid challenge, does it?

00:03:11: No, not at all.

00:03:12: That's the fundamental issue.

00:03:14: Robi Moiano pointed out the huge bottleneck problem in Europe with the grid.

00:03:18: We're talking transformers, network reinforcements, things that can delay depot readiness by months.

00:03:24: Months,

00:03:25: ouch.

00:03:25: And that pressure is really accelerating interest in charging as a service, or CAPEX.

00:03:30: It's basically a way to outsource the big upfront costs, the CAPEX, and frankly, the utility headaches.

00:03:36: So CAPEX handles the hardware and the grid connection?

00:03:39: Essentially, yes.

00:03:41: Specifically, mobile CAPS sounds almost like a miracle cure for speed, doesn't it?

00:03:45: Joshua Veeve made a really strong case for it.

00:03:47: How fast are we talking?

00:03:48: He argued these solutions can deploy new routes in days, not months.

00:03:52: Days, because you completely bypass all the construction and permitting delays.

00:03:56: Okay, days versus months is compelling, but doesn't that mobile approach bring its own challenges?

00:04:01: Like new logistical complexities, maybe even higher energy costs compared to a fixed setup?

00:04:06: That's absolutely the trade-off.

00:04:08: Fleet operators are weighing that right now.

00:04:10: Is the speed and flexibility worth potentially higher operational costs or different logistical planning?

00:04:16: But it's an urgent trade-off, like you said, because time is money.

00:04:19: Delays mean potentially missing compliance deadlines, so that flexibility, it might be worth a premium, especially for, say, temporary needs or rapidly expanding operations.

00:04:29: Right, okay.

00:04:31: Before we shift gears to financing, we have to touch on the battery chemistry side.

00:04:35: Leo G introduced something fascinating.

00:04:37: Sodium ion batteries... Sibs.

00:04:40: Yes.

00:04:41: Being positioned as potential game changers for heavy-duty trucks.

00:04:44: Yeah, what's really exciting about Sibs, first off, is the potential cost advantage.

00:04:48: Sodium is just far more abundant than lithium.

00:04:51: Cheaper materials.

00:04:51: Exactly.

00:04:52: But for fleets, the practical benefits could be huge.

00:04:55: We're talking extreme weather performance.

00:04:57: They work effectively from, like... minus forty Celsius all the way up to forty-five Celsius.

00:05:02: Wow,

00:05:02: that's a wide range.

00:05:03: And the ability to rapid charge in maybe just twenty-five minutes.

00:05:07: Now, if SIBS can close that energy density gap they currently have compared to Lipium,

00:05:11: then the whole TCO equation for electric trucks changes overnight.

00:05:15: Completely.

00:05:15: It can be massive.

00:05:16: Okay, that TCO angle, it leads us perfectly into theme two, the ongoing financial battle.

00:05:24: Own versus rent.

00:05:25: This debate's always been there, but it feels like it's getting a pretty brutal reality check right now.

00:05:30: It really is.

00:05:31: Leigh and Hansen provided some really actionable and brutal math.

00:05:36: It showed exactly where some fleet managers might be overspending without realizing it.

00:05:40: What

00:05:40: was the core insight?

00:05:42: The insight was pretty clear.

00:05:43: Managers who say they can't afford to buy trucks are often actually bleeding cash through rental fees.

00:05:49: Huge sunk costs.

00:05:51: Right.

00:05:51: Like that example they gave, renting a hook truck at what was it, twelve thousand five hundred dollars a month?

00:05:56: Exactly.

00:05:56: Do that for four years and you spent six hundred

00:05:59: thousand dollars.

00:06:00: With

00:06:00: zero equity, no control, nothing to show forward at the end.

00:06:03: You could potentially have bought two trucks outright with that same cash coming out of the operating budget.

00:06:08: That's

00:06:08: just staggering when you put it like that.

00:06:10: It's a powerful argument for ownership, isn't it?

00:06:12: It is.

00:06:13: But, you know, there's always a counter strategy.

00:06:16: There are reasons fleets prefer leasing.

00:06:18: Sure.

00:06:18: What are the main ones?

00:06:20: Well, Mark Gentile and Christopher Trigellarosa highlighted this, especially thinking about companies in Canada.

00:06:26: They used leasing for flexibility first off.

00:06:28: Right.

00:06:28: Scaling up or down.

00:06:30: Yeah.

00:06:30: Preserving precious working capital instead of tying it up in assets.

00:06:34: And often getting maintenance bundled into predictable monthly expenses.

00:06:38: Vanguard was an example mentioned.

00:06:39: Okay.

00:06:40: Predictability, capital preservation, makes sense.

00:06:43: But now there's a new risk factor tied to this, specifically with EVs, right?

00:06:48: Alex Georgiana brought this up.

00:06:50: Yes, this is a really emerging critical challenge for the leasing companies themselves.

00:06:54: How so?

00:06:55: As fleets rapidly adopt more BEVs and PHEVs, the listeners are getting, well, understandably nervous about the volatility of used electric vehicle residual values.

00:07:05: Ah, what the vehicle is worth at the end of the lease.

00:07:08: Exactly.

00:07:08: Their entire business model relies on predicting those future values accurately.

00:07:13: If EV values drop faster... or more unpredictably than traditional diesel trucks, maybe because of battery degradation concerns, or just rapid tech improvements making older models less desirable.

00:07:25: Then the leasing company's profits are directly threatened.

00:07:28: Precisely.

00:07:29: And that residual value risk, it has to get baked into the lease rate somehow, which could potentially make leasing EVs disproportionately expensive, at least until that risk profile stabilizes a bit more.

00:07:40: Interesting dynamic.

00:07:41: And that instability, it's probably driving some new business models too.

00:07:45: It seems so.

00:07:46: Tom Quimby noted the launch of Pioneer Clean Fleet Solutions.

00:07:49: They're focusing specifically on leasing low-carbon heavy-duty natural gas trucks.

00:07:53: Natural gas, okay.

00:07:54: Yeah, and offering a whole support bundle fuel maintenance fleet management.

00:07:58: They're basically finding ways to de-risk alternatives to both traditional diesel and electric for certain duty cycles.

00:08:04: Right, finding niches where the risk profile is maybe clearer.

00:08:09: Okay, let's pivot now.

00:08:09: Let's talk about this shift that could turn all these complex financial decisions into potentially massive upsides.

00:08:17: Data and AI.

00:08:19: Yes.

00:08:19: Mike Intage laid out a really clear vision here, transforming fleet operations from being just necessary cost centers.

00:08:27: Which is how they've always been viewed.

00:08:29: Right.

00:08:29: into potentially being full blown profit centers, developing actual revenue generating services, sometimes called fleet as a service or FACE.

00:08:38: And this isn't just theory anymore.

00:08:40: Mike's vision, it lines up with real examples like Urban Connect over in Switzerland, they're actually monetizing idle fleet time through internal car sharing programs.

00:08:49: Interesting.

00:08:49: But you need the tech backbone for that, right?

00:08:51: Absolutely.

00:08:52: You need deeply integrated technology to unlock those kinds of revenue streams.

00:08:56: And what about the operational side?

00:08:57: What does that tech deliver there?

00:08:59: Because that's still core.

00:09:00: Huge impacts.

00:09:01: Ahmed Al-Kasabi detailed some really measurable benefits from AI and intelligent telematics.

00:09:06: We're talking potentially over a seventy percent reduction in unexpected breakdown.

00:09:11: And cutting maintenance costs by up to fifteen percent.

00:09:14: That's immediate, quantifiable ROI, purely driven by predictive analytics, getting ahead of problems before they happen.

00:09:21: And this focus on data, it seems to be boosting safety investments too.

00:09:25: Definitely.

00:09:26: Sean Killen's launch of Geotab's Focus Plus, for example.

00:09:29: The emphasis there was that really reducing insurance claims hinges on having integrated video telematics combined with AI driven event classification.

00:09:39: Better data means faster, clearer resolution, which lowers costs.

00:09:43: What I found fascinating, though, was hearing how fleet leaders are already using AI creatively now, not just for routing or maintenance.

00:09:51: Julie Holmes mentioned this from the AFLA conference.

00:09:54: Oh, yeah.

00:09:54: What kind of things?

00:09:55: Things like using AI to generate sophisticated driver personas for recruitment.

00:09:59: Right.

00:10:00: Or even improving job descriptions to attract the right people.

00:10:03: OK, that's interesting.

00:10:03: So using AI for the people side of the business.

00:10:05: Exactly.

00:10:06: But what's the immediate ROI on that?

00:10:08: Is that just sort of HR innovation, or does it directly cut operational costs?

00:10:13: by, say, improving driver retention?

00:10:15: Oh, I'd argue it absolutely cuts operational costs long-term.

00:10:19: Better recruitment means less turnover, fewer costly training cycles, and generally, you hope safer, more efficient drivers who stick around.

00:10:27: Right.

00:10:28: Good point.

00:10:29: But when we talk about really critical high-stakes data applications, we have to talk about electrification at scale.

00:10:37: Daniel Hilsen's work with Betterfleet is a prime example.

00:10:39: They're using a digital twin approach.

00:10:41: Okay, explain that.

00:10:42: What does a digital twin actually do in a fleet context?

00:10:47: So imagine a complex electric bus depot.

00:10:50: The machine learning system creates a constantly updated digital replica, a twin, of the entire operation.

00:10:56: the buses, the chargers, the grid connection, the schedules.

00:10:59: A virtual

00:10:59: copy.

00:11:00: Exactly.

00:11:01: And it automates decisions that are frankly impossible for a human dispatcher to calculate optimally in real time.

00:11:07: Things like which specific bus needs to charge when considering its current battery health, its degradation level.

00:11:13: Ah, factoring in battery life.

00:11:15: Yes,

00:11:15: and the current queue for the chargers, and maybe even the specific heating or cooling requirements it needs before its next scheduled run.

00:11:21: Wow,

00:11:21: that's complex.

00:11:22: It is.

00:11:23: And getting that right, that level of operational efficiency, it's absolutely required to ensure you hit a hundred percent surface uptime and maximize the life of those very expensive battery assets.

00:11:34: Okay, that makes sense.

00:11:36: Let's zoom out a bit now to the macro view.

00:11:38: Partnerships seem really critical for de-risking this whole electric transition and, frankly, closing the adoption gap we're seeing.

00:11:45: Absolutely critical.

00:11:47: Thar says Teo made a strong argument that we need new kinds of alliances.

00:11:51: specifically between the e-truck providers themselves and the big freight demand aggregators.

00:11:56: Why that combination?

00:11:57: To tackle two big issues, the high upfront premium for the electric trucks and that notorious backhaul problem.

00:12:03: Right.

00:12:04: Ensuring the truck has a paid load for the return journey.

00:12:06: Exactly.

00:12:07: If carriers can get guaranteed demand, guaranteed loads from aggregators, it helps them justify making that huge EV investment.

00:12:14: The examples given were partnerships like Uber Freight working with Tesla Semi or JUNA with Cender in Europe.

00:12:20: So those collaborations are really the mechanism for speeding things up.

00:12:23: Seems

00:12:24: to be.

00:12:24: And we saw other examples too, right?

00:12:26: Quetta and Fonterra pushing heavy truck charging forward in New Zealand.

00:12:30: Simon Tung shared that.

00:12:31: And pro-logist mobility linking up key logistics hubs across California freight corridors with EV Realty.

00:12:39: Terry H posted about that one.

00:12:40: It's about aligning the infrastructure build out with where the demand actually is.

00:12:45: Which goes back to that earlier point about strategic location.

00:12:48: Yeah.

00:12:48: But this whole transition, it's also playing out against a, well, a complex regulatory backdrop.

00:12:54: Yeah, the tariff discussion.

00:12:56: Exactly.

00:12:56: Bob Rutherford and Drew Kurzbach were talking about the announced twenty-five percent tariff on imported heavy-duty trucks starting October first, twenty-twenty-five.

00:13:04: And the confusion around it.

00:13:05: Huge confusion.

00:13:07: particularly because the lines between what's foreign and what's domestic are so blurred now.

00:13:11: You have major U.S.-based brands like Freightliner or Mac.

00:13:14: Owned by international parent companies.

00:13:16: Yeah.

00:13:16: Gamler Truck, Volvo Group.

00:13:18: Right.

00:13:18: So how will that policy actually be applied?

00:13:20: The industry really needs clarity on that.

00:13:22: And soon.

00:13:23: Definitely.

00:13:23: But regardless of those national policy complexities, the global race itself seems really uneven right now.

00:13:29: Very uneven.

00:13:30: Malik D. Arif and George Yu shared some pretty striking figures.

00:13:34: China is just dominating zero-emission truck sales, capturing over ninety percent of the global market.

00:13:39: Ninety

00:13:40: percent.

00:13:40: Meanwhile, Europe is advancing steadily, but the U.S.

00:13:44: was described as while stumbling.

00:13:47: There's a real risk.

00:13:48: the U.S.

00:13:48: falls structurally behind the global pace of BEV adoption in heavy duty.

00:13:53: But

00:13:53: there's a silver lining, right, the economics?

00:13:55: That's the ultimate driver.

00:13:57: Russell Cocher emphasized the TCO calculation.

00:14:00: By twenty thirty, the prediction is that nearly half of all medium and heavy duty trucks will actually be cheaper to buy, operate, and maintain as zero emission vehicles compared to traditional diesel.

00:14:11: cheaper overall.

00:14:11: Cheaper overall.

00:14:12: So this transition, it isn't just about policy or environment.

00:14:15: It's becoming an inevitable economic reality for fleets.

00:14:18: So bringing it all together, what does this really mean for you, the fleet professional listening in?

00:14:22: I

00:14:22: think the biggest takeaway from the intelligence we saw in weeks thirty-eight and thirty-nine is this fundamental mindset shift.

00:14:28: that's required, urgently.

00:14:30: You really can't treat your vehicles as just a collection of rolling steel cost centers anymore.

00:14:35: That model is outdated.

00:14:37: They have to be viewed as integrated energy and data assets.

00:14:41: And that requires a really strategic, centralized, data-driven approach to absolutely everything from where you put your charging infrastructure to how you recruit drivers to predicting maintenance schedules.

00:14:52: That seems to be the only path forward to achieving competitive TCO.

00:14:57: If you enjoyed this deep dive, new additions drop every two weeks.

00:15:01: Also check out our other streams covering electrification and battery technology, future mobility and market evolution, and next-gen vehicle intelligence.

00:15:11: building on all this, considering just how heavily operational efficiency relies on data now and managing that residual value risk we talked about with BEVs becoming so widespread globally.

00:15:21: How quickly must fleet executives really transition their internal teams?

00:15:26: Moving them from being sort of simple cost accounts to becoming truly strategic data-driven asset managers, if they want to remain competitive by that twenty-thirty cost parity deadline we mentioned.

00:15:36: That

00:15:36: fundamental team transformation, yeah, that certainly feels like the toughest but maybe most crucial challenge of the next few years.

00:15:45: Thank you for joining us for this deep dive.

00:15:47: Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss our next analysis.