Best of LinkedIn: Commercial Fleet Insights CW 18/ 19

00:00:00: This episode is provided by Thomas Allgaier and Frennus based on the most relevant LinkedIn posts about commercial fleets in calendar weeks, eighteen to nineteen.

00:00:09: Frenness is a B-to-B market research company that supports automotive suppliers with building feature by future 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: And honestly looking at the data we have for this week that kind of competitive intelligence is more important than ever.

00:00:28: Oh, absolutely man.

00:00:29: okay let's unpack this.

00:00:31: our mission for this deep dive is to explore the absolute top commercial fleet trends That have popped up across LinkedIn over the past two weeks.

00:00:38: right and there has been honestly just a massive amount Of conversation.

00:00:42: we've got insights from all over The mobility industry.

00:00:45: yeah

00:00:45: We really do so.

00:00:46: To keep things organized For you?

00:00:47: We're gonna break This down into three main clusters.

00:00:50: first Up Fleet electrification And total cost of ownership or TCO.

00:00:55: Then we'll move into charging and energy infrastructure

00:00:58: because you have to power the truck somehow right

00:01:00: exactly.

00:01:01: And finally, will get in to telematic safety and compliance basically The intelligence layer of the whole operation.

00:01:06: I love that structure.

00:01:08: You know We have to start with the actual vehicles segment one Fleet electrification and TCO.

00:01:13: yeah Because the paradigm is shifting so fast here for years?

00:01:17: You talk to a fleet manager and their first excuse and it was a valid one, was always electric trucks are just way too expensive.

00:01:24: Oh

00:01:24: hundred percent the upfront capital cost was just a total deal breaker for most SMBs.

00:01:29: but um that excuse is kind of dying out now.

00:01:33: I was reading a post from Jamie Sands this week And he pointed something wild happening with Chinese OEM's

00:01:39: The forty nine ton tractors.

00:01:41: Yes They're now offering these forty-nine ton electric tractors With a seven hundred kilometer range and the price tag.

00:01:47: It's sitting around two hundred to twenty thousand pounds,

00:01:49: which is just.

00:01:49: I mean that's a staggeringly low number for that kind of capability

00:01:53: right?

00:01:53: And Jamie made the point at that price you were delivering a completely competitive TCO against traditional diesel...and here's the kicker without needing any government grants.

00:02:04: Yeah!

00:02:04: That is huge because if you don't need subsidies take off organically.

00:02:11: Exactly!

00:02:11: And we're actually seeing real-world proof of this already.

00:02:14: Thomas Laurent posted this fantastic update about EV Realty.

00:02:18: They just opened their first fleet charging hub over in San Bernardino Oh

00:02:23: yeah, California

00:02:24: Right.

00:02:24: and he highlighted a company called Novoia operating out there.

00:02:28: they are fully electric trucking company.

00:02:31: last month they achieved five percent TCO savings versus running diesel fleet.

00:02:37: Wow Five percent is massive in logistics.

00:02:39: It really is and again totally unsubsidized.

00:02:42: what's fascinating here Is um, What paul plumber said about why this is happening?

00:02:47: he pointed out that evs offer This highly structured predictable cost base

00:02:52: unlike diesel, which is just all over the place.

00:02:54: Exactly with diesel you are at the mercy of global oil markets right?

00:02:58: But within EV your energy contracts are stable Your maintenance is predictable.

00:03:03: You're basically trading wild volatility for boring predictability

00:03:06: and boring makes money Right.

00:03:07: but okay let me push back a little here if The math finally works.

00:03:12: You know wire fleets still struggling so much without adoption.

00:03:14: That's

00:03:15: the million dollar question.

00:03:16: Well I think it comes down to what we could call the spec trap.

00:03:20: Angelo E made a really brilliant argument about this whole range anxiety issue.

00:03:24: Ah, right!

00:03:25: People over-specifying their trucks.

00:03:27: Exactly Automakers are building these massive EVs with six hundred plus miles of range because buyers think they need to replace full tank diesel.

00:03:37: But Angelo pointed out that ninety nine percent of regional drivers don't use anywhere near that range in the day.

00:03:43: Right They run maybe What, a couple hundred miles at most?

00:03:46: Barely that sometimes.

00:03:48: It's like it's like carrying a fifty pound backpack of water just for walk around the block.

00:03:52: That is a perfect analogy because all that extra battery weight requires more energy to physically move the truck

00:03:59: Yeah and destroys hardware.

00:04:01: Angelo noted Tesla Model Y generates twenty six percent tire particulate than comparable Kia Hybrid Just because of the weight in torque.

00:04:09: Imagine scaling up to a commercial truck.

00:04:11: the tire wear would be brutal, and that actually connects directly to the payload problem that Lehan Hansen was talking about.

00:04:17: Oh!

00:04:17: The box truck issue.

00:04:18: walk us through that one.

00:04:19: so lehan pointed out that fleets keep buying these twenty six foot box trucks right or trucks with a fourteen thousand gvwr gross vehicle weight rating.

00:04:30: it looks great on a quote

00:04:32: but then you put it on the road

00:04:34: because you start with that fourteen thousand limit.

00:04:37: then you subtract that massive, fifty-pound backpack EV battery we just talked about.

00:04:43: And suddenly you have zero capacity left for the actual freight?

00:04:46: Exactly!

00:04:48: Leahan noted that the payload capacity disappears long before the cargo space is actually full.

00:04:53: so drivers head out.

00:04:54: they look empty but are technically overweight

00:04:57: Which means tickets at weigh stations breakfade on hills.

00:05:00: liability issues Just a nightmare.

00:05:03: Alton of Jane brought up this great point.

00:05:05: vehicle financing hasn't even caught to physical reality yet

00:05:08: Really?

00:05:09: How so.

00:05:10: Well, banks still want to value trucks based on age and mileage.

00:05:14: but Appness says an EV's value is now driven entirely by its on-road performance And it's duty cycle not just the physical assets sitting in a lot.

00:05:22: That makes total sense.

00:05:23: So okay let say a fleet manager navigates all that they get the TCO right They fix the payload specs they still have a huge bottleneck.

00:05:29: how do you actually keep these things

00:05:31: powered Right?

00:05:32: which brings us to segment two charging and energy infrastructure.

00:05:36: because we are definitely moving way beyond just plugging a cable into a wall.

00:05:40: Totally, Jordan M had some great thoughts on right sizing the depot.

00:05:44: he was talking about the new Tesla base charger.

00:05:46: oh the hundred and twenty-five kilowatt one.

00:05:48: yeah

00:05:48: for a long time the industry was obsessed with ultra rapid megawatt charging for everything but jordan noted that people are waking up to.

00:05:57: the fact makes way more sense.

00:06:02: It

00:06:02: really does, you have the truck sitting there anyway.

00:06:05: slower charging reduces the infrastructure costs and it doesn't slam a local power grid nearly as hard.

00:06:10: but even then grid constraints are real threat.

00:06:14: here's where it gets really interesting.

00:06:16: mario chavez shared this crazy detail from california.

00:06:20: oh

00:06:20: i saw his post!

00:06:21: This was wild

00:06:21: right?

00:06:22: His team literally had to install a diesel generator

00:06:29: Burning diesel to charge electric zero-emission trucks.

00:06:32: The irony is just off the charts!

00:06:34: It is, but they had do it just a guarantee uptime during grid constraints.

00:06:38: If the charger goes down... ...the truck doesn't move.

00:06:41: And if the truck doesn' tmove you lose money.

00:06:43: Uptime

00:06:44: Is Everything Which is why I loved Bill Pierce's insight on what Camber Charging is doing with their Camber Complete Model.

00:06:50: Oh yeah!

00:06:50: Tying fees for performance Exactly!

00:06:53: Bill highlighted this revolutionary shift.

00:06:56: They are tying the monthly service fees for their fleet chargers directly to verified uptime.

00:07:00: If the charger goes down, the fleet simply doesn't pay the service fee.

00:07:04: That forces absolute accountability.

00:07:06: You can just sell a hardware and walk away anymore?

00:07:08: No you have to prioritize operational excellence.

00:07:11: But even with perfect hardware fleets still facing brutal timelines waiting utilities upgrade power lines.

00:07:20: The permitting alone could take years

00:07:22: Which is why fleets literally bypassing grid Hemam Arawashdeh and Joshua Aviva from Spark Charge were talking about this.

00:07:29: Joshua noted that mobile off-grid EV charging is becoming absolutely essential.

00:07:35: So instead of waiting three years for a transformer, you just bring the charger to the truck?

00:07:38: Exactly!

00:07:39: Fleets can get up running in days instead of years.

00:07:42: That's incredible agility.

00:07:44: But let's talk about the ultimate aha moment in this segment The revenue flip.

00:07:48: Oh yes Robi Moiano's post.

00:07:51: Yeah

00:07:51: Total Energies has these e-truck clients using smart charging software called BIA, and over a weekend the spot power prices on the grid dropped to negative four hundred ninety six euros per megawatt hour.

00:08:03: Negative four ninety six meaning that utility was desperately trying get rid of electricity.

00:08:08: Exactly!

00:08:08: And because these trucks were plugged in with Smart Software they automatically started charging.

00:08:13: The Fleet.

00:08:13: Clients literally got paid for fuel their Trucks.

00:08:16: It feels like glitched in the Matrix.

00:08:19: But if we connect this to the bigger picture, smart charging isn't just a neat feature anymore.

00:08:24: It is a completely new revenue stream.

00:08:27: You're not just a transport company you are an energy trader.

00:08:30: Basically

00:08:30: yeah Okay so trucks are viable The power can be managed or even monetized which still blows my mind.

00:08:37: but what happens when these advanced assets actually hit road?

00:08:41: That brings us to segment three Telematics safety and compliance The intelligence layer

00:08:47: Right And we need a reality check here.

00:08:49: on Telematics.

00:08:50: Timothy Brewster posted a pretty stark warning about this.

00:08:53: Oh, about buying the tech but not using it.

00:08:56: Yeah

00:08:56: He said Telematic is just noise without action.

00:08:59: if a fleet doesn't already have strong safety culture

00:09:02: It's just dashboard of blinking lights If nobody looks at

00:09:04: it.

00:09:05: Exactly!

00:09:05: Like buying a gym membership and expecting to get fit Without actually working out.

00:09:09: That is painful analogy for people I'm sure But Chris Mungall echoed this perfectly.

00:09:15: He pointed out that fewer than twenty five percent of SMB fleets actually consistently use the tools they buy

00:09:21: under twenty-five percent.

00:09:22: That's so much wasted capital

00:09:24: it is.

00:09:25: but chris noted that the fleets who do use The data, the ones Who sit down and coach their drivers based on the hard numbers?

00:09:32: They see forty to eighty percent Fewer crashes...that's

00:09:35: a staggering reduction..but you know Even if you coach your drivers perfectly, the road is completely unpredictable.

00:09:43: Durocay shared a really harrowing real-world example of this on LinkedIn.

00:09:47: Oh...the breakdown incident!

00:09:49: Yeah, that was tough to read.

00:09:50: It really was!

00:09:51: His driver did everything right broke down safely deployed the warning triangles exactly according to FMCSA rules

00:09:57: completely by book

00:09:58: Right and then a sleeping driver slammed right into back of his trailer.

00:10:02: And despite doing everything perfectly Juro's company still had to pay a fifty four thousand seven hundred dollar tow bill out-of pocket.

00:10:09: Upfront

00:10:10: just brutal and that is exactly why having an objective source of truth matters so much now.

00:10:15: Chris Cabrera brought this up regarding in cab video

00:10:17: dash cams And AI cameras.

00:10:19: Yeah,

00:10:20: In a situation like Juros or any crash really?

00:10:22: Having unbiased visibility shifts the entire conversation.

00:10:26: You aren't arguing over assumptions Or he said.

00:10:28: she said you have the facts.

00:10:30: it protects the driver And it protects the company's liability.

00:10:33: Exactly,

00:10:34: but

00:10:35: that reliance on technology does raise a huge question about the future especially with autonomous tech getting better

00:10:42: right like Tesla's FSD and other self-driving platforms.

00:10:45: everyone assumes That when the AI takes the wheel maintenance is going to get simpler Right.

00:10:50: no human error No harsh breaking.

00:10:53: you'd think so.

00:10:54: But Dr.

00:10:55: Ramin Watandoz completely debunked that.

00:10:57: this raises an important question about the autonomy maintenance paradox.

00:11:01: The paradox tell me more

00:11:03: so advanced autonomy does not reduce maintenance complexity at all.

00:11:06: It actually increases it because as fleets rely more on lidars radars cameras and software.

00:11:12: Oh, I see a human driver can feel what the steering is pulling but in AI just relies on the sensor

00:11:18: exactly.

00:11:19: If a human isn't there to notice slight vibration or thermal inefficiency, the fleet needs way smarter predictive maintenance just-to-catch sensor degradation before truck fails on highway.

00:11:30: That's

00:11:31: fascinating!

00:11:31: You're replacing mechanical wear and tear with software and sensor wear in tear?

00:11:34: Which

00:11:35: is much harder to diagnose with a wrench

00:11:37: Definitely.

00:11:38: And that perfectly sets up Gaurav Aigarwal prediction for twenty-twenty six.

00:11:42: He looking at near future saying logistics companies win next decade won't be the ones with the biggest physical fleets.

00:11:48: They'll be the one to own the data,

00:11:50: right?

00:11:50: He calls it The Shipment Graph.

00:11:52: It's this AI driven intelligence layer that understands every single lane, Every carrier and every rate across the whole market.

00:12:00: That's a massive shift in how you value transport company.

00:12:04: Amina Wilson And David Przensky made A similar point.

00:12:07: they pointed out that Ai is finally moving Out of this novelty chatbot phase.

00:12:11: Its not just something You type questions into anymore.

00:12:14: No, it is becoming embedded operational infrastructure.

00:12:18: It runs in the background silently managing exceptions just like a seasoned human fleet manager

00:12:23: would.".

00:12:42: Will the logistics giants of the twenty thirties even need to own vehicles at all?

00:12:47: Or will they just rent the rolling hardware and fiercely protect the AI that actually runs the network.

00:12:52: Wow!

00:12:53: That is a completely different business model, just renting the metal and awning the brain

00:12:57: Exactly... some of them think about it.

00:12:59: If you enjoyed this episode new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:13:03: Also check out our other editions on electrification in battery technology Future mobility & market evolution and next-gen vehicle intelligence.

00:13:10: There's

00:13:10: so much more ground to cover, so you definitely want to check those out!

00:13:13: Absolutely thank you so much for joining us on this deep dive make sure.