Truck Tech Changing of the Guard | Truck Tech

[Music] right well welcome back to truck Tech everyone this is Alan Adler your host and and really for the last time here on truck Tech we're going to be transitioning the show into a new host I'll introduce in just a moment just a a couple Reflections really for two years of shows here uh you know we've had a lot of fun doing this and it has been I think interesting and hopefully uh fun to watch for those of you who have we know we've got something of an audience out there and we're keeping this going

uh with our new host that would be Thomas Watson uh in the new year uh the idea being that truck Tech has found a place an audience and also a purpose I think and uh it's been a lot of fun to be the uh host of it for two years really developed it I think kind of from the newsletter became part of a community here at Freight waves and and uh something that you know does have uh separate content really on Wednesdays when we do this show and then on Fridays for the newsletter Thomas also

will be taking that over um we're gon to have a little bit of fun today and talk about maybe looking ahead at some of the things that we've talked about um over the last couple of years uh Thomas welcome to truck Tech which will after today be all yours we got some big choose the field but looking forward to carrying on the torch and you're completely right um we can even talk about uh since the two years you took over the community there's been so much changes in the space and I'm super excited it's bittersweet

for me because I got to really enjoy reading your content and uh now I get to carry that on but uh it's it's been great one thing I do want to ask you is out of out of all the topics you've you've been very fortunate to cover you've traveled around the world we could have done a where in the world as Alan Adler segment welcome back to truck Tech everyone coming to you today from the Volvo customer experience Center here in auberg Sweden Leonia Michigan outside Detroit Wood Haven Michigan Handover Germany the folks at Jamestown

New York right in Colorado outside Denver we are here in Boston Massachusetts from Kansas City Kansas we come to you from berland Germany you know it is great to get a chance when you come to a place like the ACT Expo we're going to get a chance to talk to BJ Johnson welcome back to truck Tech everyone a new show and a new week I'm here with co-founder and CEO Dakota seare great to see you again our tour guide is going to be London Corner we're with Brian Chambers the president and Chief Operating Officer of

Binger Motors Saleem uh yov continue bringing you content from last week's uh Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas we're going to talk with Joanna Butler Our Guest today Mary Chan who is the Chief Operating Officer at Nicola Martin Dom the CEO and chairman of the board of Dore truck that bringing you more or less breaking news um out of all of that which one was one of the biggest themes or stories that for you has really stood out or if there was like a ENT pole that kind of defined it well I you know there

there's two but the one that I lean towards is autonomy because back when when Kevin Hills was still with us uh at freightways he asked me and I think this might have been in 2021 actually or early 2022 he asked me to for a Time come in and sort of cover the autonomous space there wasn't a ton going on then but I saw that as something that was so new and it had had a couple of players uh that were predominant uh they are not the ones interestly who are leading the space now but uh

came in and started doing that more on a writing basis when I was a staff writer uh at Freight waves uh and then began to work it into uh some of the shows and one of the early ones that we did we went out to to Plus in copertino California and that was my first ride in an autonomous truck and then I kind of made it my point to get in everybody's truck that would let me in anyway and then uh last March we had actually rode in one without a driver and it was pretty

interesting to see that develop really U one of my favorite videos of you is you're riding in an autonomous truck I think one of the guys hands you like a thing of wire cutters or something and he says cut this this how safe our truck is we're try to trust you to cut some lines in it while it's going right in the parking lot I should add uh we did not do that on the highway uh yeah that was Don Bernett uh and Don in ch was last week's guest um on the show and a

very well spoken guy who I think embodies a lot of what's going on in autonomous uh he comes out of Carnegie melon where so many people in this space do cardi melon University is sort of the autonomous Mafia in a way uh almost everybody who's in the space comes out of there um he had worked with uh I'm giving you more than you asked me for he had worked with Chris mson who uh runs Aurora uh now and uh he was his actually his um his grad student grad assistant for a time but Don started

Kodiak robotics back in uh 2019 I believe might be 2018 and um he was showing me when he gave me the wire cutters the point was to show you know how reliable the system was and what would happen if something you know went wrong and the point was in that little five to 15 foot move um the the vehicle shut off it stopped right I mean that was the whole idea um but yeah the the wire cutters I remember that and it kind of goes into this bigger Trend as well I think that you had

a really great article a few months back about when you were still writing about the the rise and fall uh you know talking about in 21 VC money was big everyone's throwing stuff at the wall there's like five six seven major players and now our field is so much limited but the Field's still moving forward uh give us some of your thoughts was anything that surprised you I remember thinking of you in the two simple drama as one so I'm I'm I'm throwing out a a preemptive persuasion here but uh you know as we're kind

of talking about and rounding out the autonomous segment was there anyone that kind of stood out and surprised surprised you or is there anyone that you didn't expect would make it and then now uh they're going to or who who where are we at right now in this race because it does look like a bunch of folks dropped out but there's still more race to go right right no absolutely okay so surprising me I think was too simple too simple was the oddson leader in this space they were the first to do a driver out

demonstration went 80 miles at night from roughly Tucson Arizona to Phoenix uh they had a lot of support vehicles around it of the time and things like that but it it did do what it was supposed to do and at that time I think I think there was no question that to simple was the leader they also went with a traditional IPO to raise money they they were valued at about I think they had a valuation around 8 billion or something like that when when they came out in I think it was April of 21

and interestingly enough um they're nowhere to be found now they're making video games and and AI based uh content in China which is just amazing because it wasn't that long ago that we went out to to uh Tucson visited with them talked to them about things that were going on then the layoffs began and then the the the moves and the soap opera that has played out a lot in the newsletter recently um went on and it's continuing to to this day the other one interestingly enough that I always remind Don Brunetta Kodiak of this

is that I once wrote you know is Kodiak able to keep up with the big boys well now they are a big boy right I mean if you look at who's kind of in the lead and this is in no particular order you've got Aurora which is well financed so they've got a Runway into 2026 although they're delayed right now in terms of you know starting on Highway driverless Trucking and then you've got Kodiak which has started in the perian Basin running trucks autonomously doing fracking sand and things like that and then you've got torque

robotics which has all the backing of dare truck right I mean that's their sort of an internal subsidiary so you've got three companies that I think are kind of your leaders again I wouldn't put an order to them right now uh and then you've got some others that we don't know a lot about but you've also got some very notable exits from the space wayo via you know kind of put mothballs on on their Trucking operations uh Embark uh trucks which looked really promising got uh picked up um by applied intuition you know what was

left of them really they ran out of money pretty much they got picked up and then you had uh you know a few others that have kind of come and gone you've got a couple out there that will bear watching wobby is one very AI based on the autonomous side and then one that is still seemingly even though they came out in public they haven't said anything since is stack a they were they're run by the people who used to run Argo uh which was the Volkswagen and Ford back to autonomous car business so lots

of expertise out there um interestingly and and you know Don Bernett mentioned this last week on the show he said you know he said um we probably have more hope with the new Administration around autonomy than we did with the you know current Administration even though you've heard a lot about you know maybe subsidies for electric vehicles going away there's a lot of excitement you know Elon Musk is a huge backer of autonomous and uh you know he's got the president's year certainly so or the president elect year so you you know you've got quite

a bit that you know might be interesting and I'd refer people back to last week's show uh you know Don had a lot of really interesting inses I thought and you know talking about Switching gears from the autonomous space there's been a lot of changes in the power and fuel space one of the Wild Ones electric natural gas uh hydrogen fuel cells I want to get your thoughts on hydrogen because early on uh when I first talked to you uh you writing about the hydrogen and uh you told me you're a former GM guy and

uh that they were working on it and I said how safe are these I think of the Hindenburg and you told me they like shoot they shot the the things with like a 30 caliber or they were shooting the the hydrogen fuel tanks to show hey these are safe they're not going to you know explode uh tell us where's hydrogen right now is the Hindenburg are we flying or are we still grounded in terms of I think I think you're going to have to promise me as you take this out that you're not ever going

to reference the Hindenburg when you write about hydrogen that's such an old sort of an old thing that's out there I mean it it was there when I was working at at GM we talked about it from time to time and it was a 50 caliber uh uh shell by the way that was shot at the tank um yeah that kind you know like machine gun show that's a big hole anyway the the uh the thoughts are on hydrogen you know it's it's it's got its issues still and they aren't the same issues that that

we've talked about so much I mean certainly infrastructure is a problem it's very expensive um it it it's slow developing uh you've only got a a really one uh company in Nicola that is making hydrogen powered fuel cell trucks right now uh heison is is getting closer but they're not really there yet and they're a fuel cell system supplier more than a truck maker whereas nickel is you know the full the full thing um the other hydrogen companies some of them I think uh uh qu uh quantron just went into bankruptcy um Ballard is hanging

on out there they're making fuel cells um but it's hard to say that they're you know successful we really haven't done much with Ballard you might want to look into them at some point but I would say I would say that hydrogen is is fraught right now uh we did a piece about a year ago with one of the first uh individual Fleet purchasers of one of the nickel fuel cell trucks and he was pretty excited at the time and one of the reasons he was excited was he essentially got the truck for free I

mean between incentives and things like that it was like hey why not try this well now he's become something of a realist about it and it it really does go to that adage that if something sounds too good to be true it probably is and that's what's happened with him he's paying a lot of money for hydrogen he spent a lot of time in repair shop in repair shops and things like that so you know being an early adopter isn't always a really smooth path um and then finally you know we've been hearing a lot

and there's some movement around hydrogen internal combustion engines that is you know an ice engine but fueled with hydrogen that in fact Could Happen uh down the road it's probably more likely in Europe because of some regulations that uh you know say see it at zero emission but you know anytime you burn something you're creating nitrogen oxide right and so Europe so far seems to be willing to look the other way on that the US might or might not it's it's hard to say but but you know hydrogen ice out there still got some potential

but it all feels a little down the road they used to say about fuel cells it's always 10 years away I don't think hydrogen is necessarily 10 years away because you've got more than 200 trucks that nickel has made that that are on the road um so you have something of a of a beginning but the idea of it scaling just doesn't feel like it's close yeah and I mean talking about you had a good point 10 years away uh let's look at natural gas and RNG because I feel like it's having its this took

us 10 years to get here moment instead of 10 years away uh I got to do your truck Tech special editions with hexagon agility I got to be the rider on that uh one of the things that stood out through your conversations was uh all it took was three more leaders and then it looks like there's more hope tell us a little bit about natural gas and RNG my favorite story is that the Dairy Farmers are using their cow feces to make methane and it's turning it into a form of RNG where are we at

right now are the cows coming coming home the cows are a big part of it obviously so is so is the you know methane capture from landfill and from Wastewater and things like that so you've got other sources yeah the cows are the ones that are you know fun to make fun of uh because they just do what they naturally do and if you capture it and you and you digest it properly you know with digesters and so forth you have a ready source of fuel that can mix in with natural gas in the pipelines

and you know go right into stations and and so forth learned a ton by the way you know working on that hexagon project which was a lot of fun we you know there's a separate playlist up there in YouTube of the six episodes that you know you participated in that Thomas um you know I think right now that that that uh especially RNG is having a moment no question about it um because it's profile is so Superior to Diesel and really to many things I mean you're talking potentially from dairy Net Zero uh carbon um

you know maybe 300 um I'm not sure what the correct measurement is below what what a diesel truck would be so you've got some tremendous potential there you've got a lot of growth in uh in in RNG facilities I think 150 new um uh plants it came online last year to make it uh the folks that clean energy will tell you there's potential for 40 billion gallons of RNG uh that could in fact lead to uh you know with this new engine we have talk about uh from commin uh that could lead to you know

10% or more penetration for natural gas now the big question of course is is this a transition only getting us to electrification or is it something that will actually have a long tail and I think that's something we really can't know yet um but we do see this cumins engine which is in production over in Jamestown New York where one of those episodes was taped um we do see some opportunity for for the cumins 15 liter natural gas engine to be a Difference Maker simply because it opens up so many more routes that the 12

liter that's the current product really couldn't uh couldn't handle and I mean that's exciting stuff because I think we're all moving to that pieace day resistance electrification uh big convers ations I recently had some F3 conversations with uh uh a company that was talking about how a lot of people think that electrification is only on the ports well what they're trying to do is the infrastructure problem and they're saying well if I can get some of these distribution centers in the heartland of America they already have the power lines and the Transformers and they're trying

to tack them on the side what are your thoughts with the electrification because it feels like the electric elephant in the room and I'm not going like full lison I'm not going to shock one here but you know as we're thinking about uh the the conversations we just had with hydrogen and natural gas uh what what are your thoughts now currently on electric and Battery electric vehicles well I think it's slowed down a lot not necessarily in the medium duty space where you can make a better uh TCO uh number work you can actually pencil

it to the point where it's on par with gasoline or diesel I think the the big lift is in the um Class 8 space because you know we're waiting to see and I think this again is something that Trump 2.0 will will help us figure out is whether these greenhouse gas emission rules that are going into effect in nitrogen rules that are going into effect in 2027 are going to stay and if they do then the The Fleets are going to have to make some decisions pretty soon do they pre- buby and do what they've

done in every other time there's been an emission change and buy last year's models and then you know grandfather themselves in or do they go ahead and and take the take the bull by the horn either go electric or or something that will will get them the kind of credits they need to have more of their Fleet in diesel right I mean if you if you're buying in California you're pretty soon going to have to do something that looks a whole lot like electricity um whether you want to or not and and there is incent

of money uh still at the state levels uh in California in New York in Texas places like that that can certainly buy down the acquisition cost of an electric truck a Class A truck but uh you know that money is going to be pretty much state only we don't expect a lot of federal support for that beyond what you've had distributed already through infrastructure and through the uh inflation reduction act so uh I think you know it's it's still a subsidized business and it's going to be for a long time um you know we have

people that you know for their own reasons go to Electric so that they can in fact you know tell their customers yes I've got your sustainability issues covered right here um but right now it still feels very experimental they you know I guess when I think of Snyder they've got uh about a 100 electric trucks Class A trucks but were they have 8,000 total you know so so or maybe more I don't know if that's the right number but it's a lot so it's still a bit of a of a nent kind of approach um

I think we'll get there I just think it's going to take longer and it kind of ties into the lot of questions on 2027 phase three ruling EPA has basically from how I interpret it we add extra nox filtration some have basically stuck another de tank on it others are redesigning their engine um so on the diesel front uh is that something where uh you know if you have Trump 2.0 and they decide to change it and you're an oem who is wanting to roll it out and this takes years there's not is there a

switch you flip do you just say I'm going to keep making the last one or is this like when I'm locked in I'm still going to sell this m ofe 2027 whether you change it or not because I'm kind of stuck into it I don't think electrification is going away I think it could be slowed down um I think so much money from those two acts I mentioned uh the infrastructure Act and the inflation reduction act has been distributed you're not going to craw claw that back okay that money is out to the states it's

going to be spent I think the oems to some extent have spent a ton of money they're not going to give up on this they may slow walk it uh you know in terms of you know how much they actually do we've got again that just like you have with everything you've got companies like Lion Electric in Canada that's hanging on for deer life right now uh you know because they're a startup and it's very hard for them but for a diimler or a Volvo which are committed again you have to remember in Europe they're

farther ahead of North America on these things so they're committed they're all in and they will bring it bring it here as well and they'll do it and they'll say it's for sustainability reasons and you can't argue with that but the fact is if you're investing in it for one big Market you're probably going to do it for another and I think some of the some of the oems are are clearly going to do that um I think that uh you know they'll they'll stay with it they're not going to proba do a lot of

infrastructure they may participate you know most through infrastructure programs like ment in Europe and and Green Lane here in in in the US are just getting started for public charging but uh I think by and large these companies will be willing to sell you a charger but they're probably not going to take you all the way through the work that you know causes you to you know might take two or three years to get you know uh High High um you know highs speed charging at your location because there's so much has happen with utilities

and and so forth but um I think they'll be there I think they'll be there for those who want it I don't think they're going to be able to push it perhaps the way they might have wanted to yeah and uh final thoughts on the diesel front class8 sales uh the new year models on the diesel engines themselves uh if I'm a big uh OEM if I have those capacity slated for these much more energy you know they're going to be more expensive Class A tractors that have more nox reducing Tech do I just sell

them in Europe and say all right close enough and then just keep my old models in the US if it gets rolled back or am I in the point of no return where even if we see in 2026 the EPA goes you know phase three we're going to make it phase two and a half we're going to roll back some of this uh do I keep the same engine even though it's more expensive is there any thoughts in the crystal ball or we still too early th those decisions Thomas are made so early that it's

really hard to back away from them I mean you know the idea that well first of all let's let's give the uh us used to call it the diesel technology Forum but now it's the engine technology Forum let's give Alan Schaefer and his group a a bit of credit because most of the uh new engines that are coming out new diesel engines are much better than the ones pre-2010 and that sort of thing they're they're they're much cleaner they're not 100% zero of course but they are a lot better and I think that you know

knowing that um that's helpful to a point it doesn't help you much in California but it will help you in a lot of other places and I and I think that you know by and large the decisions that are being made because carb California era resour sources board uh you know required a a a version to sell in California for 2024 well Volvo and Peter and Packard both did it they both made one uh for that others are you know kind of waiting until 27 I don't think they're going to back off I think they're

going to go ahead as though that's going forward um the work has been done or is being done I don't think you're going to just sort of you know drop out of it there's no point in that uh but again you might not have quite the enthusiasm for but you're going to go ahead with it and uh you know final thoughts as well I want talk a little bit about you enough about the the topics here you've had such a long fun experience uh even being a journalist a podcaster you know communities leader uh you

know from all of your time and your experiences and stuff um you know what what was kind of some of the funnest things you got to work on even outside of freight waves uh you know even coming from your experiences at GM and then going into journalism yeah I mean you know the career as it as it as it winds down now is is pretty interesting and I've I've had to think about that a little bit because I've been doing this for 45 years right I mean in terms of a professional journalist and then you

know media relations person at GM for 20 years in in kind of amid that uh I think I've had some some wonderful experiences and and it's interesting because Thomas this whole truck thing is only about five or six years old for me I really didn't do this uh before 2018 I was a National Auto writer for the AP back in the 90s and then at the D right Free Press and I don't need to read my resume but the point is I've been mostly around the car business uh the last six years though around the

truck business and learning uh about it there's obviously carryover and some similarities I I think you know the the best parts of this uh is always not so much the technology it's the people you find people that you really enjoy working with and some of the entrepreneurial Spirit especially around autonomy which I think is just you know fascinating because these folks they want to tell their stories they're not they're not trying to hide from you usually some will but by and large they want to tell their stories and and I think you know bringing this

into uh into life in a narrative sort of way and telling stories with it is always uh the the most fun you can have I'm probably unusual in one sense in that I went from journalism to PR to journalism usually one one change is enough for a person but I sort of did it both ways um but I've really enjoyed it it's been great Freight waves was was tremendous four and a half years on the staff and writing and then this year you know doing the contract to work uh mostly thanks to Volvo truck right

I mean they sponsored the they sponsored the uh the podcast and the community so you know it's been great having them I hope they come back in the New Year hint hint folks over at Volvo uh you know it'll be good for you wouldn't it if they do that and I mean but I do think it's been huh it's it's been an absolute honor that's one thing that I wanted to point out as well why we why we get to talk is uh you know work in these kind of jobs we're mostly remote but it's

uh it's one of those things where definitely want to give you thanks for for all the work you've put in and even helping out with Freight waves bringing that experience um you know coming from Automotive to truck is there anyone you wanted to you gave me some earlier shoutouts from folks youve got to interview uh is there anyone you wanted to thank or or highlight to the listeners uh you know over the course of this or any shoutouts well our our our first guest when we did this show the first time was John O who's

the CEO of D truck North America who's a wonderful gentleman supremely knowledgeable guy all the folks at Daimler I think have been great to work with that's not to say others haven't but but they've been incredibly generous in terms of supporting what we do both from a travel perspective you know whether it's the uh IAA transport meeting in in Germany or or you know hydrogen efforts that they undertook you know they they've uh they've made it uh accessible to us in in ways that we couldn't do on our own and uh and that's been tremendous

so I really appreciate them I you know shout out to Steve gersi at Nicola he's got a tough job there I've known Steve for 30 years going back to our really before our GM days when we worked together there when he was on Wall Street and he's got a tough one there he really does but uh I I really like Steve and appreciate Steve for all he's done for us uh over time you know coming on at coming on the show at times when he could have easily said I don't think that's a good idea

but he he's a man of his word and he did it and and I really appreciate that and there's so many others I don't think we have time to to touch on all of them but those those two come to mind perfect Al really really appreciate just get a chat with you as as well I know uh it's going to be fun for me to take over the show but um you know it would be uh definitely going to miss uh just getting to hear not only your podcast but you know getting to hear your

work and so you know from the freay waves team as well just want to give you a special thanks and uh for all your service and happy retirement I saw in the slack Channel you're talking about Aruba what's what's next for Alan Adler where in the world will Alan Adler go next we we just we just booked that and I think it's something that because you know they say of the area in Michigan where we live that there's four great months that are unparalleled anywhere in the world then there's eight months of suck well January

is one of those months and uh so we just decided that uh we'll call it a retirement trip but we're gonna we're going to do about five days in Aruba um just put that together should be a lot of fun and uh start to do some of the things that are fun I you know what I've been told and I I give my sister credit for this she said don't wait until you're too old to do the stuff you want to do so we're going to go do some stuff I'll be thinking about you and

I'll also listen to that Beach Boys song cooko mission's one of the places here you got to go check out everyone uh Allan thank you so much I'm going to I'm going to toss it back over to you for one last time uh you know take the rains and let's lay in the plane sir well you know what everybody thank you so much for those of you watched regularly and those who who just stopped in occasionally we so appreciate you we appreciate the audience that we've built uh stay with Thomas he's GNA do a great

job and uh thank you everybody for watching and uh as we like to say we'll see you next time [Music]