January 24, 2024 • 43 mins
This week on the pod, we're continuing our conversation on electric trucks with Freightwaves' Midwest Bureau Chief and journalist Alan Adler. Alan will discuss his recent articles dealing with the advent of electric trucks, and share insider knowledge about their implementation. After that, we'll share a touching story about drivers helping people in a dire situation, and bring you some safety tips for the terrible weather plaguing the country.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
What's up everybody and welcome into the H and M Trucking podcast episode 44 for your ear holes.
I'm your host,
Marcus.
Thank you so much for being here today.
Please don't forget to click that subscribe button,
whether you're checking us out on youtube or you're listening to the podcast on your favorite platform.
Clicking that subscribe button helps us immensely.
(00:21):
And it's also so an easy and free way for you to know when we pop out new episodes,
which just so happens to be every Wednesday at 5 a.m. central.
So click that subscribe button and help us out.
What are we getting into today?
Well,
interesting uh thoughts on that.
I've got some new drivers that are headed to uh H and M to join the fleet.
(00:43):
I want to acknowledge them uh right here off the top.
Uh because we got one guy that's actually coming back for a second term of duty,
Vern butts.
He's a return driver.
He's gonna be in a van and he's going OTR.
Welcome back to the big show,
Vern.
We've also got Mark Nash,
(01:04):
he's gonna be driving a van OTR.
Welcome,
Mark.
Glad to have you next up.
We welcome Travis Jackson to the Van Otr Fleet.
Welcome Travis.
And finally,
we've got Stephen Black,
(01:24):
who's gonna be a new Omaha Shag driver.
Welcome to the team.
I love this.
I'm so happy that Sherry Vogler is sending me new drivers to introduce every single week.
Uh We are happy to have you on the team and we are also happy to have you in the audience for the H and M Trucking Podcast.
(01:47):
So as always be safe out there.
And uh welcome to the big show,
man.
This is where,
uh this is where drivers come to be.
Great.
I nobody's ever said that to me.
I just feel like that's the case because I've talked to so many drivers that are great and uh really excited about uh the fleet always growing here on the H and M Trucking podcast.
(02:07):
So big ups and hats off to all of those gentlemen.
And again,
welcome to H and M Trucking.
What are we getting into today?
Well,
a little bit of a continuation of what we got into last week,
we talked about the advent of electric trucks.
Uh I heard from a couple of drivers that shared their thoughts with me,
Brian Whitesides and Tom Woods.
(02:29):
Um Neither one of them were super excited about electric trucks and of course,
Brian actually has a little experience driving one.
Um So I wanted to get kind of,
I,
I don't want to call it the other side of the,
of the argument here because it's not really that,
but I had a great conversation with the Midwest Bureau Chief of Freight waves.com.
(02:53):
His name is Alan Adler.
He's a journalist.
Uh,
he's written for the Detroit Free Press.
The guy is awesome and he is very well connected in the trucking industry.
He wrote an article recently on freight waves that some of you may have read right after the uh the turn of the new Year.
The article basically had to deal with shaking off inadequate strides of the electric truck innovation,
(03:19):
I guess would be the way to put it.
Allen's article basically had to do with the fact that uh a lot of strides weren't made in 2023 or the ones that were made weren't big enough strides to uh keep us heading into the future when it comes to electric trucks.
So I wanted to bring him on this podcast and talk to him and get his peek behind the curtain on what he thinks is going on and uh it's a great conversation.
(03:42):
We'll get that right around the corner for you here.
I also have some safety tips coming from not only H and M but some things that I've sourced off the inter webs myself because uh as sherry so eloquently put it,
things are getting a little crash out in the Midwest right now.
And uh we have some terrible weather plaguing this country.
(04:03):
From coast to coast.
I know that because I'm over here on the west coast and there are three inches of ice on everything.
There was a child ice skating through my neighborhood earlier today.
Ice skating.
Ok.
I've not seen something of the sort ever,
but it was funny when I walked out to my driveway,
(04:24):
that was my first thought,
man.
If I still had my hockey skates,
I could grab a stick and some gloves and go out and hit some slappers at my neighbor's garage door.
Uh,
don't have the skates anymore.
And,
uh,
I also do have health insurance now,
which that would have married up perfectly.
But I saw this kid ripping hot laps.
He did like four laps around the loop that I live on and he was fine because there's an ice rink all over everything.
(04:48):
And I know that that's not independently happening in Oregon.
It's literally as I said,
coast to coast.
So we'll get to some safety tips a little bit later on in the show.
But first my conversation with the Midwest bureau chief from Freight waves.com,
Alan Adler from Omaha,
Nebraska to whatever lane you're driving.
(05:10):
This is the H AND M Trucking Podcast.
Your host,
Marcus Bridges.
Excited about this next,
uh,
next guest joining us here.
I'm so excited.
I can't even speak straight.
Uh,
please welcome to the H and M Trucking podcast.
Alan Adler,
(05:31):
he's the Detroit Bureau Chief for Freight waves.com journalist and also a podcaster himself.
Check out his podcast Truck Tech.
It's over at the Freight Waves,
youtube Alan.
Thank you so much for being here today.
Thanks.
Let me fix that title real quick because I left Detroit and we moved to West Michigan.
So now I call myself Midwest bureau chief,
whatever that's worth still doing the same work though.
(05:53):
Great,
great.
Well,
I appreciate you correcting me there.
Uh Love the work that you guys do over at freight waves.
It's actually the,
uh,
the entire reason that I,
I had you on here today,
I was reading your article entitled Electric trucks should shake off setbacks in 2024 from January 23rd.
And,
uh,
we've been talking a little bit about electric trucks here,
(06:14):
um,
for the last week or so on the H and M Trucking Podcast.
And I'll be honest with you,
Allen,
uh,
the,
the drivers that I've had on so far,
they aren't too into it.
Uh,
it's not something that they are,
uh,
really that excited about or something that they believe in at this point.
Uh,
what's your experience in talking with,
uh,
drivers and other folks from the transportation industry?
(06:36):
What's the,
what's the temperature on electric trucking innovation right now?
Well,
Mark,
I think there's two things at play.
One is that,
you know,
change is really hard.
Nobody likes it.
Uh,
certainly the fleets are,
are gonna struggle,
uh,
even with incentives in terms of the cost differences in,
in purchasing electric trucks for their fleets.
Um I would say this,
I think that the,
(06:58):
the feeling on the part of trucking that who needs it all this stuff doesn't go anywhere.
I heard this last night.
I,
I do a segment on SXM on Road dog Trucking with Grace Sharkey,
um,
who's a colleague at Freightways and has that show and had a driver call us last night and say,
you know,
we hear about this stuff all the time and,
and,
you know,
this is great.
That's great.
(07:19):
But he wasn't a believer.
And I think the only people truthfully who really like electric trucks at this point are those who have driven them because they are a lot more comfortable.
They have terrific um uh torque and pick up.
Uh,
they're different obviously from,
you know,
somebody who runs through 18 years or 14 years of a,
of a truck.
But,
(07:39):
but really,
um,
I think it is an exper exponential thing.
I think the people who experience them like them,
but I think that's a very slow adoption process.
Absolutely.
I,
I could relate it a little bit to my career,
you know,
never having been behind the wheel of a truck.
I did start my broadcasting career in terrestrial radio and,
uh we used to laugh at podcasts all the time.
(08:01):
Uh,
10 years ago.
Uh Never thought that the technology she would catch on.
Never thought it would be something that,
uh,
everybody wanted a piece of.
And here we are in 2023 everybody and their dog has a podcast and,
uh,
it's one of the best ways that we all share information.
So that's just kind of the nature of innovation I think.
And,
um,
it'll be interesting to see how many of those,
(08:23):
uh,
true blue,
you know,
old school truck drivers get behind the wheel of an electric truck here,
uh as,
as we move into the future and,
and try to,
I guess shed that stigma a little bit because it's always been interesting to me that,
you know,
this to me is,
is cool new technology,
but at the same time,
I can understand why a lot of drivers uh are not buying in yet.
(08:45):
Obviously,
infrastructure is a big part of that and you talk a lot about that in the article that I was referencing earlier.
There's a couple things,
a couple of quotes here just real shortly that I wanted to,
to read.
Is it uh major but inadequate strides for the infrastructure in,
in 2023?
Can you talk me through the positives and the negatives that the heavy duty electric truck innovation uh went through in 2023?
(09:10):
Yeah,
I,
I'll try,
I think,
I think when it comes to heavy duty electric trucks,
you know,
they're still ex extremely limited in terms of the range they can give you on a single charge.
So right now,
uh,
you've got some dry adoption,
you know,
in the ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach,
of course,
and up up in Oakland to a lesser extent,
but I think what's really going on here is that,
(09:31):
you know,
until we get uh,
trucks that are able to take a,
a higher rate of charge and uh,
you know,
like the Tesla semi,
it,
it,
it,
it can charge at 750 kilowatt hours.
Um You know,
you're really gonna be dealing with at least the hangover effect of range anxiety,
you know,
am I gonna get stranded out here?
What,
you know,
so we're going to come rescue me,
(09:52):
that sort of thing.
So you've got,
you've got that at play.
Um I think,
you know,
one of the things that really you have to look out for electric trucks is use case and,
and the place we're seeing the most adoption right now is in a sort of return to base uh medium duty,
call it class 3 to 53 to 6,
uh sort of range where,
(10:12):
you know,
you,
you have a prescribed route or a pretty similar route every day,
you know what your needs are.
And you can,
you can charge these up uh back at the base when you go home at night,
they can charge overnight,
they don't even need DC charging.
They can charge an alternating current,
what's called level two.
And,
um,
you know,
So,
so that works.
And that's a workable case where you are already getting closer to parody in terms of total cost of ownership.
(10:38):
Heavy duty is a much different animal.
Um I'll just give you a Snyder,
for example,
they've got 92 class eight freight under Cascadia right now.
That sounds like a big number until you consider that about 1% of their total.
So it's a slow curve,
as I said in my,
uh in the 1st 1st comment,
infrastructure is coming and it's coming from some interesting places.
(11:01):
Um,
we've got a lot of start ups that are well funded,
uh that,
that,
you know,
uh either through venture capital or through uh real estate has been a big investor in this uh area.
And,
uh,
you know,
they want to,
uh,
you know,
get into the charging space,
they see it not only for trucks and,
and that sort of thing,
but they see the needs at properties,
they own elsewhere,
(11:21):
warehouses and so forth.
So I think that,
you know,
we're gonna see a fair amount of money coming into that area.
You also have a lot of government money coming in for infrastructure.
It's still not enough.
I mean,
it's not anywhere near what we're gonna need.
I mean,
I think it's,
the California Energy Commission says 100 and 57,000,
trucking charging stations are gonna be needed by 2030.
(11:43):
We're not close.
Marcus.
Yeah,
not close is,
is one way to characterize it for sure.
I,
you know,
I,
I want to reference here something that we played on the podcast last week were some comments from uh the American Trucking Association's uh Chairman Andrew Boyle.
Everybody saw the viral video when he talked to Congress about this and he said,
uh it,
(12:03):
it sort of just to simplify what he said,
we're putting the cart before the horse when it comes to the infrastructure needed to support,
uh,
you know,
a full countrywide fleet of electric trucks.
How do you feel about that?
Uh Do you think that's a good summary of the situation right now?
Well,
I've talked to Andrew in the past.
Um,
you know,
they were involved to boil trucking,
(12:24):
was involved in the early days of the pandemic and moving.
Um,
you know,
some of the earliest of the immunization uh stuff.
And I would say that I do agree,
I think in all cases with electric,
whether we're talking battery electric or hydrogen.
Um,
the best way to do this is,
is to do it in sort of a regional or a route based way.
(12:46):
Uh you know,
figure out what you're really gonna need.
I mean,
we've got AAA group out there now called Green Lane,
which is basically made up of Dior Truck,
North America,
uh Black Rock and uh uh new energy.
Uh and they're gonna put uh $650 million into charging um,
infrastructure mostly for medium and heavy duty trucks and hydrogen trucks.
(13:09):
But they're going to do it in California.
They're going to do it in Texas and they're gonna look at,
you know,
some of the east coast,
uh,
port areas,
they're not gonna put them in Nebraska.
No,
if that's in Nebraska.
But,
uh,
but,
but they're not going to put them in flyover states,
they're not going to put them in places where it doesn't make a lot of sense to run electric trucks because you don't have the infrastructure and arguably,
(13:29):
you know,
the,
the gains that you're not also running long distances with electric trucks at this time.
So I,
I think that the,
the approach is very deliberate and I think it's something where you're gonna find corridors that makes sense.
Um,
you know,
for electric trucks,
uh,
but you're not gonna find a nationwide roll out.
We're not gonna replace all the places that people fill up on diesel.
(13:51):
Yeah.
And there's so many of them,
you know,
we talk about,
uh,
one of the,
the problems with the industry that we talk about a lot on this podcast is,
uh,
parking availability.
And I start to think about,
you know,
every charging station is another parking spot that we don't have right now to begin with.
There are,
uh,
there is a large shortage out there.
A lot of truck drivers end up driving around for a long time before they can find a safe and legal place to park.
(14:16):
And not only are we talking about adding charging stations,
but we also need those parking spots.
There's other parking spots we could be adding that don't need a charging station that would help a lot of drivers out there.
But it's kind of two different problems,
uh,
that,
that kind of,
you know,
just shade over on their,
on their borders there.
You touched on something a little bit ago that,
(14:37):
that kind of sparked a bit of my attention,
Alan,
do you think that there's much advantage in maybe rolling out this whole electric truck innovation?
Uh,
first in medium duty stuff to kind of see,
you're talking about local routes,
you're talking about,
you know,
trucks that are home every day or back at the terminal every day,
uh,
for charging,
would it be advantageous to go and just concentrate on medium duty right now?
(15:01):
That's still going to cut out a lot of,
uh,
of our,
um,
emissions that's still going to lower the carbon footprint if you will.
Uh,
what do you think?
Think about that?
I,
I definitely think that it's already happening.
It doesn't matter what I think of it,
like I said,
you know,
in,
in the fleet world as,
you know,
everything is TCO,
it's,
it's what's my total cost.
And if I can either,
(15:22):
you know,
you have some incentives,
of course available right now in California,
New York and other places that are helpful,
but they're not going to be there forever.
So you've got to figure out how to run your business with electric vehicles.
Uh and,
and still be able to,
you know,
make a profit.
So I think,
uh you know,
the North American Council for freight efficiency,
um and others have uh have the Atria has also done some work.
(15:45):
The American Transportation Research Institute have also done work to look at what makes sense in terms of,
of these trucks,
where can you,
um,
best make the business case and medium duty is by far and away the way to do that.
Now,
you know,
some of your big fleets that don't do a lot of medium duty or do a lot of pickup and delivery and that kind of thing,
(16:09):
you know,
are,
are still going to need to have some of the heavy duty trucks,
but it's not something that you're gonna see that near the level of adoption,
at least in the next couple of years that you,
that you'll see for medium duty.
Um,
you know,
we've got a lot of start ups out there that are building medium duty.
We've also seen,
you know,
Dime would bring in a brand,
a new brand.
It,
it used to be a Mitsubishi Fuso,
(16:30):
but now,
uh it's,
it's called R on uh class four and five trucks.
Uh We're getting workhorse which has struggled for years to have a viable product.
Uh Now has got a couple of decent size customers in California for a class five truck that they're doing.
So,
I think there is going to be,
and it's interesting.
I just finished registering for the work truck show before we,
(16:53):
we got together and I think it's gonna be very interesting to see just what kind of orders these guys are gonna see.
Um,
over the next few years.
I,
I suspect it will be much higher than it will be for the class A.
And what do you see as far as the infrastructure that follows that?
Is it,
is it going to be well enough in place to support that increase in orders in the next few years?
(17:14):
Yes,
probably because you can do some level of charging depending on the size of your fleet.
You can do some level of charging right at your operation and it,
it doesn't involve a lot of trenching and things like that,
especially if you're using like I have in my garage.
You know,
I,
I don't have an electric vehicle,
but I've got a,
I've got a stub for a level two charger,
but when we do get electric vehicle because I suspect that will happen someday.
(17:37):
Um So,
you know,
uh setting that up is not near as hard or as expensive or as difficult as it is to come up with the high power charging that you need.
And we go back to the infrastructure question for,
for class eight.
I use Snyder again.
They've opened a very large facility,
uh,
you know,
with some,
you know,
a lot of subsidies from the state of California,
(17:59):
um,
in El Monte to charge their trucks to be able to do 32 of them at a time at a pretty high rate of charge,
you know,
175 kilowatts to 350 kilowatts.
That'll get you 20 to 80% of your charge in about 45 minutes.
Give or take,
ok.
Um,
that's still longer than a coffee break,
but it's,
uh,
it's helpful.
(18:21):
Um,
you've got private ones and I'll just name a few,
not any particular order,
but WEV has a operation at the Long Beach port.
They're a start up,
they basically have survived thus far on grants,
you know,
that,
that have paid for a lot of what they're doing.
And I think,
you know,
they're,
they're an opportunity charging place where,
you know,
let's say a Snyder truck is out there and like picking up Snyder,
(18:43):
not for any reason,
but let's say a Snyder truck is out there.
It needs a top off,
you know,
it just to get back to wherever it's going.
That's what a Yev can provide as well as providing sort of a truck as a service where,
you know,
those who are reticent or don't have the cash to get into an electric truck right away.
Can do a monthly deal where they can get the truck,
the electricity and everything in one price and then just go about,
(19:07):
you know,
running the route.
So I think that the industry is changing a little bit at the,
at the upper end there.
Um,
you know,
the,
at the class eight and your big fleets are still gonna be running a lot of diesel for a long time.
Marcus,
don't worry about that.
Yeah,
I,
I don't worry about it much and I,
I,
with some of the drivers that I talked to on the show,
Alan,
I feel like I do need to remind them every now and then because you get the,
(19:30):
uh,
the feeling that,
uh,
they kind of feel like this thing is right around the corner.
Um,
some of them and,
and others obviously,
I think kind of see through it and understand that there needs to be a lot more,
uh,
of a build out in this country before we ever see,
you know,
a ton of electric trucks on the road.
But where do you think that stigma comes from Alan?
(19:51):
Why is it that the driver,
if you were to just reach into a random bucket and grab 10 drivers out regardless of how long they've been working for their fleet,
regardless of how long they've been driving.
I think eight out of 10 of those guys are gonna tell you that,
you know,
electric trucks are not going to work or I don't want them or I don't want to drive one.
What do you think is behind that mindset in the industry?
(20:14):
II,
I like to compare it honestly to automated transmissions.
You know,
those were also something that,
you know,
a decade ago or 15 years ago,
nobody wanted anything to do with either.
And now they're 90 some percent of,
of all trucks.
Um,
you've got an aging driver force out there.
Obviously,
truck drivers are getting older.
They're leaving the business.
Um,
younger people coming in have never driven and,
(20:36):
uh,
a stick basically,
they certainly haven't run it through 18 years.
I,
I think,
I think some of what you're seeing is the same thing that occurred when ATM S came about.
It does take a while to get people used to them.
But as I said,
the only people I've heard who,
like electric trucks are the ones who've been in electric trucks.
You know,
it,
it,
it's,
it's very hard to conceptualize the difference in driving the two things if you've never done it.
(21:00):
And so,
you know,
why would I not be against it?
I mean,
it's like,
it's so much easier to sort of reject something.
Um,
and I'm not,
I'm not speaking as a,
you know,
a AAA cheerleader for these things,
but I do think that the adoption rates,
it will come through word of mouth as somebody's driving them.
You know,
they talk to one of the early,
really early adopters of hydrogen a few weeks ago who,
(21:23):
who purchased a Niccola truck and he's a one man show.
He's not,
he's not a fleet.
He's a,
he's an O and O and kind of got into the business very late,
but loved the idea of trying to drive a hydrogen truck and he's doing it and he's gonna,
he'll run routes wherever he can find hydrogen,
which is harder like than finding battery electric charging at this point.
So I do think the adoption,
(21:44):
as I said earlier will be slow,
but I think it's coming and I think that,
you know,
a lot of it,
of course,
is driven by regulation.
Now,
we saw the advanced clean fleet rule in California get delayed slightly,
but don't kid yourself,
Marcus.
It's common,
I mean,
you know,
it's delayed but it's still coming and California doesn't lose these things on a long term basis when they want something.
And of course,
(22:05):
if you know anything about the air quality around the ports and things like that out there,
it is something where you really do need a,
a ma major change.
Yeah,
I,
I think so.
And,
uh,
you know,
as if California needed any other reason to be at the top of the list of places that drivers don't want to go.
Uh,
this is gonna do that for him,
but you're right,
they have a miraculous track record of getting this legislation pushed through and kind of being at the forefront of,
(22:31):
of innovation that doesn't always translate to a,
a good trip for a driver if you're going to break it down that far.
I,
I also see some similarities here.
You know,
if you look at just consumer passenger vehicles,
us,
four wheelers,
we got into electric rigs right about the same time that we started to get into autonomous rigs.
(22:51):
And I think that there's a little bit of that memory that sits in a driver's mind.
Hey,
when they released the Tesla,
it wasn't,
but a couple of years and all the thing,
all of a sudden this thing was driving itself,
when is,
uh,
the fleet's going to start driving for themselves?
When are the fleets going to start driving for themselves?
And when does that take my job as a driver?
Um,
I see a little bit of,
(23:12):
of kind of bleed over from that.
I think we're even further away from autonomous,
uh heavy duty trucks than we are from just straight up electric.
But I'm gonna default to you here and ask as far as in your research and,
and the things you've seen and the people you've talked to are we looking at,
uh at,
at autonomous,
basically self-driving trucks anytime in our near future.
(23:35):
Yeah,
I think we are actually not big numbers,
but you've got two companies,
both of them are start ups.
One is well funded.
The other is private Aurora innovation and Kodiak Robotics.
These are both companies,
Aurora is now based in Pittsburgh,
but they were on the west coast for a long time.
And,
and the Kodiak Robotics is,
is based out of Mountain to California,
which is Silicon Valley.
Um,
(23:56):
does a lot of its work.
Both of them operate heavily in Texas and they've been running autonomous with safety drivers there for several years now.
Um,
mostly on I 40 kind of Dallas to,
I get that right.
35 or 40.
I'm sorry,
I think it might be 35 from Dallas to Houston and,
and back they're running real freight loads.
Um,
(24:16):
and that sort of thing at ce S last week,
both companies were there.
I'll have,
uh I ran a my podcast last week was,
was with Kodiak talking about its sixth generation truck,
which is essentially ready for driverless operation.
They plan to do that this year in Texas.
Uh Aurora also does with 20 trucks.
They're talking about doing it.
(24:37):
Um,
you know,
with no driver on a commercial basis,
you know,
actually for real customers and,
and that sort of thing again,
it's gonna start really slow,
but I do think it's coming,
I think that the investments that have been made and especially in uh in trucking.
Uh because again,
when you talk about use case,
I don't know if Marcus,
(24:58):
if you really need an autonomous uh car to take you to Walmart,
I just don't know that you need that.
But if you can run a truck 20 hours a day minimum without a driver.
And I know this sounds like it's taking away jobs.
Now,
the industry,
the autonomous will tell you that it's just changing jobs.
Uh,
but if you can do that for 20 hours a day and take 40% of the cost at operating that truck,
(25:22):
who's not gonna do that.
Right.
I mean,
especially big fleets.
So,
again,
it's gonna be in a route based system.
It's gonna be,
you know,
I said Houston to Dallas for now.
Um,
but it's really interesting that Aurora is working with Continental,
which is,
you know,
one of the biggest tier one suppliers in the world to essentially harden and make their autonomous system for scaling.
(25:43):
So you're talking hundreds and thousands of these directly,
you know,
added to trucks on the assembly line and,
you know,
based on orders,
of course,
they're not gonna do these for,
for dealer for dealer stock.
But the idea is that,
you know,
they're looking ahead at this being a real thing in terms of real numbers and I,
and then that's gonna be late decade.
(26:03):
But I do think that,
you know,
we've got a lot of pushback,
especially the teamsters and some legislatures.
You've got,
you know,
California last year,
you know,
legislature was 90% in favor of banning autonomous trucks over £10,000 on the roads in California.
Um,
Governor Newsom vetoed that.
He said,
nope,
he said we're not gonna stop technology.
(26:24):
They're trying again in California,
but Indiana and New York,
there's those states now are seeking to ban autonomous trucks that is without a driver uh in,
in the seat.
Um You know,
this is,
this,
this is a big cause celeb for the teamsters because they see it strictly as,
as a negative for jobs.
Um Again,
you know,
I think there's,
(26:44):
there's another side to that but I,
I feel like,
you know,
at this point you're gonna have people that are pushing back on it,
they're gonna conflate it with what's happened with,
you know,
some of the early,
uh,
uh,
Robotaxis.
Um,
again,
I would argue that even with the problems that cruise and,
uh,
mostly cruise has had,
um,
it's nowhere near what happens with human drivers.
(27:05):
I mean,
they're much safer,
you know,
they're just,
uh,
um,
up there there's a lot more focus on them.
So I feel like,
you know,
we're gonna see autonomous trucking where it's permitted where there isn't a lot of hassle and Texas gets a lot of attention because they've been very open to having these trucks on their roads and,
and,
you know,
they've got a lot of,
you know,
cross routes for,
(27:25):
you know,
major cross routes and,
uh,
you know,
whether it's,
you know,
Houston to Atlanta or,
or Dallas to,
to,
uh,
El Pa.
So,
you know,
those are major routes and they are routes that,
you know,
could be quite lucrative if you did not have a driver in the seat,
for sure.
Yeah,
I,
I sometimes wonder how long they're going to have to test the autonomous truck with a safety,
(27:49):
uh,
basically a safety guy sitting in the seat there and,
and making sure that everything is,
is going off without a hitch because again,
you know,
just the idea of a truck loaded with 80,000,
some odd pounds driving down the road without anybody in it.
To me is it's II,
I feel like I'm watching an episode of the Jetsons,
Alan,
to be honest with you,
it seems so far removed from,
(28:11):
from what we see every day.
But I think that's the nature of technology.
It moves uh exponentially fast,
almost too fast for you to wrap your head around it.
And,
you know,
I think it's a lot,
the same with the electric trucks that we're going to deal with here and that is there are going to be unforeseen circumstances in all of these decisions that get made and we're making these decisions uh within the legislature,
(28:35):
hopefully to move the country forward and to be safe and to uh waste less money and kill the environment less and all these good things.
But oftentimes it's not until 10 years down the road after uh you've adopted these things that you see what the,
the,
the downstream effects really were,
uh especially negative downstream effects.
And um it'll be interesting to see,
(28:57):
what do you see any big negatives coming out of,
uh,
the electric trucking or autonomous trucking innovations,
aside from the potential loss of jobs for drivers.
Well,
I think there's,
you know,
I've,
I've looked into this and there's more looking into it to do honestly in terms of the electric grid and what it's capable of and things like that.
(29:18):
I mean,
you know,
people say,
how can you run electric trucks in California when you can't even keep,
you know,
the power on during,
you know,
a brownout.
Uh So I think we have some,
some work to do clearly,
the industry does the utilities do in terms of,
you know,
opening up the grid a little bit maybe and looking at it in different ways than,
than we have in the past.
Um Again,
(29:38):
I think,
you know,
I spend so much time at Marcus on these subjects that I wonder at times if I don't become a little bit of the cheerleader,
I don't wanna be because I'm hearing from people that are working on this stuff,
not the people who are,
you know,
uh suspicious of it or skeptical of it.
I I think you've got questions honest honestly around,
you know,
grid capabilities and you know,
(29:59):
where can you actually put this infrastructure at,
you know,
megawatt and you know,
510 megawatts of power that might be as much as it would take to,
to power and uh sports stadium Right.
Um,
you know,
but I think it's doable and I think the idea of looking at,
you know,
how to do it,
um,
again that we're not looking at overnight adoption,
(30:20):
I don't think it's a question of that at all but I do think that,
that this will march on.
I think that,
you know,
autonomy is interesting because if it does work and,
and you don't have an increase in crashes and we've got more crashes,
honestly.
And,
you know,
we have a lot of,
a lot of people racing to beat the clock.
I mean,
(30:40):
you know,
a thous truck doesn't have hours of service.
It has to worry about because it does have a driver and that driver doesn't get tired,
doesn't have to go to the bathroom,
all those things,
you know,
but I think at the same time,
uh,
you know,
until you get a bit of a track record going with driverless trucks,
um,
who knows?
I can't predict the downsides.
(31:01):
Maybe there aren't any,
I'm sure there's some,
but,
you know,
maybe they're not as big as we might think.
Let's hope so.
Alan,
uh,
you are the Midwest bureau chief for Freight waves.com and also the host of the Truck Tech podcast over at the Freight Waves,
youtube,
Alan Adler.
Thank you so much for sharing your time today.
I look forward to having you on again.
(31:22):
I feel like we've got some great insight from you today and I'm gonna keep checking out all the articles over at freight waves.com.
Well,
Marcus,
thanks for the time.
Thanks for having me and be happy to come back if you want me back.
That's great,
Alan.
Take care.
We'll see you soon.
Ok.
All right,
bye bye.
(31:42):
Great stuff from Allen there.
Looking forward to getting him back on the podcast to get his insight very soon.
Uh Thank you so much Alan for your time there.
Uh I love talking to people that are that hooked in.
It's amazing when you say like,
hey,
I played a clip from this guy who was testifying to congress uh last year.
And he's like,
oh,
yeah,
(32:02):
I was just talking to him recently.
That's the type of hookup that we'll give you right here on the H and M Trucking podcast.
So it's winter.
Obviously,
we've already talked about it.
We have bad weather plaguing the United States.
And I want to remind you that the new safety campaign at H and M trucking is off and running and there will be a new focus every single week,
(32:25):
uh,
during the week that we are recording this podcast,
which you won't hear until next week.
So understand this was last week's safety campaign,
but it's still a nice little refresher and a reminder to check out these things that could affect you out on the road.
And uh the campaign for this week is that the situation is fluid,
(32:46):
make sure that you check them and I think that pertains to your fluids.
Uh,
the post says is your truck getting the fluids,
it needs check the levels of critical fluids such as power steering,
coolant,
windshield washer fluid and engine oil during your pre tripp inspection.
Don't forget to look over your reservoirs,
tanks and hoses for any leaks,
(33:06):
splits or cuts and lastly make sure the hoses for your water pump,
coolant oil and power steering are all connected and mounted securely.
It's like one thing in there.
To me that kind of is like an unsaid rule.
But something that's really important this time of year is that windshield washer fluid.
(33:27):
Uh,
the stuff's not very expensive.
So,
having an extra jug of it on hand at all times is a great idea.
Not only for truck drivers but for four wheelers as well.
I know with all these weird chemicals that they put on the road,
you can get a sheen across to your windshield.
That'll make you feel like you've been listening,
Jimmy Hendrix and Purple Haze for the last three hours.
(33:48):
It's hard to see through and you can't get it off with just a standard,
uh,
gas station window scrubbing.
So make sure you get some of that really good high-quality,
window washer fluid and,
uh,
also keep your eye on all of those fluids,
uh,
because they're gonna be very important.
Don't want anybody to be getting stranded out in this weather.
(34:11):
Uh,
more than you might have already been because I do know that there are some people that have been stranded and it's been pretty crazy.
I do want to give you 10 tips real quick.
This is from tantara.us.
Uh,
these are just general winter safety tips for truck drivers.
Uh,
number one,
maintain the perfect view.
Make sure your windshield wipers are in excellent conditions.
(34:33):
Uh,
your wipers clear,
freezing rain and snow for your driving safety,
ensure you also have plenty of all season wiper fluid already covered that uh become a weather watcher.
I talked with a bunch of drivers over these last couple of weeks and the ones that are the best prepared are the ones that are constantly checking the weather knowing what's in front of them.
(34:54):
And there's multiple resources for that,
you know,
weather apps on smartphones and your Samar and everything are great.
I've also seen a lot of drivers uh going to social media forums like rubbers side down and H and M trucking friends and family to see if there's anybody that can offer them a little bit of a peek into the future of their day.
Great ideas there pack a bag or two.
(35:16):
You may depart from sunny and warm location and end up driving in hazardous conditions.
So make sure you're prepared with emergency supply kits as well as extra food.
Uh watch your entry and exit.
Take extra caution when entering your cab if it's icy or slick outside.
This is a big one and uh a lot of people don't understand,
you know,
some of you guys,
(35:36):
your professional drivers out there,
one of your comrades in the professional driver,
uh sphere are UPS drivers.
And I've talked to some UPS drivers both past and present that will tell you that UPS is huge on three points of contact.
That means 2 ft and one hand holding on to something or 1 ft and two hands,
(35:58):
always three points of contact.
I know it's not possible every single second of the day.
But if you keep your three points of contact in these icy conditions,
it'll help you stay on your feet.
Nobody wants to bust their ass right before they get in and sit on it for an eight hour trip.
So be careful out there,
watch your entry and exit and the rest of this stuff just has to deal with.
(36:18):
Slow it down.
Use your headlights know when to pull over as the Great James Fonda said,
uh a while back,
don't try too hard and uh finally approach bridges with caution.
Everybody knows the bridge is up off the ground.
There's a cold river or lake or body of water running underneath of it.
That bridge gets colder than the normal roads and it gets icy.
(36:40):
So make sure to stay up on your bridge knowledge while you're watching the weather moving on from this.
And this is kind of the last part of our uh cold Weather series.
And I mean,
it's not really a series at this point.
We've just been talking about it a lot because of the storm that's been ripping through the United States,
(37:01):
as I told you earlier in the segment and earlier in the podcast,
it's frozen solid out here in Oregon and it has been for a few days now.
I found a post on reddit,
the,
uh R slash trucker subreddit that hit really close to home literally and figure fly for me.
I five southbound,
(37:22):
about 10 miles south of Eugene was closed because of the road conditions for 12 hours right after the storm hit.
That's a long time to just be sitting in your car or your truck.
And I look at it from a four wheelers perspective because that's what I am.
I would not have water.
I would not have food.
I might not have enough gas to stay idling for 12 hours.
(37:45):
So these are the types of things that run through my mind.
Listen to this reddit post uh from a user named Dizzy Dame.
It says to the truckers who spent last night with us trapped on I five northbound in Oregon.
Thank you sincerely.
Thank you.
Sorry.
I wasn't sure if this was the right place to post this,
but they really deserve recognition for everything they did to help us stranded motorists.
(38:10):
We were literally stopped on I five near Cottage Grove Oregon overnight for 12 hours.
So many truckers walked through the endless lines of cars,
passing out bottles of water and snacks.
I saw so many of you carrying completely full boxes down the highway and not walking back until everything in your box was gone.
(38:30):
We can't thank you enough for your kindness.
I won't ever forget your selflessness.
I want to edit this to add my comment about the conditions.
It was 19 degrees.
Last night,
the roads were covered in a thick layer of ice.
There wasn't any official presence,
not even news about it before it was too late.
We were all stranded with no way off the interstate and no way to turn around.
(38:53):
Everyone idled their engines on and off all night long.
I truly hope no one was seriously injured from being without,
for such an extended period of time.
These truckers probably saved lives with what they gave.
I'm sure most people were completely unprepared,
huge hats off to those of you that were out there helping.
(39:13):
And I know that this isn't something that just independently happened in the State of Oregon and it's really close to my house so it touches my feelers.
No,
no,
no.
This is something that happens all the way across the United States on our highways and byways all the time.
And if it wasn't for truckers being well prepared and also kind to their fellow humans,
(39:34):
we would have terrible stories coming out of Oregon right now about people who died from exposure or lack of water or anything like that.
Hunger,
12 hours is a long time.
And,
yeah.
Can I make it 12 hours without eating?
Yeah.
And I probably should once or twice more in my life,
but I'm not the guy that was out there.
You could have had elderly people out there.
(39:54):
You could have had very young Children out there and every manner of age in between.
So again,
to those of you truckers that are listening right now that were stranded on I Five southbound.
It would have been the week of January 15th.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart,
(40:15):
from the bottom of everyone's hearts involved with the H and M Trucking podcast and from the bottom of the hearts of everybody that you helped.
Thank you.
What a great story.
And I'm so honored to be able to share it here on this podcast.
You guys are awesome and that never changes.
(40:37):
And with that,
we're gonna wrap up episode 44 of the H and M Trucking podcast.
Huge.
Thanks to Sherry Vogler who has been instrumental in this podcast uh for the last few weeks and helping me by sending me these new drivers that we get to.
Welcome.
And you know what,
while we're here again,
wanna send a huge welcome to the show or welcome back to the show to Vern Butts,
(41:00):
Mark Nash Travis Jackson and Stephen Black one more round of applause and also wanna send another thank you to Sherry for,
uh,
sending the idea to just share some winter driving tips,
some cold weather tips,
uh as,
as she so eloquently put it once again,
(41:23):
it's getting crasy out in the Midwest and we want everybody to get home safe,
uh,
especially when the weather is just putrid outside.
Also want to thank Alan Adler,
the Midwest bureau Chief for Freight waves.com coming in hot with a great interview here on the H and M Trucking Podcast.
Uh I can tell you after the interview had wrapped up and Alan and I were just chatting off the record.
(41:45):
He did say he would love to come back and do the podcast again and I am over the moon about that because it was a fantastic interview with great insight and Allen is so well connected in this industry.
He will be a great resource for the H and M Trucking podcast moving forward and I can't thank him enough for sharing his time with us today.
(42:05):
As far as you're concerned out there,
drivers hit that subscribe button,
do your homework for us.
If you're listening to this episode and you've been enjoying the podcast,
that's the best thing you can do for me.
Uh Also feel free to interact with us on all of our social posts on the H and M Trucking Facebook page,
as well as the H and M Trucking friends and family page.
(42:26):
We are there.
I am reading the comments.
If you have anything you want to say to me,
just direct the comment to me.
Put my name in the comment,
Marcus,
dumb ass uh idiot,
whatever you wanna call me,
you can make it a nice nickname too,
like the best beer in the world or anything like that.
Look,
I'm open for your own interpretation.
All I'm saying is if you want to talk directly to me,
(42:48):
that's a really good way to do it.
Thank you so much for being here today.
Stay safe out there in this crazy weather and as always,
stay fresh cheese bags.
Thank you for listening to the H and M Trucking podcast.
Please leave a review,
subscribe and connect with Marcus over at the H and M trucking social media channels and if you're considering a job at H and M,
(43:15):
find us at HM trucking.com until next time,
stay safe and ahead of the curve drivers.
What's up everybody and welcome into the H and M Trucking podcast episode 44 for your ear holes.
I'm your host,
Marcus.
Thank you so much for being here today.
Please don't forget to click that subscribe button,
whether you're checking us out on youtube or you're listening to the podcast on your favorite platform.
Clicking that subscribe button helps us immensely.
(00:21):
And it's also so an easy and free way for you to know when we pop out new episodes,
which just so happens to be every Wednesday at 5 a.m. central.
So click that subscribe button and help us out.
What are we getting into today?
Well,
interesting uh thoughts on that.
I've got some new drivers that are headed to uh H and M to join the fleet.
(00:43):
I want to acknowledge them uh right here off the top.
Uh because we got one guy that's actually coming back for a second term of duty,
Vern butts.
He's a return driver.
He's gonna be in a van and he's going OTR.
Welcome back to the big show,
Vern.
We've also got Mark Nash,
(01:04):
he's gonna be driving a van OTR.
Welcome,
Mark.
Glad to have you next up.
We welcome Travis Jackson to the Van Otr Fleet.
Welcome Travis.
And finally,
we've got Stephen Black,
(01:24):
who's gonna be a new Omaha Shag driver.
Welcome to the team.
I love this.
I'm so happy that Sherry Vogler is sending me new drivers to introduce every single week.
Uh We are happy to have you on the team and we are also happy to have you in the audience for the H and M Trucking Podcast.
(01:47):
So as always be safe out there.
And uh welcome to the big show,
man.
This is where,
uh this is where drivers come to be.
Great.
I nobody's ever said that to me.
I just feel like that's the case because I've talked to so many drivers that are great and uh really excited about uh the fleet always growing here on the H and M Trucking podcast.
(02:07):
So big ups and hats off to all of those gentlemen.
And again,
welcome to H and M Trucking.
What are we getting into today?
Well,
a little bit of a continuation of what we got into last week,
we talked about the advent of electric trucks.
Uh I heard from a couple of drivers that shared their thoughts with me,
Brian Whitesides and Tom Woods.
(02:29):
Um Neither one of them were super excited about electric trucks and of course,
Brian actually has a little experience driving one.
Um So I wanted to get kind of,
I,
I don't want to call it the other side of the,
of the argument here because it's not really that,
but I had a great conversation with the Midwest Bureau Chief of Freight waves.com.
(02:53):
His name is Alan Adler.
He's a journalist.
Uh,
he's written for the Detroit Free Press.
The guy is awesome and he is very well connected in the trucking industry.
He wrote an article recently on freight waves that some of you may have read right after the uh the turn of the new Year.
The article basically had to deal with shaking off inadequate strides of the electric truck innovation,
(03:19):
I guess would be the way to put it.
Allen's article basically had to do with the fact that uh a lot of strides weren't made in 2023 or the ones that were made weren't big enough strides to uh keep us heading into the future when it comes to electric trucks.
So I wanted to bring him on this podcast and talk to him and get his peek behind the curtain on what he thinks is going on and uh it's a great conversation.
(03:42):
We'll get that right around the corner for you here.
I also have some safety tips coming from not only H and M but some things that I've sourced off the inter webs myself because uh as sherry so eloquently put it,
things are getting a little crash out in the Midwest right now.
And uh we have some terrible weather plaguing this country.
(04:03):
From coast to coast.
I know that because I'm over here on the west coast and there are three inches of ice on everything.
There was a child ice skating through my neighborhood earlier today.
Ice skating.
Ok.
I've not seen something of the sort ever,
but it was funny when I walked out to my driveway,
(04:24):
that was my first thought,
man.
If I still had my hockey skates,
I could grab a stick and some gloves and go out and hit some slappers at my neighbor's garage door.
Uh,
don't have the skates anymore.
And,
uh,
I also do have health insurance now,
which that would have married up perfectly.
But I saw this kid ripping hot laps.
He did like four laps around the loop that I live on and he was fine because there's an ice rink all over everything.
(04:48):
And I know that that's not independently happening in Oregon.
It's literally as I said,
coast to coast.
So we'll get to some safety tips a little bit later on in the show.
But first my conversation with the Midwest bureau chief from Freight waves.com,
Alan Adler from Omaha,
Nebraska to whatever lane you're driving.
(05:10):
This is the H AND M Trucking Podcast.
Your host,
Marcus Bridges.
Excited about this next,
uh,
next guest joining us here.
I'm so excited.
I can't even speak straight.
Uh,
please welcome to the H and M Trucking podcast.
Alan Adler,
(05:31):
he's the Detroit Bureau Chief for Freight waves.com journalist and also a podcaster himself.
Check out his podcast Truck Tech.
It's over at the Freight Waves,
youtube Alan.
Thank you so much for being here today.
Thanks.
Let me fix that title real quick because I left Detroit and we moved to West Michigan.
So now I call myself Midwest bureau chief,
whatever that's worth still doing the same work though.
(05:53):
Great,
great.
Well,
I appreciate you correcting me there.
Uh Love the work that you guys do over at freight waves.
It's actually the,
uh,
the entire reason that I,
I had you on here today,
I was reading your article entitled Electric trucks should shake off setbacks in 2024 from January 23rd.
And,
uh,
we've been talking a little bit about electric trucks here,
(06:14):
um,
for the last week or so on the H and M Trucking Podcast.
And I'll be honest with you,
Allen,
uh,
the,
the drivers that I've had on so far,
they aren't too into it.
Uh,
it's not something that they are,
uh,
really that excited about or something that they believe in at this point.
Uh,
what's your experience in talking with,
uh,
drivers and other folks from the transportation industry?
(06:36):
What's the,
what's the temperature on electric trucking innovation right now?
Well,
Mark,
I think there's two things at play.
One is that,
you know,
change is really hard.
Nobody likes it.
Uh,
certainly the fleets are,
are gonna struggle,
uh,
even with incentives in terms of the cost differences in,
in purchasing electric trucks for their fleets.
Um I would say this,
I think that the,
(06:58):
the feeling on the part of trucking that who needs it all this stuff doesn't go anywhere.
I heard this last night.
I,
I do a segment on SXM on Road dog Trucking with Grace Sharkey,
um,
who's a colleague at Freightways and has that show and had a driver call us last night and say,
you know,
we hear about this stuff all the time and,
and,
you know,
this is great.
That's great.
(07:19):
But he wasn't a believer.
And I think the only people truthfully who really like electric trucks at this point are those who have driven them because they are a lot more comfortable.
They have terrific um uh torque and pick up.
Uh,
they're different obviously from,
you know,
somebody who runs through 18 years or 14 years of a,
of a truck.
But,
(07:39):
but really,
um,
I think it is an exper exponential thing.
I think the people who experience them like them,
but I think that's a very slow adoption process.
Absolutely.
I,
I could relate it a little bit to my career,
you know,
never having been behind the wheel of a truck.
I did start my broadcasting career in terrestrial radio and,
uh we used to laugh at podcasts all the time.
(08:01):
Uh,
10 years ago.
Uh Never thought that the technology she would catch on.
Never thought it would be something that,
uh,
everybody wanted a piece of.
And here we are in 2023 everybody and their dog has a podcast and,
uh,
it's one of the best ways that we all share information.
So that's just kind of the nature of innovation I think.
And,
um,
it'll be interesting to see how many of those,
(08:23):
uh,
true blue,
you know,
old school truck drivers get behind the wheel of an electric truck here,
uh as,
as we move into the future and,
and try to,
I guess shed that stigma a little bit because it's always been interesting to me that,
you know,
this to me is,
is cool new technology,
but at the same time,
I can understand why a lot of drivers uh are not buying in yet.
(08:45):
Obviously,
infrastructure is a big part of that and you talk a lot about that in the article that I was referencing earlier.
There's a couple things,
a couple of quotes here just real shortly that I wanted to,
to read.
Is it uh major but inadequate strides for the infrastructure in,
in 2023?
Can you talk me through the positives and the negatives that the heavy duty electric truck innovation uh went through in 2023?
(09:10):
Yeah,
I,
I'll try,
I think,
I think when it comes to heavy duty electric trucks,
you know,
they're still ex extremely limited in terms of the range they can give you on a single charge.
So right now,
uh,
you've got some dry adoption,
you know,
in the ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach,
of course,
and up up in Oakland to a lesser extent,
but I think what's really going on here is that,
(09:31):
you know,
until we get uh,
trucks that are able to take a,
a higher rate of charge and uh,
you know,
like the Tesla semi,
it,
it,
it,
it can charge at 750 kilowatt hours.
Um You know,
you're really gonna be dealing with at least the hangover effect of range anxiety,
you know,
am I gonna get stranded out here?
What,
you know,
so we're going to come rescue me,
(09:52):
that sort of thing.
So you've got,
you've got that at play.
Um I think,
you know,
one of the things that really you have to look out for electric trucks is use case and,
and the place we're seeing the most adoption right now is in a sort of return to base uh medium duty,
call it class 3 to 53 to 6,
uh sort of range where,
(10:12):
you know,
you,
you have a prescribed route or a pretty similar route every day,
you know what your needs are.
And you can,
you can charge these up uh back at the base when you go home at night,
they can charge overnight,
they don't even need DC charging.
They can charge an alternating current,
what's called level two.
And,
um,
you know,
So,
so that works.
And that's a workable case where you are already getting closer to parody in terms of total cost of ownership.
(10:38):
Heavy duty is a much different animal.
Um I'll just give you a Snyder,
for example,
they've got 92 class eight freight under Cascadia right now.
That sounds like a big number until you consider that about 1% of their total.
So it's a slow curve,
as I said in my,
uh in the 1st 1st comment,
infrastructure is coming and it's coming from some interesting places.
(11:01):
Um,
we've got a lot of start ups that are well funded,
uh that,
that,
you know,
uh either through venture capital or through uh real estate has been a big investor in this uh area.
And,
uh,
you know,
they want to,
uh,
you know,
get into the charging space,
they see it not only for trucks and,
and that sort of thing,
but they see the needs at properties,
they own elsewhere,
(11:21):
warehouses and so forth.
So I think that,
you know,
we're gonna see a fair amount of money coming into that area.
You also have a lot of government money coming in for infrastructure.
It's still not enough.
I mean,
it's not anywhere near what we're gonna need.
I mean,
I think it's,
the California Energy Commission says 100 and 57,000,
trucking charging stations are gonna be needed by 2030.
(11:43):
We're not close.
Marcus.
Yeah,
not close is,
is one way to characterize it for sure.
I,
you know,
I,
I want to reference here something that we played on the podcast last week were some comments from uh the American Trucking Association's uh Chairman Andrew Boyle.
Everybody saw the viral video when he talked to Congress about this and he said,
uh it,
(12:03):
it sort of just to simplify what he said,
we're putting the cart before the horse when it comes to the infrastructure needed to support,
uh,
you know,
a full countrywide fleet of electric trucks.
How do you feel about that?
Uh Do you think that's a good summary of the situation right now?
Well,
I've talked to Andrew in the past.
Um,
you know,
they were involved to boil trucking,
(12:24):
was involved in the early days of the pandemic and moving.
Um,
you know,
some of the earliest of the immunization uh stuff.
And I would say that I do agree,
I think in all cases with electric,
whether we're talking battery electric or hydrogen.
Um,
the best way to do this is,
is to do it in sort of a regional or a route based way.
(12:46):
Uh you know,
figure out what you're really gonna need.
I mean,
we've got AAA group out there now called Green Lane,
which is basically made up of Dior Truck,
North America,
uh Black Rock and uh uh new energy.
Uh and they're gonna put uh $650 million into charging um,
infrastructure mostly for medium and heavy duty trucks and hydrogen trucks.
(13:09):
But they're going to do it in California.
They're going to do it in Texas and they're gonna look at,
you know,
some of the east coast,
uh,
port areas,
they're not gonna put them in Nebraska.
No,
if that's in Nebraska.
But,
uh,
but,
but they're not going to put them in flyover states,
they're not going to put them in places where it doesn't make a lot of sense to run electric trucks because you don't have the infrastructure and arguably,
(13:29):
you know,
the,
the gains that you're not also running long distances with electric trucks at this time.
So I,
I think that the,
the approach is very deliberate and I think it's something where you're gonna find corridors that makes sense.
Um,
you know,
for electric trucks,
uh,
but you're not gonna find a nationwide roll out.
We're not gonna replace all the places that people fill up on diesel.
(13:51):
Yeah.
And there's so many of them,
you know,
we talk about,
uh,
one of the,
the problems with the industry that we talk about a lot on this podcast is,
uh,
parking availability.
And I start to think about,
you know,
every charging station is another parking spot that we don't have right now to begin with.
There are,
uh,
there is a large shortage out there.
A lot of truck drivers end up driving around for a long time before they can find a safe and legal place to park.
(14:16):
And not only are we talking about adding charging stations,
but we also need those parking spots.
There's other parking spots we could be adding that don't need a charging station that would help a lot of drivers out there.
But it's kind of two different problems,
uh,
that,
that kind of,
you know,
just shade over on their,
on their borders there.
You touched on something a little bit ago that,
(14:37):
that kind of sparked a bit of my attention,
Alan,
do you think that there's much advantage in maybe rolling out this whole electric truck innovation?
Uh,
first in medium duty stuff to kind of see,
you're talking about local routes,
you're talking about,
you know,
trucks that are home every day or back at the terminal every day,
uh,
for charging,
would it be advantageous to go and just concentrate on medium duty right now?
(15:01):
That's still going to cut out a lot of,
uh,
of our,
um,
emissions that's still going to lower the carbon footprint if you will.
Uh,
what do you think?
Think about that?
I,
I definitely think that it's already happening.
It doesn't matter what I think of it,
like I said,
you know,
in,
in the fleet world as,
you know,
everything is TCO,
it's,
it's what's my total cost.
And if I can either,
(15:22):
you know,
you have some incentives,
of course available right now in California,
New York and other places that are helpful,
but they're not going to be there forever.
So you've got to figure out how to run your business with electric vehicles.
Uh and,
and still be able to,
you know,
make a profit.
So I think,
uh you know,
the North American Council for freight efficiency,
um and others have uh have the Atria has also done some work.
(15:45):
The American Transportation Research Institute have also done work to look at what makes sense in terms of,
of these trucks,
where can you,
um,
best make the business case and medium duty is by far and away the way to do that.
Now,
you know,
some of your big fleets that don't do a lot of medium duty or do a lot of pickup and delivery and that kind of thing,
(16:09):
you know,
are,
are still going to need to have some of the heavy duty trucks,
but it's not something that you're gonna see that near the level of adoption,
at least in the next couple of years that you,
that you'll see for medium duty.
Um,
you know,
we've got a lot of start ups out there that are building medium duty.
We've also seen,
you know,
Dime would bring in a brand,
a new brand.
It,
it used to be a Mitsubishi Fuso,
(16:30):
but now,
uh it's,
it's called R on uh class four and five trucks.
Uh We're getting workhorse which has struggled for years to have a viable product.
Uh Now has got a couple of decent size customers in California for a class five truck that they're doing.
So,
I think there is going to be,
and it's interesting.
I just finished registering for the work truck show before we,
(16:53):
we got together and I think it's gonna be very interesting to see just what kind of orders these guys are gonna see.
Um,
over the next few years.
I,
I suspect it will be much higher than it will be for the class A.
And what do you see as far as the infrastructure that follows that?
Is it,
is it going to be well enough in place to support that increase in orders in the next few years?
(17:14):
Yes,
probably because you can do some level of charging depending on the size of your fleet.
You can do some level of charging right at your operation and it,
it doesn't involve a lot of trenching and things like that,
especially if you're using like I have in my garage.
You know,
I,
I don't have an electric vehicle,
but I've got a,
I've got a stub for a level two charger,
but when we do get electric vehicle because I suspect that will happen someday.
(17:37):
Um So,
you know,
uh setting that up is not near as hard or as expensive or as difficult as it is to come up with the high power charging that you need.
And we go back to the infrastructure question for,
for class eight.
I use Snyder again.
They've opened a very large facility,
uh,
you know,
with some,
you know,
a lot of subsidies from the state of California,
(17:59):
um,
in El Monte to charge their trucks to be able to do 32 of them at a time at a pretty high rate of charge,
you know,
175 kilowatts to 350 kilowatts.
That'll get you 20 to 80% of your charge in about 45 minutes.
Give or take,
ok.
Um,
that's still longer than a coffee break,
but it's,
uh,
it's helpful.
(18:21):
Um,
you've got private ones and I'll just name a few,
not any particular order,
but WEV has a operation at the Long Beach port.
They're a start up,
they basically have survived thus far on grants,
you know,
that,
that have paid for a lot of what they're doing.
And I think,
you know,
they're,
they're an opportunity charging place where,
you know,
let's say a Snyder truck is out there and like picking up Snyder,
(18:43):
not for any reason,
but let's say a Snyder truck is out there.
It needs a top off,
you know,
it just to get back to wherever it's going.
That's what a Yev can provide as well as providing sort of a truck as a service where,
you know,
those who are reticent or don't have the cash to get into an electric truck right away.
Can do a monthly deal where they can get the truck,
the electricity and everything in one price and then just go about,
(19:07):
you know,
running the route.
So I think that the industry is changing a little bit at the,
at the upper end there.
Um,
you know,
the,
at the class eight and your big fleets are still gonna be running a lot of diesel for a long time.
Marcus,
don't worry about that.
Yeah,
I,
I don't worry about it much and I,
I,
with some of the drivers that I talked to on the show,
Alan,
I feel like I do need to remind them every now and then because you get the,
(19:30):
uh,
the feeling that,
uh,
they kind of feel like this thing is right around the corner.
Um,
some of them and,
and others obviously,
I think kind of see through it and understand that there needs to be a lot more,
uh,
of a build out in this country before we ever see,
you know,
a ton of electric trucks on the road.
But where do you think that stigma comes from Alan?
(19:51):
Why is it that the driver,
if you were to just reach into a random bucket and grab 10 drivers out regardless of how long they've been working for their fleet,
regardless of how long they've been driving.
I think eight out of 10 of those guys are gonna tell you that,
you know,
electric trucks are not going to work or I don't want them or I don't want to drive one.
What do you think is behind that mindset in the industry?
(20:14):
II,
I like to compare it honestly to automated transmissions.
You know,
those were also something that,
you know,
a decade ago or 15 years ago,
nobody wanted anything to do with either.
And now they're 90 some percent of,
of all trucks.
Um,
you've got an aging driver force out there.
Obviously,
truck drivers are getting older.
They're leaving the business.
Um,
younger people coming in have never driven and,
(20:36):
uh,
a stick basically,
they certainly haven't run it through 18 years.
I,
I think,
I think some of what you're seeing is the same thing that occurred when ATM S came about.
It does take a while to get people used to them.
But as I said,
the only people I've heard who,
like electric trucks are the ones who've been in electric trucks.
You know,
it,
it,
it's,
it's very hard to conceptualize the difference in driving the two things if you've never done it.
(21:00):
And so,
you know,
why would I not be against it?
I mean,
it's like,
it's so much easier to sort of reject something.
Um,
and I'm not,
I'm not speaking as a,
you know,
a AAA cheerleader for these things,
but I do think that the adoption rates,
it will come through word of mouth as somebody's driving them.
You know,
they talk to one of the early,
really early adopters of hydrogen a few weeks ago who,
(21:23):
who purchased a Niccola truck and he's a one man show.
He's not,
he's not a fleet.
He's a,
he's an O and O and kind of got into the business very late,
but loved the idea of trying to drive a hydrogen truck and he's doing it and he's gonna,
he'll run routes wherever he can find hydrogen,
which is harder like than finding battery electric charging at this point.
So I do think the adoption,
(21:44):
as I said earlier will be slow,
but I think it's coming and I think that,
you know,
a lot of it,
of course,
is driven by regulation.
Now,
we saw the advanced clean fleet rule in California get delayed slightly,
but don't kid yourself,
Marcus.
It's common,
I mean,
you know,
it's delayed but it's still coming and California doesn't lose these things on a long term basis when they want something.
And of course,
(22:05):
if you know anything about the air quality around the ports and things like that out there,
it is something where you really do need a,
a ma major change.
Yeah,
I,
I think so.
And,
uh,
you know,
as if California needed any other reason to be at the top of the list of places that drivers don't want to go.
Uh,
this is gonna do that for him,
but you're right,
they have a miraculous track record of getting this legislation pushed through and kind of being at the forefront of,
(22:31):
of innovation that doesn't always translate to a,
a good trip for a driver if you're going to break it down that far.
I,
I also see some similarities here.
You know,
if you look at just consumer passenger vehicles,
us,
four wheelers,
we got into electric rigs right about the same time that we started to get into autonomous rigs.
(22:51):
And I think that there's a little bit of that memory that sits in a driver's mind.
Hey,
when they released the Tesla,
it wasn't,
but a couple of years and all the thing,
all of a sudden this thing was driving itself,
when is,
uh,
the fleet's going to start driving for themselves?
When are the fleets going to start driving for themselves?
And when does that take my job as a driver?
Um,
I see a little bit of,
(23:12):
of kind of bleed over from that.
I think we're even further away from autonomous,
uh heavy duty trucks than we are from just straight up electric.
But I'm gonna default to you here and ask as far as in your research and,
and the things you've seen and the people you've talked to are we looking at,
uh at,
at autonomous,
basically self-driving trucks anytime in our near future.
(23:35):
Yeah,
I think we are actually not big numbers,
but you've got two companies,
both of them are start ups.
One is well funded.
The other is private Aurora innovation and Kodiak Robotics.
These are both companies,
Aurora is now based in Pittsburgh,
but they were on the west coast for a long time.
And,
and the Kodiak Robotics is,
is based out of Mountain to California,
which is Silicon Valley.
Um,
(23:56):
does a lot of its work.
Both of them operate heavily in Texas and they've been running autonomous with safety drivers there for several years now.
Um,
mostly on I 40 kind of Dallas to,
I get that right.
35 or 40.
I'm sorry,
I think it might be 35 from Dallas to Houston and,
and back they're running real freight loads.
Um,
(24:16):
and that sort of thing at ce S last week,
both companies were there.
I'll have,
uh I ran a my podcast last week was,
was with Kodiak talking about its sixth generation truck,
which is essentially ready for driverless operation.
They plan to do that this year in Texas.
Uh Aurora also does with 20 trucks.
They're talking about doing it.
(24:37):
Um,
you know,
with no driver on a commercial basis,
you know,
actually for real customers and,
and that sort of thing again,
it's gonna start really slow,
but I do think it's coming,
I think that the investments that have been made and especially in uh in trucking.
Uh because again,
when you talk about use case,
I don't know if Marcus,
(24:58):
if you really need an autonomous uh car to take you to Walmart,
I just don't know that you need that.
But if you can run a truck 20 hours a day minimum without a driver.
And I know this sounds like it's taking away jobs.
Now,
the industry,
the autonomous will tell you that it's just changing jobs.
Uh,
but if you can do that for 20 hours a day and take 40% of the cost at operating that truck,
(25:22):
who's not gonna do that.
Right.
I mean,
especially big fleets.
So,
again,
it's gonna be in a route based system.
It's gonna be,
you know,
I said Houston to Dallas for now.
Um,
but it's really interesting that Aurora is working with Continental,
which is,
you know,
one of the biggest tier one suppliers in the world to essentially harden and make their autonomous system for scaling.
(25:43):
So you're talking hundreds and thousands of these directly,
you know,
added to trucks on the assembly line and,
you know,
based on orders,
of course,
they're not gonna do these for,
for dealer for dealer stock.
But the idea is that,
you know,
they're looking ahead at this being a real thing in terms of real numbers and I,
and then that's gonna be late decade.
(26:03):
But I do think that,
you know,
we've got a lot of pushback,
especially the teamsters and some legislatures.
You've got,
you know,
California last year,
you know,
legislature was 90% in favor of banning autonomous trucks over £10,000 on the roads in California.
Um,
Governor Newsom vetoed that.
He said,
nope,
he said we're not gonna stop technology.
(26:24):
They're trying again in California,
but Indiana and New York,
there's those states now are seeking to ban autonomous trucks that is without a driver uh in,
in the seat.
Um You know,
this is,
this,
this is a big cause celeb for the teamsters because they see it strictly as,
as a negative for jobs.
Um Again,
you know,
I think there's,
(26:44):
there's another side to that but I,
I feel like,
you know,
at this point you're gonna have people that are pushing back on it,
they're gonna conflate it with what's happened with,
you know,
some of the early,
uh,
uh,
Robotaxis.
Um,
again,
I would argue that even with the problems that cruise and,
uh,
mostly cruise has had,
um,
it's nowhere near what happens with human drivers.
(27:05):
I mean,
they're much safer,
you know,
they're just,
uh,
um,
up there there's a lot more focus on them.
So I feel like,
you know,
we're gonna see autonomous trucking where it's permitted where there isn't a lot of hassle and Texas gets a lot of attention because they've been very open to having these trucks on their roads and,
and,
you know,
they've got a lot of,
you know,
cross routes for,
(27:25):
you know,
major cross routes and,
uh,
you know,
whether it's,
you know,
Houston to Atlanta or,
or Dallas to,
to,
uh,
El Pa.
So,
you know,
those are major routes and they are routes that,
you know,
could be quite lucrative if you did not have a driver in the seat,
for sure.
Yeah,
I,
I sometimes wonder how long they're going to have to test the autonomous truck with a safety,
(27:49):
uh,
basically a safety guy sitting in the seat there and,
and making sure that everything is,
is going off without a hitch because again,
you know,
just the idea of a truck loaded with 80,000,
some odd pounds driving down the road without anybody in it.
To me is it's II,
I feel like I'm watching an episode of the Jetsons,
Alan,
to be honest with you,
it seems so far removed from,
(28:11):
from what we see every day.
But I think that's the nature of technology.
It moves uh exponentially fast,
almost too fast for you to wrap your head around it.
And,
you know,
I think it's a lot,
the same with the electric trucks that we're going to deal with here and that is there are going to be unforeseen circumstances in all of these decisions that get made and we're making these decisions uh within the legislature,
(28:35):
hopefully to move the country forward and to be safe and to uh waste less money and kill the environment less and all these good things.
But oftentimes it's not until 10 years down the road after uh you've adopted these things that you see what the,
the,
the downstream effects really were,
uh especially negative downstream effects.
And um it'll be interesting to see,
(28:57):
what do you see any big negatives coming out of,
uh,
the electric trucking or autonomous trucking innovations,
aside from the potential loss of jobs for drivers.
Well,
I think there's,
you know,
I've,
I've looked into this and there's more looking into it to do honestly in terms of the electric grid and what it's capable of and things like that.
(29:18):
I mean,
you know,
people say,
how can you run electric trucks in California when you can't even keep,
you know,
the power on during,
you know,
a brownout.
Uh So I think we have some,
some work to do clearly,
the industry does the utilities do in terms of,
you know,
opening up the grid a little bit maybe and looking at it in different ways than,
than we have in the past.
Um Again,
(29:38):
I think,
you know,
I spend so much time at Marcus on these subjects that I wonder at times if I don't become a little bit of the cheerleader,
I don't wanna be because I'm hearing from people that are working on this stuff,
not the people who are,
you know,
uh suspicious of it or skeptical of it.
I I think you've got questions honest honestly around,
you know,
grid capabilities and you know,
(29:59):
where can you actually put this infrastructure at,
you know,
megawatt and you know,
510 megawatts of power that might be as much as it would take to,
to power and uh sports stadium Right.
Um,
you know,
but I think it's doable and I think the idea of looking at,
you know,
how to do it,
um,
again that we're not looking at overnight adoption,
(30:20):
I don't think it's a question of that at all but I do think that,
that this will march on.
I think that,
you know,
autonomy is interesting because if it does work and,
and you don't have an increase in crashes and we've got more crashes,
honestly.
And,
you know,
we have a lot of,
a lot of people racing to beat the clock.
I mean,
(30:40):
you know,
a thous truck doesn't have hours of service.
It has to worry about because it does have a driver and that driver doesn't get tired,
doesn't have to go to the bathroom,
all those things,
you know,
but I think at the same time,
uh,
you know,
until you get a bit of a track record going with driverless trucks,
um,
who knows?
I can't predict the downsides.
(31:01):
Maybe there aren't any,
I'm sure there's some,
but,
you know,
maybe they're not as big as we might think.
Let's hope so.
Alan,
uh,
you are the Midwest bureau chief for Freight waves.com and also the host of the Truck Tech podcast over at the Freight Waves,
youtube,
Alan Adler.
Thank you so much for sharing your time today.
I look forward to having you on again.
(31:22):
I feel like we've got some great insight from you today and I'm gonna keep checking out all the articles over at freight waves.com.
Well,
Marcus,
thanks for the time.
Thanks for having me and be happy to come back if you want me back.
That's great,
Alan.
Take care.
We'll see you soon.
Ok.
All right,
bye bye.
(31:42):
Great stuff from Allen there.
Looking forward to getting him back on the podcast to get his insight very soon.
Uh Thank you so much Alan for your time there.
Uh I love talking to people that are that hooked in.
It's amazing when you say like,
hey,
I played a clip from this guy who was testifying to congress uh last year.
And he's like,
oh,
yeah,
(32:02):
I was just talking to him recently.
That's the type of hookup that we'll give you right here on the H and M Trucking podcast.
So it's winter.
Obviously,
we've already talked about it.
We have bad weather plaguing the United States.
And I want to remind you that the new safety campaign at H and M trucking is off and running and there will be a new focus every single week,
(32:25):
uh,
during the week that we are recording this podcast,
which you won't hear until next week.
So understand this was last week's safety campaign,
but it's still a nice little refresher and a reminder to check out these things that could affect you out on the road.
And uh the campaign for this week is that the situation is fluid,
(32:46):
make sure that you check them and I think that pertains to your fluids.
Uh,
the post says is your truck getting the fluids,
it needs check the levels of critical fluids such as power steering,
coolant,
windshield washer fluid and engine oil during your pre tripp inspection.
Don't forget to look over your reservoirs,
tanks and hoses for any leaks,
(33:06):
splits or cuts and lastly make sure the hoses for your water pump,
coolant oil and power steering are all connected and mounted securely.
It's like one thing in there.
To me that kind of is like an unsaid rule.
But something that's really important this time of year is that windshield washer fluid.
(33:27):
Uh,
the stuff's not very expensive.
So,
having an extra jug of it on hand at all times is a great idea.
Not only for truck drivers but for four wheelers as well.
I know with all these weird chemicals that they put on the road,
you can get a sheen across to your windshield.
That'll make you feel like you've been listening,
Jimmy Hendrix and Purple Haze for the last three hours.
(33:48):
It's hard to see through and you can't get it off with just a standard,
uh,
gas station window scrubbing.
So make sure you get some of that really good high-quality,
window washer fluid and,
uh,
also keep your eye on all of those fluids,
uh,
because they're gonna be very important.
Don't want anybody to be getting stranded out in this weather.
(34:11):
Uh,
more than you might have already been because I do know that there are some people that have been stranded and it's been pretty crazy.
I do want to give you 10 tips real quick.
This is from tantara.us.
Uh,
these are just general winter safety tips for truck drivers.
Uh,
number one,
maintain the perfect view.
Make sure your windshield wipers are in excellent conditions.
(34:33):
Uh,
your wipers clear,
freezing rain and snow for your driving safety,
ensure you also have plenty of all season wiper fluid already covered that uh become a weather watcher.
I talked with a bunch of drivers over these last couple of weeks and the ones that are the best prepared are the ones that are constantly checking the weather knowing what's in front of them.
(34:54):
And there's multiple resources for that,
you know,
weather apps on smartphones and your Samar and everything are great.
I've also seen a lot of drivers uh going to social media forums like rubbers side down and H and M trucking friends and family to see if there's anybody that can offer them a little bit of a peek into the future of their day.
Great ideas there pack a bag or two.
(35:16):
You may depart from sunny and warm location and end up driving in hazardous conditions.
So make sure you're prepared with emergency supply kits as well as extra food.
Uh watch your entry and exit.
Take extra caution when entering your cab if it's icy or slick outside.
This is a big one and uh a lot of people don't understand,
you know,
some of you guys,
(35:36):
your professional drivers out there,
one of your comrades in the professional driver,
uh sphere are UPS drivers.
And I've talked to some UPS drivers both past and present that will tell you that UPS is huge on three points of contact.
That means 2 ft and one hand holding on to something or 1 ft and two hands,
(35:58):
always three points of contact.
I know it's not possible every single second of the day.
But if you keep your three points of contact in these icy conditions,
it'll help you stay on your feet.
Nobody wants to bust their ass right before they get in and sit on it for an eight hour trip.
So be careful out there,
watch your entry and exit and the rest of this stuff just has to deal with.
(36:18):
Slow it down.
Use your headlights know when to pull over as the Great James Fonda said,
uh a while back,
don't try too hard and uh finally approach bridges with caution.
Everybody knows the bridge is up off the ground.
There's a cold river or lake or body of water running underneath of it.
That bridge gets colder than the normal roads and it gets icy.
(36:40):
So make sure to stay up on your bridge knowledge while you're watching the weather moving on from this.
And this is kind of the last part of our uh cold Weather series.
And I mean,
it's not really a series at this point.
We've just been talking about it a lot because of the storm that's been ripping through the United States,
(37:01):
as I told you earlier in the segment and earlier in the podcast,
it's frozen solid out here in Oregon and it has been for a few days now.
I found a post on reddit,
the,
uh R slash trucker subreddit that hit really close to home literally and figure fly for me.
I five southbound,
(37:22):
about 10 miles south of Eugene was closed because of the road conditions for 12 hours right after the storm hit.
That's a long time to just be sitting in your car or your truck.
And I look at it from a four wheelers perspective because that's what I am.
I would not have water.
I would not have food.
I might not have enough gas to stay idling for 12 hours.
(37:45):
So these are the types of things that run through my mind.
Listen to this reddit post uh from a user named Dizzy Dame.
It says to the truckers who spent last night with us trapped on I five northbound in Oregon.
Thank you sincerely.
Thank you.
Sorry.
I wasn't sure if this was the right place to post this,
but they really deserve recognition for everything they did to help us stranded motorists.
(38:10):
We were literally stopped on I five near Cottage Grove Oregon overnight for 12 hours.
So many truckers walked through the endless lines of cars,
passing out bottles of water and snacks.
I saw so many of you carrying completely full boxes down the highway and not walking back until everything in your box was gone.
(38:30):
We can't thank you enough for your kindness.
I won't ever forget your selflessness.
I want to edit this to add my comment about the conditions.
It was 19 degrees.
Last night,
the roads were covered in a thick layer of ice.
There wasn't any official presence,
not even news about it before it was too late.
We were all stranded with no way off the interstate and no way to turn around.
(38:53):
Everyone idled their engines on and off all night long.
I truly hope no one was seriously injured from being without,
for such an extended period of time.
These truckers probably saved lives with what they gave.
I'm sure most people were completely unprepared,
huge hats off to those of you that were out there helping.
(39:13):
And I know that this isn't something that just independently happened in the State of Oregon and it's really close to my house so it touches my feelers.
No,
no,
no.
This is something that happens all the way across the United States on our highways and byways all the time.
And if it wasn't for truckers being well prepared and also kind to their fellow humans,
(39:34):
we would have terrible stories coming out of Oregon right now about people who died from exposure or lack of water or anything like that.
Hunger,
12 hours is a long time.
And,
yeah.
Can I make it 12 hours without eating?
Yeah.
And I probably should once or twice more in my life,
but I'm not the guy that was out there.
You could have had elderly people out there.
(39:54):
You could have had very young Children out there and every manner of age in between.
So again,
to those of you truckers that are listening right now that were stranded on I Five southbound.
It would have been the week of January 15th.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart,
(40:15):
from the bottom of everyone's hearts involved with the H and M Trucking podcast and from the bottom of the hearts of everybody that you helped.
Thank you.
What a great story.
And I'm so honored to be able to share it here on this podcast.
You guys are awesome and that never changes.
(40:37):
And with that,
we're gonna wrap up episode 44 of the H and M Trucking podcast.
Huge.
Thanks to Sherry Vogler who has been instrumental in this podcast uh for the last few weeks and helping me by sending me these new drivers that we get to.
Welcome.
And you know what,
while we're here again,
wanna send a huge welcome to the show or welcome back to the show to Vern Butts,
(41:00):
Mark Nash Travis Jackson and Stephen Black one more round of applause and also wanna send another thank you to Sherry for,
uh,
sending the idea to just share some winter driving tips,
some cold weather tips,
uh as,
as she so eloquently put it once again,
(41:23):
it's getting crasy out in the Midwest and we want everybody to get home safe,
uh,
especially when the weather is just putrid outside.
Also want to thank Alan Adler,
the Midwest bureau Chief for Freight waves.com coming in hot with a great interview here on the H and M Trucking Podcast.
Uh I can tell you after the interview had wrapped up and Alan and I were just chatting off the record.
(41:45):
He did say he would love to come back and do the podcast again and I am over the moon about that because it was a fantastic interview with great insight and Allen is so well connected in this industry.
He will be a great resource for the H and M Trucking podcast moving forward and I can't thank him enough for sharing his time with us today.
(42:05):
As far as you're concerned out there,
drivers hit that subscribe button,
do your homework for us.
If you're listening to this episode and you've been enjoying the podcast,
that's the best thing you can do for me.
Uh Also feel free to interact with us on all of our social posts on the H and M Trucking Facebook page,
as well as the H and M Trucking friends and family page.
(42:26):
We are there.
I am reading the comments.
If you have anything you want to say to me,
just direct the comment to me.
Put my name in the comment,
Marcus,
dumb ass uh idiot,
whatever you wanna call me,
you can make it a nice nickname too,
like the best beer in the world or anything like that.
Look,
I'm open for your own interpretation.
All I'm saying is if you want to talk directly to me,
(42:48):
that's a really good way to do it.
Thank you so much for being here today.
Stay safe out there in this crazy weather and as always,
stay fresh cheese bags.
Thank you for listening to the H and M Trucking podcast.
Please leave a review,
subscribe and connect with Marcus over at the H and M trucking social media channels and if you're considering a job at H and M,
(43:15):
find us at HM trucking.com until next time,
stay safe and ahead of the curve drivers.
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