HDT Talks Trucking

With the industry facing a shortage of qualified drivers, fleet managers are faced with the challenge of both retaining CDL drivers, as well as attracting new ones to their operations. Is one answer to the driver shortage introducing young people to trucking and prepping high schoolers to obtain their CDL early on? In this special report, hear from Dave Dein, the mastermind behind one of that nation’s first high school truck driver programs and a co-founder of the Next Generation Trucking Association. Learn why Dein is passionate about ushering in the next generation of truck drivers, and what he thinks fleet managers can do to make their operations more attractive to in-coming drivers.

Next Generation Trucking Association

Dave Dein’s LinkedIn

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There are currently, dozens of driverless trucks operating on interstate highways (with safety drivers) mixing and mingling with humanized cars and trucks. The technology obviously works. As they log more and more miles, we are hearing about few reported incidents of automation gone wrong. Does that mean they are ready for prime time? Christopher Hart doesn’t think so. He’s a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, and he as been studying and observing automation in transportation for years. He’s still uneasy about sharing the road with driverless vehicles. Find out why on this episode of HDT Talks Trucking.

About Chris Hart

Chris Hart’s blog: Driverless Motor Vehicles: Not Yet Ready for Prime Time

Jim Park’s blog on the Las Vegas shuttle bus “crash”

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Ryder will soon be managing maintenance services for several fleets of autonomous vehicles. The company will be doing regular maintenance on the trucks as well as servicing the autonomous hardware and performing pre- and post-trip inspections. On this episode of HDT Talks Trucking, Ryder’s director of new product strategy, Mike Plasencia, explains what it takes to keep driverless trucks running.

Ryder System

Embark, Ryder Partner on Nationwide Autonomous Fleet Network

TuSimple to Use Ryder Facilities to Expand Autonomous Trucking Network

Waymo Partners with Ryder on Autonomous-Truck Uptime

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Remember the Y2K scare? At the time, many people worried airplanes would fall from the sky and every bit of digital data ever collected would simply vanish. As it happened, very little changed that winter night January 31, 1999. Come the spring of 2022, however, when some wireless service providers start turning off their 3G networks, some older technology will quit working. Our guest, Michael Bloom, vice president of product and marketing for video and telematics provider, SmartWitness, explains what will happen when they throw the switch, and how fleets can avoid getting left in the digital dark.

SmartWitness

AT&T Phasing Out 3G

Verizon: Get Your Fleet Ready for the 3G to 4G Transition

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The FA-4 category oils have been available for almost five years now, but market penetration remains light. Despite the fuel saving benefits inherent to these lighter viscosity oils, fleets are being cautions about using it – and for a number of good reasons. In some cases, FA-4 is only recommended for engines from 2017 and newer. Certain restrictions may be keeping fleets from embracing the newest API oil category. On this episode, Tom Gauerke, national fleet account manager at Chevron Global Lubricants-North America, helps sort out the restrictions and explains who can start using FA-4 now and who should hold off.

FA-4 at Chevron

HDT: Chevron Unveils New Delo 400 CK-4 and FA-4 Engine Oils

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It has been said that as of today, more than 5 million trucks in North America could be converted from fossil-fuel power to electric. The sweeping simplicity of that statement, however, belies the complexity of actually making it happen. Jim Castalez, the chief technology officer and founder of Motive Power Systems has been electrifying Class 4-6 delivery vehicle fleets for 12 years now. With more than a million miles under his belt, he has a few insights on how fleets can successfully make the switch from ICE to electric.

Motiv Power Systems

NACFE Electric Trucks

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How can fleets make informed decisions when buying fuel saving devices and technologies if they are looking at unreliable data? How often do we hear fleets say they automatically reduce vendor’s fuel-saving estimates by half? Our guest says he has the answer to that problem. Daryl Bear is the lead engineer & chief operating officer of Mesilla Valley Transportation Solutions. He’s a mechanical engineer with 20 years’ experience in motorsports and automotive research and development. From his background in race-car engineering and testing comes a more efficient and accurate method of quantifying fuel savings for heavy trucks.

Mesilla Valley Transportation Solutions

Daryl Bear on LinkedIn

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Meet the newest member of HDT’s editorial team, managing editor, Vesna Brajkovic. Managing editors are to magazines what operations managers are to truck fleets. They tend to the day-to-day details of running a magazine and a website and are responsible for keeping everything on the rails. On this episode of HDT Talks Trucking, Vesna talks about what she has learned about trucking since she started here in February, and shares a little of her personal side, discussing her love for soccer, golf, aviation and helping young women get a solid start in life.

Truckstops and trucking are very much dependent on one another, yet the relationship isn’t always mutually beneficial. Whether it’s fuel prices, restaurant prices or the debate over paid parking, trucking and truckstops don’t always see eye to eye.

In this episode of HDT Talks Trucking, truckstop business consultant, Don Baglien -- aka That Truckstop Guy -- pulls back the curtain and shares what it’s like on his side of the doors that never close. Don and host, Jim Park discuss the challenges of preparing fresh, healthy and reasonably priced menu options, the debate over commercializing rest areas, paid truckstop parking and marketing alternative fuels at commercial truckstops.

Don Baglien on LinkedIn

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With medium- and heavy-duty truck electrification, we’re seeing a unique alignment of traditional truck manufacturers, tier-1 suppliers and start-up companies simultaneously competing and collaborating. We have companies that started building electric trucks in their garages now developing trucks for the parcel delivery market. We have two tier 1 suppliers going from axle, brake and driveline suppliers to providers of full electric powertrains. And we have major truck manufacturers working alongside silicon-valley start-ups. We asked Meritor's vice president for Global Business Development, T.J. Reed, if all these diverse interests play together in the same sandbox.

Meritor Blue Horizon

HDT: Meritor to Begin Commercial Electric Powertrain Production

YouTube: Meritor Blue Horizon Manifesto

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