Episode 52: Building the Future of Electric Trucking with Anja Van Niersen

Anja Van Niersen, CEO of Milence, discusses plans to establish a charging network for European long-haul trucking. Milence is a 500MM Euro joint venture amongst Daimler, Traton and Volvo trucks.

00:00 Introduction to Milence

03:04 Anja’s background and career

03:10 Milence’s mission and operations

12:41 The profile of a charging hub

16:47 Future of heavy-duty/long-haul trucking

23:15 Geographical footprint and infrastructure development

30:00 Future enablers

37:26 The role of consumers and market demand

40:03 Optimism for adoption

Live from Anaheim! I was at the world’s premier event for sustainable commercial transportation. Here’s a brief ~10-minute recap of key trends regarding China, electrification, sustainability’s future, and regulation. The highlight for me was driving a massive “day cab,” the driver part of a semi-truck.  You can see the video at www.gtkpartners.com/act25

In this milestone 50th episode of Tech. Cars. Machines., Patrick Macdonald-King, CEO of Greenlane, discusses plans to establish a charging network from the port of Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Greenlane is a $650MM joint venture amongst Daimler Trucks North America, NextEra Energy Resources, and BlackRock, and a leading, if not the leading, charging network for medium- and heavy-duty trucks. 

00:00 Welcome to Episode 50: Milestone Celebration 

03:28 Interview with Patrick Macdonald-King

04:27 Greenlane’s Nationwide Network and Strategy 

05:29 Patrick Macdonald-King’s Career Journey 

08:11 The Role of OEMs in Charging Infrastructure 

18:50 Hydrogen as a Future Path 

25:47 Mapping Out Deployment Strategies 

26:22 Greenlane’s Charging Infrastructure 

32:29 Future-Proofing with Scalable Solutions 

35:49 California’s Role in Electrification 

37:25 Technological Needs and Industry Partnerships 

41:06 Long-Term Vision and Industry Predictions

Lux Capital General Partner Shahin Farshchi, PhD, talked with me about his background, Lux’s history, and how the firm came to position itself as the leading investor in hard-tech. A focus on outstanding teams, market readiness, patience and taking the lead from entrepreneurs on the “next great sector” has led to investments such as Anduril, Aurora, Databricks, Hugging Face, Matterport, Nirvana, Planet Labs, Zededa and Zoox.

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Links to Lux Capital and Shahin.  Host: Ali Tabibian of GTK Partners.

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(1:44) Introduction to Lux

(6:14) Shahin’s background and initiative in managing your career

(20:49) Investment selection process

(34:30) Focusing on the long-term

(37:33) The next big things

AMD’s Mark Papermaster, CTO and EVP, talked with me about his background, AMD’s history, and how the company came to position itself as a “bankable supplier” with one of the most diverse semiconductor portfolios for the age of AI: CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, accelerators, custom development, and with rack-scale systems with the pending acquisition of ZT Systems.  A focus on performance and open-ness are AMD’s guiding lights.  Needless to say, we discussed DeepSeek AI, too.  

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Host: Ali Tabibian of GTK Partners.  

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(0:00) Introduction to AMD 

(7:23) Mark’s background and lessons from the iPhone and iPod 

(15:10) The whole banana, or a comprehensive solution suite   

(23:32) DeepSeek AI and the benefit of constraints 

(27:37) Software and an open approach 

(32:30) Balancing investing in innovation and margins 

Steve Patton shares EY’s perspective on how consumer demand and regulations shape the automotive landscape.  We touch on Chinese car makers, sustainability, electrification, autonomy and logistics.  Is sustainability self-sustaining, or does it still need regulatory incentives?  Steve explains.  

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EY Transportation group is here.  Host: Ali Tabibian of GTK Partners.  

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(0:00) Introduction to Steve and EY 

(5:42) Sustainability, regulation 

(16:37) Supply chain and fulfillment   

(20:32) Connectivity, especially in industrial applications 

(31:27) EVs and Chinese car companies 

(45:18) Predictions and hopes 

With the advantage of letting a few days pass before collecting my thoughts, two themes came into focus.  First, the rise of Chinese auto companies, and the mainstreaming of electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles and IoT were starkly clear.  Second, I explain why there seems to me to be a correlation between exhibitor behavior and their business prospects.  This isn’t investment advice, of course.  

Host: Ali Tabibian of GTK Partners.  

Other posts regarding CES: Chris Stallman, VC; Marc Amblard, Mobility Adviser.   

Has any company made a bigger impact on the automotive sector in the last decade than Tesla? Love them or hate them, in electrification, auto dealership structure and passenger car autonomy Tesla has masterfully used the extraordinary latitude it’s been afforded by investors to disrupt of the industry.  We revisit and offer updated commentary from our original Everybody Hates Tesla episodes of a few years ago.  

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Host: Ali Tabibian of GTK Partners.  

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(0:00) Updated introduction 

(4:41) Beginning of “Everybody Hates Tesla, Part 2”  

(5:08) Supply chain 

(17:41) Dealerships 

(21:39) Self-driving 

Link to Ben Thompson’s Stratechery article on Waymo vs Tesla approaches to self-driving.  

Has any company made a bigger impact on the automotive sector in the last decade than Tesla? Love them or hate them, Tesla has masterfully used the extraordinary latitude it’s been afforded by investors and customers to disrupt the profit, supply and dealership structure of the industry.  This latitude is also potentially the Company’s biggest weakness, contributing to Groundhog Day execution problems and unnecessary “self-driving” claims. We revisit and offer updated commentary from our original Everybody Hates Tesla episodes of a few years ago.  

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Host: Ali Tabibian of GTK Partners.  

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(0:00) Updated introduction 

(6:27) Beginning of “Everybody Hates Tesla, Part 1”  

(10:00) Electrification 

(15:40) EVs are inherently premium vehicles

Can your AI make life-and-death decisions? Mercedes-Benz’s Drive Pilot can.  Does your AI vendor take legal responsibility for those life-and-death decisions? Mercedes does.  Drive Pilot is the only certified Level 3 passenger car system globally.  Georges Massing, global head of the company’s automated driving and cabin technologies, tells us how.  We hear his thoughts on how the technology ecosystem can work with Mercedes.

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Mercedes-Benz’s global website is here.  Host: Ali Tabibian of GTK Partners.

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(0:00) Introduction to Mercedes

(4:05) Introduction to Georges Massing

(12:50) The Mercedes brand

(17:42) The user interface

(23:25) Autonomy

(44:38) Mercedes & the ecosystem