Co-founder wants TuSimple liquidated

TuSimple co-founder Xiaodi Hou has started a second autonomous trucking startup. But he is suing his former company, urging that TuSimple be liquidated and $450 million returned to shareholders, of whom he is the largest.

Suits on 3 coasts

In separate filings in courts in San Diego and Delaware, Hou claims his co-founder, Mo Chen, and CEO Cheng Lu are trying to move TuSimple’s $450 million to China. TuSimple moved its business there and has shifted its business from autonomous trucking to...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/co-founder-wants-tusimple-liquidated

Conspiracy to disable truck emission controls nets guilty plea

In exchange for a fee of up to $4,500 per truck, a New Jersey man was able to remotely reconfigure heavy-duty diesel truck engines allowing company drivers to bypass federal pollution-control regulations.

He now faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Jonathan Achtemeier pled guilty in a Washington state federal court on Wednesday, admitting that between 2019 and 2022 he removed the pollution control software on hundreds of trucks from around the country.

Defeating emission controls...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/conspiracy-to-disable-truck-emission-controls-nets-guilty-plea

Could the flux capacitor solve hydrogen storage on Class 8 trucks?

The garbage-gulping Mr. Fusion from “Back to the Future” was pure fiction, but the flux capacitor that powered Doc Brown’s flying DeLorean is real. NASA made it. The space agency licenses it. And hydrogen-powered trucks might benefit from it.

A license like no other

“I actually have a license for the flux capacitor. How many people can say that?” Michael Kramer, founder of startup Novadev, told me. “The only one who’s made a lot of money on this program so far is my patent attorney. He got paid a...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/could-the-flux-capacitor-solve-hydrogen-storage-on-class-8-trucks

Are hydrogen combustion engines delayed or DOA?

Guidehouse Insights has published an extensive report on the global prospects for internal combustion engines powered by hydrogen. You can spend $3,950 to buy the full report and its 43 charts tracking markets for H2 ICE. Or, you can read one of the author’s perspectives below.

Hydrogen ICE study: Not that great a solution

Except for some vocational use cases in North America, a forgiving regulatory environment in Europe and a drive for energy independence in India, the idea of using gaseous or...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/are-hydrogen-combustion-engines-delayed-or-doa

Sitetracker: Speeding electric truck charging behind the scenes

Announcements of new charging depots for electric trucks seem to come almost weekly. Some are more promises than ready-to-go power. Sitetracker, a SaaS business rooted in telecommunications, is providing a cloud-based backbone to move things along.

Sitetracker has been around since 2008. In four rounds of fundraising, it has brought in $183 million, including $66 million in a Series D round in 2022. The Montclair, New Jersey-based company has doubled its head count while seizing opportunities in...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/sitetracker-speeding-electric-truck-charging-behind-the-scenes

Workhorse on the bubble, or is it worse?

Less than three months after my generally upbeat visit to Workhorse Group’s refurbished plant near the Ohio-Indiana border, the electric truck maker’s situation appears dire.

Layoffs and furloughs

Workhorse has laid off 20% of its workforce. Much of the rest is on unpaid furlough and could be called back to work. 

The company is choked with inventory. It has less than $7 million in cash on the books and accounts payable for more than twice that amount. At a projected burn rate less than Q1’s $5.5...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/workhorse-on-the-bubble-or-is-it-worse

Opposition grows to speedy electric truck transition

The Advanced Clean Transportation Expo, a generally upbeat event for battery electric, hydrogen and other emission-friendly technologies, takes place next week in Las Vegas amid a growing and widespread backlash to the regulation-driven transition to electric trucks.

Nearly every stakeholder — from the trucking industry and driver organizations to state attorneys general — is weighing in with dire estimates of crippling costs to a cyclical industry. Ryder System Inc. is the latest, dissecting...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/opposition-grows-to-speedy-electric-truck-transition

Deal averts strike at Daimler North America as UAW celebrates pact

A four-year contract has been reached between the United Auto Workers and Daimler Truck North America, averting a strike at several U.S. facilities that could have started Saturday and shut down production of Freightliner and Western Star trucks.

The pact covers approximately 7,400 workers at Daimler North America (NASDAQ: DTGHF) facilities who build Freightliner and Western Star trucks: the Mount Holly, North Carolina, truck manufacturing plant; the Cleveland, North Carolina, truck...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/deal-averts-strike-at-daimler-north-america-as-uaw-celebrates-pact

Really cold hydrogen could bring driving range parity with diesel

The time it takes to fuel a hydrogen-powered fuel cell truck is already on par with diesel. But there is still a yawning gap when it comes to comparable driving range. A new hydrogen storage system that packs more energy density might change that.

The goal of hydrogen and battery-electric trucks is to reduce the 12% of greenhouse gas emissions attributed to heavy-duty trucking.

Chill out: Verne goes deep into minus celsius for cryo-compression

San Francisco-based startup Verne is named after 19th...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/really-cold-hydrogen-could-bring-driving-range-parity-with-diesel

Will natural gas payback beat EV adoption?

The confluence of a new, bigger engine, net-zero carbon emissions from renewable natural gas (RNG) and pressure from shippers for their carriers to operate sustainably add up to a bright picture for natural gas adoption.

But a new study from the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE) points to a couple of cautions. First is methane leakage from the source of the RNG. Methane escaping into the atmosphere is a huge contributor to planet-warming greenhouse gas.

Second, and most...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/will-natural-gas-payback-beat-ev-adoption