Volvo VNL

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

Could autonomous trucks help save the planet?

It’s understood that autonomous trucks boost fuel efficiency compared to human-driven big rigs.

But the potential energy efficiency gains could be far greater.

In a white paper released Tuesday, Aurora Innovation looked at immediate, medium- and longer-term opportunities and found some obvious and not-so-obvious savings.

The headline factoid: Autonomous trucks could achieve 13%-32% net energy efficiency improvement per loaded mile compared to human-driven miles. It is a lot to digest. 

Aurora makes...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/could-autonomous-trucks-help-save-the-planet

SEC smackdown and SuperTruck news overwhelm convention dispatches  

The annual Work Truck Week and American Trucking Associations Maintenance & Technology Council pile on stakeholder-specific dispatches each March. But this week bigger stories originated outside the convention halls in Indianapolis and New Orleans.

The Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington is as good a starting point as any.

Lordstown Motors gets an SEC comeuppance

Nearly three years after Hindenberg Research set its sights on Lordstown Motors Corp., accusing the former special purpose...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/sec-smackdown-and-supertruck-news-overwhelm-convention-dispatches

Volvo, DHL get ready for hub-to-hub autonomous trucking

Volvo VNL autonomous prototype pulling yellow DHL trailer

Volvo Autonomous Solutions (VAS) will work with logistics provider DHL Supply Chain on hub-to-hub autonomous freight hauling, joining a rush of fleets and autonomous startups envisioning the future road without human drivers.

The key detail missing is when the program starts. VAS said that would come later.

Volvo VNL long-haul sleeper cabs are being retrofitted by Aurora Innovation with the Aurora Driver, an autonomous system the startup is testing on passenger cars and trucks. Aurora also is...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/volvo-dhl-get-ready-for-hub-to-hub-autonomous-trucking

This autonomous ride-along was boring — and that’s a good thing

PALMER, Texas — Successful autonomous trucking runs have nothing in common. As in nothing happens that the robot driver cannot handle as intended. That includes knowing to slow down for the man who occasionally walks his dog along Interstate 45 south of Dallas.

Aurora Innovation’s autonomous trucks have seen the man and the dog before and the robot Aurora Driver systems learned to brake almost imperceptibly, obeying the Texas law to shift one lane to the left or reduce its speed by 20 mph.

“The...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/this-autonomous-ride-along-was-boring-and-thats-a-good-thing

Truck Talk: Trailer troubles edition

This week, we’re looking at how trailer industry leader Hyundai Translead is coping with a raft of supply chain issues preventing it from taking full advantage of demand, mixed signals on the Tesla Semi and some other electrification buzz.

An imperfect storm

You might think that trailer makers would be thrilled with month after month of strong orders. A bigger backlog is good, right? That’s not necessarily the case. We talked this week with Sean Kenney, chief sales officer at Hyundai Translead,...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/truck-talk-trailer-troubles-edition

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