Charging infrastructure issues continue to plague the widespread adoption of zero-emission, battery-electric commercial trucks. But a new report issued by Calstart, a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization focused on transportation, says establishing electric infrastructure in a timely manner to meet those needs is possible.

Read the full article to learn about the six-stage strategy Calstart has outlined for developing commercial EV charging infrastructure

National Truck Driver Appreciation Week is next week! Learn about the deals and promotions, as well as what companies are doing to recognize the contributions of the trucking industry. Read about it in our featured article

From Jason Walker, COO, United Road Services:

We set this up as this alliance because this is a partnership between NVTA, United Road, and the small to mid-sized carriers of United Road. This program was specifically designed to provide benefits for United Road's nearly 6,000 carriers, which does good for our industry in general. That's why we chose to go with National Vehicle Transporters Alliance rather than an Association.

From Jason Walker, COO, United Road Services:

NVTA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of United Road Services. This means it is able to operate independent of the trucking company of United Road. Decisions are made independently, and for the benefit of NVTA members, without necessarily thinking about how this impacts United Road. I liken it to this: many people enjoy a cold Pepsi every now and then, and they may or may not enjoy a bag of Doritos. Though Doritos and Pepsi are owned by the same company, but both businesses are run separately. 

From Jason Walker, COO, United Road Services:

Towards the end of 2019, going into 2020, here at United Road, we began to see a lot of carriers fall out of the marketplace. We went down a path of centralizing our dispatch of third party carriers. That gave us a greater degree of visibility to what our third party carriers were dealing with and what our third party carriers really needed.

We began to see many of these carriers leave the industry, whether it be for insurance reasons or supply issues. We felt it incumbent upon us as as United Road to do something about it.

United Road is the largest carrier within finished vehicle logistics; however, we recognize that for us to be successful and for our industry to be successful, we need the small to midsize carriers to also be successful. So with that in mind, we started down a path to ensure that small to mid-sized carriers were able to utilize services and benefits we have as a large carrier.

While we thought we knew what some of the carriers needed, we did do some market research through surveys and focus groups. We talked to carriers one-on-one to understand what the biggest issues were for them. From that, three things emerged:

1. Rising insurance. Carriers were struggling with the rising insurance costs as a result of nuclear verdicts throughout the country, and it was causing many carriers to leave the vehicle transportation space and go elsewhere or just go out of business altogether. So we knew that we had to address the rising insurance costs.
2. Roadside assistance. Many of our carriers were saying, I have someone to service my truck when a truck goes down from 8AM to 5 PM, but what do I do when my truck is in an unknown place at 2AM in the morning? How do I get the necessary services and towing for towing services that I need?
3. Fuel. Each one of these carriers has had a hefty fuel bill. And they said, can you find ways for us to enjoy better discounts than we're getting on our own today?

Those were the three foundational, hallmark, pieces that began to build NVTA around.