The Future of Trucking, Rising Diesel Costs, Electric Vehicle Debate | Ep 14

Caroline: [00:00:00] Welcome to This Week in Trucking, the podcast that tells you what you need to know about the trucking market for the week in 30 minutes or less. This week, we’re talking about a diesel price update, looking at freight market trends. We’re going to talk about electric vehicles and zero emission vehicles and see what’s happening there.

Plus, we’ll be answering your questions in the comments. All right, Gurvir, how’s it going?

Gurvir: It’s going well. How about you?

Caroline: It’s good.

Caroline: It’s good. Summer is good. Summer solstice was yesterday, longest day of the year for the Northern Hemisphere. So I’m just hoping that everyone’s doing all right with all of this heat.

Gurvir: Yeah, it’s been, it hasn’t gone, really hot here in Maryland. I’m not sure if it’s the same, but now it, it has started getting pretty hot. and let’s see. Yeah, Fourth of July is around the corner, so I’m excited about that. But but yeah.

Caroline: That bodes well, usually for the freight market, right?

Temperatures are better for reefer and holidays [00:01:00] are good for spot market. Usually.

Gurvir: yeah, usually. And if the reefer goes up produce season, it also affects drive in and other modes as well. So that’s a good thing. You got any special plans for 4th of July? I know that’s two weeks away, but yeah, 

Caroline: I do. I’m lucky enough to have a job where I get holidays off. That’s not always the case for all of our listeners. So I do get a chance to stay with my family and just really grateful that I live in an economy that allows for that. And that I’m in a position to be able to do that because probably a lot of people that listen to this are the people that make that possible.

Gurvir: yeah, no totally. Yeah. Awesome. I don’t have any plans and let’s see I’m going to be off as well, but so let’s see, maybe spend some time with the family and just chill. What do we have in the freight market this week?

Caroline: Yeah, let’s talk about diesel prices this week. So we’re looking at prices from the 17th because this data comes out on Mondays every week from the U. S. Energy [00:02:00] Information Administration. As of the 17th, the national average diesel price was 3. 735. This is up almost 8 [00:03:00] cents from a week ago. That is not boding well. I think we had pretty, a pretty lucky trend of it.

It was sliding downwards over the last couple of months, and now it’s back on the rise. It is still lower than where we were last year. So it’s still lower by eight cents from June of last year, but it’s up across the board. In, on the East Coast, it’s up. Midwest is up. Gulf Coast, Rocky Mountain, West Coast. Literally, Every region of the country is up, and the biggest increase, it looks like, was, came out of the Midwest, actually.

Almost 11 cents up in the Midwest. Yeah.

Gurvir: It’s similar to trucking supply and demand. It seems like the supply has gone up. And the demand is coming down like the manufacturing index. That’s one of the things that we try to see, Hey, how the what’s going to happen to the trucking economy?

I think Jason Miller is talks about this index a lot that, Hey, look, the [00:04:00] manufacturing activity in the U S really creates trucking activity and over the road activity. Manufacturing activity hasn’t been growing. It hasn’t been expanding. So obviously there’s a lot of diesel use there, gas and energy.

Yeah, I think supply increasing and demand, flattening and decreasing a little bit leads to prices coming down. So this is a good thing. I’m not sure if all the trucks that have been parked and came out. Out of the supply may also be impacting it. But all these things add up, right?

And then also, globally, there’s not many surprises that are happening. So this is a really good news. But I do feel like, if you look at the EIA projections, Caroline, they were not projecting that we would drop down to 370. I think their Q1 projection was 397. Q2 was 392. Q3 right now is 3.99 and Q4 was 4.15. So you can imagine like we’re almost hovering like 0.20 to 0.30 under their projection. So let’s see I think it’s probably not going to go down any further. The lowest points. I think it’s, it has already started peaking up a little bit.

Caroline: This is the first week where we’ve talked [00:05:00] where prices are actually up across the board, across all regions. Compared to the last week, the only place that’s cheaper than it was in 2023 is California, interestingly enough. So we were up, we were paying 15 cents less per gallon for diesel in California last year.

So that’s, but that’s literally the only place in, the only region in and of itself that has that has decreased since last year. 

Gurvir: [The US] is drilling more oil. I know this is a huge topic for the next election years as well. Hey, do we go electrification and drill less? This means more pipelines and all these things. Or do we just, drill drill and produce more oil, which means market and the economy that we’re in Caroline, you, You see this amazing thing and this is applicable in so much life that one good thing and there’s pros and cons to everything,

But that’s the one of the main reasons why, diesel prices are [00:06:00] coming down is that U. S. is drilling more and more oil,

A question for the future as well. Are we going to continue to drill more?

Caroline: I wonder what the impact is. This might be a question for our favorite freight market celebrity, Jason Miller. Who hopefully will hear this and come on the show soon. But, yeah. I wonder what the impact of diesel prices is on the freight market itself. So not just the pricing of, fuel surcharge, but what happens when you make fuel really inexpensive?

Does that increase production in any major industry in the U. S. and increase The demand for trucking or maybe the other way around some other effect that I’m not thinking of right now that could decrease production for whatever reason.

Gurvir: Yeah, that’s an interesting question. I’m sure it has an impact. I think manufacturing industries are using a lot of gas and oil products, whether it’s plastic and all these other things,

These things are used in a [00:07:00] variety of ways. And I think use cases are so many but I do know diesel goes down carriers do get the most benefit. It takes a while before the shippers actually start lowering prices. That hence, that’s why they separate the pricing. There’s a line hall charge and then there’s a separate fuel surcharge, right?

Can have these two cost mechanisms. But the end of the day, I think it impacts and affects the carriers the most and actually helps them.

If the diesel prices comes down, if the diesel prices comes down, like next week, about 50 cents. of that is going to the carriers.

Caroline: And particularly those who are working on the spot market. Because they’re not getting a fuel surcharge. They have to work in the fuel price with their costs. 

Gurvir: Yeah. Spot market doesn’t change much just because diesel went up by a dollar. Like again, to start eating that cost. Spot market does its own thing. I’m sure it has a little impact on it. For example, if the diesel goes to 8, I’m sure nobody’s going to be hauling that freight, right?

It just becomes not going to make any money but in terms of 30, 40 cent movements, I don’t think it has a huge impact on the spot market. 

Caroline: All right. So speaking of spot market, what is going on [00:08:00] with the spot market?

Gurvir: Yeah. So let’s start with the DAT data first. So dry van in May was 202 in June, we are hovering around 205. So there has been a 3 cent increase. In April, we were 1. 99 for dry van. So obviously we’ve seen about a 6 cent increase and this is all because of produce season as well. I think a lot of the supplies being used there that affects other modes as well. Flatbed had been doing really well throughout the year, right? Flatbed has started to plateau. So in May, we’re at 252 mile, in June we’re at 251 and then reefer obviously has gone up, but since April. But it is pretty equivalent to May. So May was 242 a mile. June is also 242 per mile. Overall, spot load posts, loads have decreased by 5 percent and so has truck posts. if you look at it from last year just let’s just revisit it last year during this time. Load posts are down about 2. 6%. And truck posts are not down about 22%.

Caroline: Where were we with rates at this time last year?

Gurvir: It’d be interesting. I don’t have that in front of [00:09:00] me, but I think it’s probably lower than what we’re experiencing right now, just because of, we’ve seen a truck post go down by 22%. So there has been a huge exodus of supply of trucks. And so yeah, I would assume that the rates were lowered last time this year.

If we look at the freight waves index they’re showing a little bit of a decrease. So the national truckload index is down about. 1.3%. So it went from two point 30 a mile to 2.2, 2.27 a mile this week. And that’s basically, flat, right? It is just a very small increase. And if you look at the line haul only it also went down from dollar 70 a mile to dollar 67.

Again, LINEHAUL Includes, does not include a few. the National Truckload Index, NTI, does include fuel. So with fuel, we’re down about three cents as per freight waves. Without fuel, we’re also down about three cents as well. So very small decreases, but staying pretty flat. One of the important things, another thing [00:10:00] that we like to track is the rejection rate.

We finally went above 5 percent rejection rate. It’s for the last few days. So this hasn’t happened this whole year. It might not even happened, might have not even happened like last year. So we’re finally at 5. 26. This is really good news. FreightWaves is saying that this market is going to look like more like 2019.

Let’s see if this is a repeat of 2019 market, which means by the time we hit December in 2019, we saw 11 percent of rejection rate. 

Caroline: That would be good news.

Gurvir: that would be great news that, hey, look, we’re going to go down after July sort of end of July. We’re actually the freight market is going to take a dip. then the holiday season starts. And then after that, we’re going to continue to gradually go up where we come and where we land at during November, December. Let’s see if this really imitates, the 2019 market. So what is the forecast? I think DAT also does a forecast over the next month or so. Dryland will go up about by about 7 cents flatbed will stay flat and we’ll come down about 5 cents. And reefer rates will [00:11:00] also come down a little bit by the end of July, just because of the seasonal adjustments. The hurricane season is here, which is the, it’s probably going to be one of the worst as per, weather channels and stuff.

That can have a huge impact. If there’s one hurricane event obviously it’s a sad event, but something like these a natural disaster like this can help trucking because it just leads to a huge demand surge. then supply gets taken out of the market and even a percent shift in, in demand and supply could really change things and really turn the freight market.

Caroline: Is that for delivering relief? Like delivering FEMA relief? Is that what takes it out?

Gurvir: and also just people just want to buy all these essentials. And overall [the freight market] just goes up these events. And then supply in those regions also get taken out. Those, some of those trucks can’t operate anymore. So essentially. These two things happen, which leads to higher rates.

Caroline: Yeah, I know that you can have higher rates going into those areas, but it can also make it obviously more dangerous to drive out to those [00:12:00] areas. And there are lots of I’ve seen drivers and companies sending people out and sometimes not even charging or charging a really low rate just to help people out in these situations.

But overall the impact on the region would be for freight rates to go up. Just hoping that those first responders are able to get there quickly and do what they can to limit the damage and hopefully people stay okay. We know that the tropical storm, Alberta hit Mexico this week with some tragic consequences.

Luckily it didn’t hit the U. S. too hard but there are some people with some damage to property in Texas. So yeah, just thinking about that and thinking about what that might mean for future storms coming in.

Gurvir: yeah. And just to give some news on that. Yeah. This, and this is because just to get, the Atlantic Ocean is warm that, which leads to like more hurricanes and so the two, the 2024 forecast is that we’re probably gonna anticipate about [00:13:00] 17 to 25 storms. year, which 8 to 13 becoming hurricanes out of those out of these four to seven could be major. hurricanes with winds of at least 150 MPH. So this is, we haven’t seen something like this in, in, in a long time.

Caroline: I was just gonna say, Is that precedented? I don’t follow a lot of extreme weather and I, lived outside of the U S for a while, so I’m not super in tune with what has happened in the last couple of years. Is that pretty unprecedented historically?

Gurvir: it’s above normal level of activity.

Caroline: Yikes.

Gurvir: Yeah, it’s we haven’t seen this in some time. I think like 17 to 25 with 8 to 13 becoming hurricanes and 4 to 7 becoming major hurricanes. That’s a lot.

Caroline: Yeah, for sure.

Gurvir: So yeah, there’s a good chance that this is going to be above average season.

Caroline: Yeah. You mentioned that there are some predictions that say that the freight market might recover or partially recover over this year. There [00:14:00] are other people who say that’s not going to happen, that there’s really no reason to believe that it would recover. Until next year, until later next year.

We need to get some of these experts on here to talk about those things and debate each other on them because we need to get some answers.

Gurvir: yeah. And it’s really hard to do, by the way.

Caroline: Totally. 

Gurvir: If you dig down into supply, there’s a various different reasons. If you dig down into demand of trucking, there’s various different reasons.

And thing could really affect it, right? And at the end of the day, Nobody knows, right? Even DAT, they all have ideas and stuff. We can look at the data, the historical data and make a, a projection, but I like Jason Miller who looks at like certain indexes, like manufacturing and that stuff. And that is true. Hey, in terms of creating, if everything remains as is today, in terms of supply of trucks, And other things. If the manufacturing index goes up, obviously trucking activity is going to go up. But if you have a hurricane event where 5 percent of the capacity goes out and then 5 percent [00:15:00] demand goes up, that could really just change things, right?

And now who cares about the manufacturing index, right? Got these other things that are affecting supply and demand. So I think those kinds of things definitely can happen.

Caroline: And supply and demand, that really simplistic explanation would work if all trucks were the same and all freight was the same.

Gurvir: Yeah,

Caroline: So it’s supply for what? Demand for what? That makes a big difference.

Gurvir: Imports are really up this year, right? We’re seeing some record numbers. Like the COVID, COVID repeats, right? In terms of all the imports that are coming. And that doesn’t necessarily translate into over the road trucking immediately. But the exports are down a little bit.

Yeah, all these things matter. And there’s a lot of data behind the simplistic supply and demand equation. 

Caroline: Yeah, absolutely. Speaking of Jason Miller, if you’re listening, come on down, we’d love to talk to you. But speaking of different types of trucks, I had a really interesting conversation with someone from CalSTART, [00:16:00] Brian Rant, who’s a product or program manager at CalSTART, who helps, is helping fleets, small and large in California deal with emissions and zero emissions vehicle regulation in California which people have a lot of feelings about. So I want to see what. Your perspective is on this, Gurveer, because we talked to Brian, I had heard a lot of concerns about electric trucks from folks, particularly at the Mid America Truck Show, where I got a chance to talk to a lot of owner operators and truck drivers, and they have some really important, valid concerns about the electrification of trucking, and people have a lot of feelings about it.

So I want to get into it and see. where we stand on electrification and how we think this is going to affect the industry. So overall what are your thoughts on this

Gurvir: Yeah. Generally, I think when the technology came out, [00:17:00] everybody freaks out oh, man, electrification is here. It’s going to come here in the next 5 years, 10 years, and it’s going to change the way we do trucking. And then slowly, after some time, people the reality sink in, the realities around the electrification is that, hey, it might work well for local and 100 mile loads or 50, Yards and ports and stuff like that, but as soon as you go into over the road, there’s a lot of challenges. Writer posted a report this year. I think night and swift and writer did a report where it’s almost going to cost you double to run an electric truck. I think there’s a 94 percent increase in total cost. So you imagine the cost can include like waiting time to charge batteries, right?

And all these other things, right? And there’s a whole like, detailed report on this. But essentially they’re saying, Hey it could cost you like 200 to 300, 000. So in terms of over the road, I don’t think it’s here anytime soon. The cost has to significantly drop. And this is true for a lot of technologies.

If you want to see mass adoption, the cost has to be right.

Caroline: Yeah.

Gurvir: that’s just going to take time. And this is just natural evolution of technology. [00:18:00] You initially new tech initially is always expensive. I remember the iPhones were used to be so expensive. I don’t know, 1000, 1200 bucks, 500, 1500 bucks initially.

And slowly the cost of just making these things will just come down. And that is true for a lot of innovations and new tech. And as that cost comes down sure, I think we might see a mass adoption, but then still you have an infrastructure right? How do you replace all the gas stations? And also there’s a physics question. Some people actually think it’s impossible. You do need diesel combustion to move 80, 000 pounds. You just can’t lift that much weight and move that much freight. So there’s a lot of hurdles like those which I think it, the electric trucks are not going to be here anytime soon. Even though some states are trying to, push legislation and trying to get there faster. And I’m sure that’s a pro and a con. Pro is that it pushes everybody to like work on these technologies faster and get it right.

Caroline: Right.

Gurvir: The con is, hey, what if you don’t get it right? And this technology is not feasible. Legislation is out. 

Caroline: Yeah. And the questions that I had for Brian in that [00:19:00] conversation were around exactly what you’re talking about. Does this actually even work? Can this even work for this industry? And I think the It’s the same way that we talk about the freight market. Oh, it’s just supply and demand.

Actually, it’s not that simplistic, right?

So will electric trucks work or won’t they work? It’s actually the answer. That question is very boringly, not that simplistic, right? That you’re going to see adoption for electric vehicles in some contexts and in some contexts you’re not, or it’s just going to take.

Many decades to get there. And we had a lot of comments in on our short videos about people who are drivers and owner operators saying, Hey, this cannot work for a long haul. This is not, it’s not going to be feasible because you need to wait a long time for things to charge. You have to Have maintenance available.

The infrastructure is not there. And that’s something that [00:20:00] really, regulators in California recognize. And so that’s why they’re not really regulating that right now. They are regulating emissions. And that’s a pretty, that’s controversial. OIDA just came out with a lawsuit against the EPA emissions regulations.

So we’ll see where that goes. But it, they’re not expecting small fleets under 50 trucks to adopt any Zero emissions vehicles anytime soon there’s nowhere on the timeline for that. So people who say, oh, I’m going to, I’m going to want to drive into California in a couple of years and my truck’s going to be illegal. It’s just not true. 

Gurvir: renewable diesel [could] become more of an option 

Gurvir: Even if you look at the funding, a lot of these companies like Tesla hasn’t announced when their truck is coming out. I could be wrong about that. That has been delayed because I, maybe they see some challenges around, Yeah. Like all the trucks becoming electric and I don’t see many players now talking about actually producing electrical trucks, right? Nicola was one of them. And I think they were going through a lot of company challenges and almost, bankruptcy [00:21:00] talks. So a lot of these companies have also failed just like autonomy, autonomous trucking, right?

Some of those companies are not, they don’t exist anymore. So you saw a lot of those companies, develop those technologies, and now some of them are not there anymore. Again, with, even with a lot of those things are happening at a local level.

Caroline: There are quite a few electric trucks on the market. They’re just not the kinds of trucks that we usually think of necessarily. So there’s no sleeper cabs that are electric, right? 

Gurvir: [They could] do like local. E commerce they have those, u haul type trucks like the box trucks

They do those like I think they’re electric. So you do are seeing some applications.

Caroline: Sprinter vans, box trucks, local delivery. I think anything under a hundred, 200 miles is right now doable within a state or in a locality where you have the infrastructure for it, which California is growing that infrastructure [00:22:00] now. So within those pockets, sure, that can work. I see Rivian’s Sprinter vans driving around my neighborhood all the time delivering stuff.

But it’s just, that’s not what we’re talking about when we talk about trucking. So there is this kind of divide between people who do long haul or people who use especially sleeper cabs the technology just isn’t there yet. And it may be in the future. And the good news is that the regulations in California actually really don’t apply to most fleets that we work with and people can keep operating their vehicles as is in that state.

There are other reasons not to go to California not the least of which is fuel prices so we’ll see if that, that’s probably just a neutral effect on people wanting to go out to California, but you’re pretty safe in operating, you’re still operating your diesel truck, as long as it meets the requirements of emissions regulations, and you’re getting those checks done there, there’s you know, you’re not [00:23:00] in danger of of losing that truck or losing that work really anytime soon.

So that’s the good news.

Gurvir: Yeah. You’re going to be fine. They’re not coming here anytime soon.

Caroline: Yeah. All right. We do have some comments on previous videos. So one was on our explanation of the FMCSA drug and alcohol clearing house. Someone commented, is this only for people with drug and alcohol violations while having their CDL? What if I had a DUI in my personal vehicle record five years ago before, or five years before having my CDL?

Caroline: Yeah,

Gurvir: the question is that does it impact your ability to get a CDL?

Caroline: I think the question is my DUI from before I had my CDL, is that going to show up on the FMCSA Clearinghouse?

Gurvir: Not on the Clearinghouse. I don’t think 

Caroline: Right.

Gurvir: The Clearinghouse will show if you violated the drug and alcohol policy. But I think you will [00:24:00] struggle with probably getting your CDL or getting insurance. Insurance companies are going to look at that and, oh, like we don’t want it.

So I think the more struggle might be around getting employment. If you go work for a trucking company and their insurance notices that, Hey, there’s a DUI on your record that might just be a big hindrance. If you want to be an owner-operator just be ready to pay [a lot] for your insurance.

So I think Clearinghouse, not much of an impact because you didn’t

Caroline: right.

Gurvir: The, you don’t have, you don’t have a CDL, right? So you’re not a commercial driver. You’re not a commercial driver. So you didn’t violate any while you were this person does not have a CDL. So yeah, it should not affect the Clearinghouse, but I think it will impact other costs

Caroline: Yeah,

Gurvir: maybe even, your driving job.

Gurvir: Yeah.

Caroline: I do wonder what the history, how long ago it has to be to not affect it or not affected as much. I’ve heard the five year rule, but I think that’s around violations as well. So if you have some kind of CDL or carrier violation, safety violation [00:25:00] that you have to wait five years for it to get it. [Some things can get] striked from your record or so that the insurance company won’t take it into consideration when giving you a quote. I don’t know what that looks like for just your regular DMV driving record, right? Because your driving record does matter when you’re going out to get insurance and when you’re going to get trained in and try to find a job.

So yeah, but it won’t show up in [the Clearinghouse]

Gurvir: It does stay on your record indefinitely though.

Caroline: Yeah, a DUI definitely does. Yeah, so that’s an interesting question.

Gurvir: Under five years insurance companies can see it over five years they can’t.

Caroline: I wonder if there’s something that you can do afterward to prove or help, bolster your case, with an insurance company some kind of program that you could be in to help with that. But yeah, good news, it won’t show up on your, on the clearinghouse. Bad news, it’s going to affect a lot of other things.

Caroline: All right, the last question is hello, I am looking to obtain my DOT number and authority this year, but I heard about the change that FMCSA is making. And with that being said, I’m unsure of how to proceed, or will I even need to obtain my MC number? Should I just get my DOT? I tried doing a search, but there’s a lot of misinformation out there.

Hope you can clarify.

Gurvir: yeah, so those changes have not gone into effect just yet. So you still proceed with getting your DOT number, your MC number, your insurance, I think everything is is and normal until we hear further. I know there’s just, by the way, these conversations have been happening for a while. They’re going to change the MC.

They’re going to combine the MC and DOT.

They’re also doing more identity and verification things, but they haven’t announced anything and changes in the process. I think the process right now remains as is. They might be doing some additional checks on the back end. For example, they have suspended [DOT PINs], like you will not get a PIN.

So those [00:27:00] small things they are making those changes. But overall the process of getting your DOT number and obtaining a DOT number and the authority is exactly the same as last as last year.

Caroline: Yeah I think when news comes out about these, Changes in regulations, people get really excited about them. They have a lot of thoughts on them and so they get shared really widely. But a lot of times they’re just proposals or they’re things that are going to go into effect in a year or two because the federal government moves pretty slowly.

Don’t get too excited when you see these come out. What you need to be paying attention to, though, is to get on mailing lists for the FMCSA. They have regulation mailing lists, and sometimes when regulations go into effect, they have mail. They have newsletters that you can sign up for.

That will send you the information as soon as it goes into effect or, very shortly before it goes into effect because smaller rules like safety violation rules or, [00:28:00] measurements or equipment safety, those kinds of things can change often and quickly. And so you do need to be paying attention to those, but these bigger sweeping changes about how the US government registers professional transportation businesses, those are going to take many multiple years to go into effect.

Gurvir: It’s like the ELD, right? There was so much conversation about ELD happening years before it actually [went into effect].

So similarly with everything, hey, they’re going to combine DOT and MC. There’s always these proposals and discussions that happen and FMCSA actually goes around and has conversations and very careful with the rollout of these things and they take their time. So when you hear these things generally, Just make sure that, is this a proposal? Is this something that’s, it’s been talked about? Or is it actually, being mandated? Is it becoming, part of the regulation or a new process is going into effect? I think those things are very important. Otherwise, you can always go to the FMCSA website or, unified carrier registration. And you can just go through the process, so to a recommendation to this [00:29:00] person is that just go to UCR, the Unified Carry Registration website, which is you can access through FMCSA and just go through the process and the process will guide you as well what you need to do.

Caroline: Alright. Thanks for joining me this week, Gurvir. I will see you in a couple weeks.

Gurvir: Awesome. Thank you so much. Everyone drive safe and Hopefully we continue to bring more positive news in the next six months. I feel like the trucking market, the market is going to turn towards the end of this year, but that’s just my that’s just my opinion. Hopefully we continue to bring better news and rates do improve.

It’s been two tough years. Everyone, stay motivated, stay positive and drive safe.