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This week’s top stories in trucking

NACFE Study: Diesel Hits 11.5 mpg While Tesla Semi Runs 460 Miles on Single Charge

The North American Council for Freight Efficiency’s (NACFE) 18-day “Run on Less – Messy Middle” demonstration delivered surprising results: two diesel trucks achieved 11.5 miles per gallon while a Tesla Semi covered 460 miles on one charge.

The study analyzed 14 Class 8 tractors across diesel, natural gas, battery-electric and hydrogen powertrains over 73,000 miles.

“I stood up in Atlanta and yelled 10 miles per gallon,” NACFE executive director Mike Roeth said. “We had two trucks in this run that did 11.5.”

NACFE remains bullish on battery-electric long term but expects fleets to run mixed powertrains in the near term.

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Heavy-Duty Repair Shops Post Record Revenue While Battling Technician Drain

Fullbay’s 2026 State of Heavy-Duty Repair report reveals a paradox: shops processed $5.04 billion in service orders last year even as 54 percent reported understaffing. The technician pipeline is drying up fast — only 17 percent of the workforce is under 30, while 42 percent have more than two decades of experience.

Labor rates climbed 10 percent to $149 per hour. Technician wages jumped 14.1 percent to $36.50 an hour as shops compete for scarce talent.

“It’s basically like an auction block at this point,” said Peter Cooper, CEO of Ascend Consulting. “Guys are leaving for a dollar-an-hour raise.”

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Organized Crime Turns Mojave Rail Lines Into Theft Playground

Broken seals and empty boxes litter California’s Mojave Desert rail corridors, evidence of sophisticated criminal networks running multimillion-dollar cargo theft operations. Danielle Spinelli, an account executive with Descartes, joined the California Highway Patrol Cargo Theft Task Force on a ride-along and witnessed the scale firsthand.

“Every step I took, there was a broken seal,” Spinelli said. “We’re in the middle of the desert. We’re not near anything.”

The operation involves thieves marking high-value containers with shoelaces to bypass AI security cameras, then deploying 30 to 40 people to strip stopped trains. Investigators connect these rings to human smuggling networks and report Department of Defense shipments have been targeted.

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Texas Carrier Faces Federal Lawsuit Over Visa Misclassification, Unpaid Overtime

Two Mexican drivers have sued Fabian Morales Trucking LLC in federal court, alleging the Hart, Texas-based carrier failed to pay overtime and misrepresented their jobs to obtain agricultural guest-worker visas.

Juan Carlos Renteria-Briones and Erik de Jesus Iniguez Fernandez claim they hauled grain more than 60 hours a week but received only straight hourly pay. The lawsuit alleges the company classified H-2A drivers as agricultural workers — exempt from overtime — despite primarily operating heavy trucks.

This isn’t the company’s first rodeo: A 2017 Department of Labor investigation and a 2020 lawsuit resulting in a $200,000 judgment involved similar allegations. The plaintiffs seek unpaid overtime, liquidated damages and expense reimbursement.

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Supreme Court Weighs Whether Intrastate Drivers Are Part of Interstate Commerce

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in Flowers Foods v. Brock, a case that could reshape how trucking companies classify delivery drivers for arbitration purposes.

At issue: Can Angelo Brock, an independent contractor delivering Tastykake and bread products entirely within Colorado, claim interstate worker status under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA)? If so, he can bypass mandatory arbitration for potentially lucrative class-action litigation.

Flowers Foods argues the interstate chain ends when goods are unloaded onto Brock’s truck. Brock’s attorneys counter that commerce doesn’t end until freight reaches its final destination — regardless of state lines crossed.

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SONAR spotlight: Flatbed Rejection Rates Stay Elevated as Steel Production and Data-Center Boom Fuel Demand

(Source: SONAR)

Summary: Flatbed outbound tender rejection rates remain elevated well beyond typical spring seasonality, signaling genuine tightness in the open-deck market.

The SONAR Flatbed Truckload Rejection Index (STRIF.USA) declined 38 basis points last week to 37.95 percent from 38.77 percent on March 16. While that is 264 basis points below last month’s peak of 40.59 percent, it remains 457 basis points higher than the same week last year.

Flatbed tender volumes have also strengthened, rising 9 percent compared with the prior month and 8 percent year-over-year.

Warmer weather and the normal resumption of construction projects typically boost open-deck activity this time of year. However, the current rally runs considerably deeper than pure seasonality.

The demand surge is supported by improving manufacturing signals, a construction boom and rising steel output. The Institute for Supply Management’s Manufacturing PMI registered 52.6 percent in January and 52.4 percent in February, marking the second consecutive month of expansion, with new orders at 57.1 percent and 55.8 percent, respectively.

Steel production, a key driver for flatbed freight, is showing solid gains. According to the American Iron and Steel Institute, U.S. raw steel output reached 1.781 million net tons for the week ended March 21, up 4.6 percent from the same week in 2025. Year-to-date production through March 21 totals 20.394 million net tons, 4.9 percent higher than a year earlier, with capacity utilization at 77.0 percent.

FreightWaves founder and CEO Craig Fuller has noted that much of the strength is coming from the industrial Midwest — particularly steel, aluminum and copper — rather than the still-weak housing sector.

DAT Principal Analyst Dean Croke attributes a significant portion of the flatbed strength to AI-driven data center construction. In a March 12 interview with Trucking Dive, Croke said the flatbed spot market “has been on fire for 18 months” due to heavy demand for equipment and power-generation projects tied to data centers.

On the supply side, ongoing carrier bankruptcies and tighter regulations have limited available capacity, allowing carriers to be more selective. The combination of these factors has produced one of the strongest flatbed markets in recent years heading into the second quarter.