Recent lawsuits and regulatory upheaval take aim at Clean Truck Partnership
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Greenlane expands EV charging corridor to Phoenix
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Greenlane announced it is establishing a second commercial electric vehicle (EV) charging corridor, this one connecting Southern California to Phoenix via Interstate 10. This comes as the company recently launched its flagship charging center in Colton, Calif., situated next to San Bernardino, in the heart of California’s Inland Empire.
The Colton location will serve as the anchor for this new corridor and is centrally located to support its first EV corridor, connecting Southern California to Las Vegas via the I-15 corridor.
“As the 15 goes up to Vegas and the 10 goes over to Phoenix, it’s centrally located to support and service both corridors. Eventually, we’re going to open up in Blythe and in Phoenix, and that will allow us to have key positions on the corridor. This enables trucks to go from location to location, ensuring they get a full charge without range anxiety,” said Patrick Macdonald-King, CEO of Greenlane, in an interview with FreightWaves.
In addition to the corridor expansion, Greenlane also announced a new strategic partnership with EV truck maker and OEM Windrose Technology. Windrose recently validated the viability of long-haul electric trucking when it successfully completed single-charge journeys from Colton to Phoenix. On how the Windrose trucks are able to make the single-charge trip, one factor is in their charging setup.
Read the full article here.
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Recent lawsuits and regulatory upheaval take aim at Clean Truck Partnership
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The Clean Truck Partnership (CTP) was dealt a significant blow this week as four major truck makers agreed to a deal with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to cease compliance with the emissions agreement they signed with California two years ago. This development is part of a larger whirlwind of legal challenges that have effectively dismantled the partnership aimed at accelerating zero-emission vehicle adoption in California.
FreightWaves’ John Kingston reports that International Motors, Daimler Truck, PACCAR, and Volvo North America reached an agreement with the FTC to close an antitrust investigation into the CTP. The manufacturers also settled a separate lawsuit led by Nebraska’s attorney general, further weakening the already compromised partnership.
“The antitrust concerns are obvious: a group of competitors controlling essentially all of a market contemporaneously signed a self-styled ‘Agreement’ under the auspices of government that contains caps on the sales of certain products in that market and collectively adopted emissions limits that, in practice, would similarly limit production,” the FTC stated in its announcement.
The CTP, signed in 2023, included two key provisions: truck manufacturers agreed not to challenge California’s Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) rule, and California’s Omnibus NOx rule would align with the more lenient federal standard. However, congressional action eliminated the waiver allowing California’s rules to proceed, undermining the foundation of the partnership.
As part of the FTC settlement, all four manufacturers sent nearly identical letters to FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, declaring the CTP “rendered unenforceable” and promising to “independently make decisions about the type and quantity of vehicles it sells without regard to whether those decisions are compliant with any restrictive terms of the CTP.”
With both the ACT and NOx rules now in limbo, industry attention has shifted to the federal NOx emission standards. The American Trucking Associations has already begun lobbying EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to ease implementation of the federal rule, requesting a delay from 2027 to 2031.
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Waabi appoints Lior Ron as COO amid commercial push
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Waabi has announced the appointment of former Uber Freight CEO Lior Ron as the company’s chief operating officer. The appointment comes as Waabi prepares for a driver-out milestone by the end of the year, followed by a commercial launch and scaling operations with major partners including Volvo and Uber Freight.
“This really signifies that Waabi is moving from the R&D phase that we were in into commercialization and scale,” Waabi’s founder and CEO Raquel Urtasun told FreightWaves in an interview. “And there is no other leader that I could think of that would be better suited to partner with in this new journey of the company.”
The transition is part of a broader industry shift from digital logistics solutions to physical autonomous applications. “I think of my first decade in logistics with Uber Freight as building the digital infrastructure of the industry, and helping build that. The next decade is going to be about building the autonomy infrastructure of the industry and making that a commercial reality,” Lior Ron told FreightWaves.
During Ron’s tenure at Uber Freight, he served as founder and CEO, growing the company into an end-to-end logistics platform generating over $5 billion in annual revenue. In his new role at Waabi, Ron will focus on go-to-market strategy, scaling existing partnerships, and bringing new collaborations to the company’s portfolio.
Read the full article here.
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Outpost has announced the launch of its gate automation platform with the technology now available to shippers, enterprise fleets, and terminal operators across the U.S. The truck terminal and gate automation company uses computer vision and AI to reduce gate operating costs and improve security.
AdExchanger reports that Shell is shutting down its electric vehicle charging company, Volta Inc., which it acquired in 2023 and integrated into its Shell Recharge Network, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the news who told AdExchanger. James Hercher notes in the article that Shell now plans to focus on fast chargers at its own sites.
CNBC reports Amazon’s Zoox has been granted an exemption by federal vehicle safety regulators, paving the way for a demonstration of its driverless robotaxis. Zoox was acquired by Amazon in 2020 and was and recently closed a 2023 probe by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for its self-certification process.
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As always, thanks for watching and reading.
Thomas Wasson
twasson@firecrown.com
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