Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/858523
22 commercial carrier journal | august 2017 As I sat there and read the comments where people listed their least favorite words – such as "deplane," "gullet," "meat" and "moist" – I thought long and hard about what words really rub me the wrong way. I could come up with only one: "disrupt," which is overused and often misapplied in this industry. A decade ago this month, Steve Jobs and his iPhone changed how the world communicates and accelerated the exodus of the landline from many U.S. homes. Now that's disruptive. The pace of innovation in trucking always is going to ebb and flow with the price of every fleet's single largest expense, but with diesel prices at their lowest point in more than a decade, we're seeing the resurgence of one of fossil fuel's oldest rivals: Electricity. Navigant Research says electric vehicles already make up more than 3 percent of all new vehicle sales, and that could grow to nearly 7 percent by 2020. In September, Elon Musk is expected to debut his electric semi-trac- tor – about 127 years after William Morrison debuted the first electric car in the United States. While we've been down this electrified path before, the biggest dif- ference between then and now is that technological advancements have A couple of years ago, you proba- bly were inundated by the sheer volume of headlines proclaiming natural gas as trucking's great disruptor. Then diesel prices – the ultimate disruptor – dropped and have held under $3 per gallon for more than a year. One of my Facebook friends recently post- ed a query, asking his friends to share words that bother them. PRODUCT REVIEWS, OEM & SUPPLIER NEWS AND EQUIPMENT MANAGEMENT TRENDS BY JASON CANNON DISLIKED WORD: "Disrupt" is overused and often misapplied in the trucking industry. ELECTRICITY BOOM: We're seeing the resurgence of one of fossil fuel's oldest rivals. TOO HEAVY: Batteries might wipe out 30 percent of a payload just to offset their weight. Electric tractor dreams 'Disruption' prospects more flip-phone than iPhone Toyota's "Project Portal" test this summer involves hydrogen-electric technology in drayage operations at Los Angeles-area ports.