Mountains and a liming facility are reflected in a brine evaporation pond at Albemarle Corp.'s Silver Peak lithium facility in Silver Peak, Nev. (John Locher/Associated Press) BEIJING — Threatened by possible shortages of lithium for electric car batteries, automakers are racing to lock in supplies of the once-obscure “white gold” in a politically and environmentally ...more
Washington Trucking Associations and Washington Farm Bureau say the agricultural sector alone will be illegally overcharged $74 million due to the exemption not being recognized. (vitpho/Getty Images) Washington Trucking Associations and Washington Farm Bureau have given the state Department of Ecology a 60-day deadline to answer how it will comply with a new carbon price ...more
Washington Trucking Associations and Washington Farm Bureau say the agricultural sector alone will be illegally overcharged $74 million due to the exemption not being recognized. (vitpho/Getty Images) Washington Trucking Associations and Washington Farm Bureau have given the state Department of Ecology a 60-day deadline to answer how it will comply with a new carbon price ...more
Uber Freight estimated that truck drivers could be wasting about 3.5 billion hours in total each year driving empty. (Uber Freight) The trucking industry could be driving close to double the number of empty miles than initially estimated. Uber Freight released the findings June 28 in a report that explored the accuracy of empty-mile estimates ...more
Ryan Wheeler says fleet electrification projects tend to be bigger than most utility connections. (Blake Franko, TMC) Facility electrification timelines for U.S. heavy-duty trucking fleets are likely to be more protracted than carrier executives might expect, according to early movers in the sector and executives at power utilities. Bureaucracy is likely to take time to ...more
The vote to decertify Teamsters Local 769 at XPO's Hialeah, Fla., facility was taken June 21. (XPO) XPO workers on June 21 voted to remove a local Teamsters union from their Hialeah, Fla., workplace. Teamsters Local 769 was first certified as the exclusive collective bargaining representative of the facility in December 2014 when it was ...more
(United Soybean Board) Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that up to $500 million in federal funds are available to boost supplies of American-made biofuel while awarding $25 million to 59 biodiesel and ethanol infrastructure projects across the country. “By expanding the availability of homegrown biofuels, we are strengthening our energy independence, creating new market opportunities ...more
(TEC Equipment) Used Class 8 truck sales in May decreased 4.9% year-over-year to 19,300 units from 20,300, ACT Research reported. The average retail sale price for a used truck fell 30.9% to $68,411 from $99,054 a year ago, and declined 3.4% month-over-month from $70,811 in April. On a month-to-month basis, sales grew 9.7% from 17,600 ...more
The FAA's acting administrator Polly Trottenberg is one of multiple interim leaders at transportation safety agencies. (Al Drago/Bloomberg News) Three of the major U.S. transportation safety agencies are without permanent leaders as the nation contends with toxic railway spills, near-collisions on runways and surging traffic deaths. The Federal Aviation Administration is on its second acting ...more
Funding is meant to facilitate the voluntary replacement or installation of retrofits on existing heavy-duty diesel vehicles and engines. (CHUYN/Getty Images) Legislation that would reauthorize the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act through fiscal 2029 was recently introduced in the U.S. Senate. Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, is the bill’s ...more
