Freight Efficiency With NACFE’s Mike Roeth & Friends

Freight Efficiency With NACFE’s Mike Roeth & Friends is a regular podcast series that focuses on current technologies and practices that help fleets achieve the best possible freight efficiency for their given application. It also will provide insight into emerging technologies such as electric and autonomous vehicles and their potential impact on freight efficiency.

NACFE’s Executive Director, Mike Roeth, will interview executives from the trucking industry and other parties that are interested in improving the overall efficiency and sustainability of goods movement in North America this includes currently available technologies as well as emerging technologies such as electric and autonomous vehicles.

If you would like to suggest a topic for this podcast, please contact Denise Rondini, NACFE’s communications director, at denise.rondini@nacfe.org

Ep. 71 – Eric Starks, chairman and senior consultant at FTR, talks about what the company does, how it works and why forecasting is important to the trucking industry. He also talks about how the pandemic changed tractor-trailer ratios and how that might be a permanent shift. And he shares his insights on what he sees for 2023, 2024 and 2025 for the industry.

Ep. 70Michelle Buffington, vehicle program specialist, California Air Resources Board, talks about the Modesto, CA Frito-Lay CARB project, how her upbringing led to her passion for the work she does today, but also how there is a great opportunity for trucking to impact the environment. She explains how CARB works using a peanut butter and jelly sandwich analogy and shares some things she learned about trucking that surprised her. She closes the interview giving the industry some suggestions on how to move to zero emissions.

Ep. 69 – Rob Kelly, senior vice president at Forum Mobility, talks about his career including his work with solar and at Tesla, and shares what he finds interesting about freight movement. He also talks about the win-win-win of the move to clean transportation, how EVs are performing in drayage applications, trucking as a service and what needs to happen to move EV deployment along faster.

Ep. 68Ken Marko, fleet sustainability senior manager at US Foods, talks about his sustainability journey, his new position at US Foods and his role in helping the fleet achieve its sustainability vision. He also explains why US Foods is an ideal fit for EVs, offers suggestions to other fleets considering adding EVs, gives his impression of the Tesla Semi and encourages fleets to get involved with TMC’s S11 committee.

Ep. 67 – Marc-Andre Page, vice president of commercial operations at The Lion Electric, explains the history of the company and its focus on purpose-built electric trucks and buses. He also talks about the company’s new manufacturing facility in the US, the need to bring a positive experience to users of EVs, how successfully scaling electric trucks will take more than just producing quality vehicles and the importance of sharing experiences across the EV ecosystem.

To read descriptions of previous episodes, click here.