FreightWaves Today | September 24

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Craig Fuller (1:07)

Welcome to FreightWaves Today, we're in Green Bay, Wisconsin. It is a beautiful fall day, start of fall, and I don't think anything feels more appropriate than football, fall weather and orange trucks here in Green Bay, Wisconsin. It is fantastic to be here. Interesting facts at Green Bay, it is a huge transportation town.

We are very big fans of Chattanooga, obviously, but Green Bay would like to make the case that it is a bigger trucking town. What do you think, Julie? You're from here, by the way. You grew up here, you went to high school here, you worked at some of the large companies that are based here. So it feels like a homecoming to you?

Julie Van de Kamp (1:43)

It does. It's really fun to be back. It does feel very nostalgic.

But yes, Green Bay, fastest growing industry is logistics in Green Bay, 11,000 people across 642 companies, which is huge. 8.3 percent of total non-farm employment is in transportation and warehousing, and the national average is only about 5 percent.

Craig Fuller (2:04)

Yeah. You know what's interesting about Green Bay? Schneider is obviously one of the most important employers in the entire state of Wisconsin, but also is one of the most innovative companies. We're going to hear from the new CEO of Schneider here shortly. But there are other companies that are involved in transportation here in Green Bay. KBX Logistics, which is part of the Coke Industries.

For those that haul freight probably are more familiar with Georgia Pacific as part of the Coke Industry. Chicken, for those that are in Chattanooga, we know the chicken plant really well.

But also, you've got Breakthrough Fuel here. The founder where we're at, we're at Titletown, which is a partnership between Microsoft and the Green Bay Packers. It's the only venture studio and venture fund that actually has an NFL team invested in it. But the founder actually worked at Schneider Paper Transport, and then founded a company called Breakthrough, which is mostly we would know from the Breakthrough Fuel business. But years ago, sold that and went out and started an accelerator and venture fund that we're going to talk about here.

Julie Van de Kamp (3:14)

Yeah, we've got a great show.

Craig Fuller (3:15)

We have a fantastic show here at Green Bay. I know you're excited.

Julie Van de Kamp (3:18)

This is a homecoming.

Craig Fuller (3:19)

I think for me, if I went to Waco, we should do a show in Waco. Let's do a show in Waco that will make people go, what's that?

Julie Van de Kamp (3:25)

Oh, we're green that day, too.

Craig Fuller (3:26)

You're green and gold. It's sort of fitting for what we do. For sure. Well, let's get into the headlines.

Julie Van de Kamp (3:38)

We kick things off with a major technology partnership that's pushing heavy-duty autonomous trucking toward highway operations. Swedish company Einride announced Monday, it will build the next generation of its autonomous driving system on NVIDIA's Hyperion platform, a compute and sensor reference architecture, specifically designed for level 4 autonomy. Einride already runs hundreds of electric trucks for shippers in the US, Europe, and the Middle East, including autonomous trucks already working in contracted customer deployments. The company expects that footprint to reach 1,500 to 2,000 vehicles by 2028 based on customer demand captured on its platform so far.

About 80 percent of that demand is suitable for automation in the medium term, the company said. The two companies will work directly to extend Hyperion's compute, sensor, software, and safety architecture to the demands of heavy duty freight, with NVIDIA supplying the compute platform and AI development tools, while Einride handles the driving system design, safety validation, regulatory approval, and customer deployments. Over on the rails, a major merger review hit significant snag despite officially moving forward. The Surface Transportation Board declined Friday to dismiss the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger application at the request of BNSF-CSX, and a coalition of shipper groups. But appointed concurring opinion from board member Richard Kloster revealed significant reservations about the application as it currently stands. Kloster, a Trump administration appointee, wrote that the merger application is shallow, lacks detail on how Union Pacific will address competition concerns, and fails to offer meaningful concessions.