Foton and Cummins Cooperating on China Super Truck Program.

Photo: Foton Motor

China's Foton Motor and Cummins have signed a memorandum of cooperation around the launch of the second stage of the China Super Truck program.

Foton said the goal of the effort is “to use new energy-saving technologies to complete the optimization of the powertrain system and vehicle integration, reducing fuel consumption and enhancing transport efficiency, creating globally-leading green smart trucks to comply with the trend of green environmental protection and practice the requirements of U.S.-China clean energy cooperation.”

Since 2008, when Foton Motor and Cummins established a joint venture, engines produced by Foton Cummins that fit light-duty and heavy-duty applications have met the strictest global emission-related laws and regulations, said the Chinese company.

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Why Insurance Costs are Sky-High

Adopting more technological advances is the most likely route to cut back insurance costs, including leveraging solutions to curb distracted driving and other unsafe behaviors. Photos: iStockPhoto 

With all the standard and optional safety technology that trucks and their drivers fairly bristle with these days, no one could fault a fleet manager for thinking their commercial insurance costs should be going only one way… down. But instead, they're going up and up.

The problem is affecting everyone from owner-operators to the biggest players in the business. Even a powerhouse like regional/interregional LTL and 3PL provider Saia is feeling the pinch.

Discussing key cost trends in the firm's 2016 earnings release, Saia President and CEO Rick O'Dell said one significant expense item was its claims and insurance line, which increased by more than $4 million in the fourth quarter versus the prior year. “The increase was not the result of one or two major accidents; rather it reflects the general inflationary trends in the costs of settlement and litigation in the trucking industry.”

Last year, more than $700 million in claims were recorded against trucks and other commercial vehicles, according to a recent Marketplace report by American Public Media, which points out the obvious: “Those losses are translating to higher premiums for businesses.”

San Diego-based Storrs Insurance Group, which does business as The Insurance Store, walks through why insurance costs are spiking in a detailed post on its blog. It reports seeing in the last few years “nothing but rate increases from most of our [insurance] carriers, both in small business auto insurance and commercial truck insurance.”

The increases have hit truck fleets of all types, from local to long-haul, from general freight to reefer goods, to dirt sand and gravel haulers — even operators of small service trucks. “Some have experienced even more rapid rate increases ...Read the rest of this story

Earnings Watch: Werner, Covenant See Double-Digit Gains; Marten Nearly Unchanged

Three trucking fleets issued their third quarter earnings reports on Thursday, with two showing profits increasing significantly from the same time a year earlier, while the third was healthy but nearly the same as it was a year earlier.

Werner Enterprises Inc. reported net income surged 19% in the third quarter, totaling $22.5 million, while earnings per share improved to 31 cents from 26 cents a year earlier.

The earnings include a gain on the sale of real estate of $6.5 million, or 6 cents per share, plus $3.4 million of losses on equipment sales, or 3 cents per share.

Revenue edged higher by 4%, totaling $528.6 million.

Third quarter 2017 freight demand in the Nebraska-based company's truckload fleet improved throughout the quarter, according to the company.

“In July and August 2017, freight trended better than normal, and meaningfully better than the challenging freight market of third quarter 2016,” the company said in a statement. “As we moved into September, the freight market strengthened further due in part to the significant disruption caused by two major hurricanes in south Texas and Florida.”

Werner said the hurricanes resulted in short-term costs in September due to out-of-route miles, higher fuel costs, equipment issues and driver domicile issues, and the multiple days of school closings at its Florida-based driving schools negatively impacted driver hiring.

“At the same time, these events improved spot market pricing and further widened the positive gap between demand and capacity, which better positions the freight and contractual rate markets going forward,” the company said. “Freight volumes thus far in October 2017 have been seasonally better than normal."

Werner ended the third quarter 2017 with 7,375 trucks in its truckload segment, a year-over-year increase of 200 trucks and an increase of 60 trucks from the second quarter. Its dedicated unit ended the quarter with ...Read the rest of this story

ThermoTrack Monitors Tanker Temperature and Location

Anytrek Corporation has released the ThermoTrack online digital tanker thermometer and GPS tracker that provides hourly updates on road tanker temperatures and location using a 4G/LTE connection.

Designed to be a screw in replacement existing analog tanker thermometers, ThermoTrack can save time by not requiring frequent stops to check and record cargo temperatures and recalibrate the thermometer. ThermoTrack is self-contained and requires no modifications to the tanker and can run on its internal batteries for up to 12 months, reporting every 60 minutes to Anytrek's secure, cloud-based servers over the wireless connection.

For redundancy and security, 12 months' worth of rolling data is saved in the internal flash memory as a double secured data backup. Real-time battery levels are displayed on the portal and low battery warnings will be sent as a mobile alert and also appear on the web portal. ThermoTrack has been designed to meet the new FDA requirements.

The web portal and smartphone apps provide the ability to view real-time location, routing, and temperature data and provides a verifiable record of the cargoes condition throughout the entire trip.

“We talk to many large trucking firms and specifically we try to understand what their pain points are that currently are not being resolved,” said Larry Stocker, channel director for ThermoTrack. “At Anytrek we have the complete design, development and prototyping resources in-house which allows us to be proactive in coming up with solutions to meet these needs.”

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Biketoberfest limits trucks to fuel-and-go

Thousands of motorcyclists are converging on the Daytona Beach/Ormond Beach area this weekend, Oct. 19-22, for Biketoberfest. So Love's truck stop in the area is limiting truck access.

Daytona Harley Davidson (DHD), next door to Love's Travel Stop in Ormond Beach, is a major participant of the annual motorcycle event and rally. DHD's involvement causes unusually high traffic volume in and around the area, and Love's can only allow trucks to fuel-and-go.

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From mechanical to smart devices: Trucking’s one-way street

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Geotab registers ELD with FMCSA

Geotab announced its electronic logging device (ELD) solution, Geotab Cloud ELD, is now registered with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).

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