Above the Fold: Supply Chain Logistics News (January 31, 2025)

By Adrian Gonzalez

I’m driving down to CT today to have dinner with my mom. It’s her 77th birthday.

My mom was barely 18 when she emigrated to the United States from Cuba. She and her sister started working at the Sweet’N Low factory in Brooklyn, NY. Soon after, she met my dad (who also emigrated from Cuba and was 13 years older) and they married.

*My mom (front, right), around age 20, at the Sweet’N Low factory in Brooklyn, NY*

My mom was 23 years old when I was born, younger than my oldest daughter is today.

She was 60 years old when my father died of lung cancer, and for the first time in her adult life, she was left to her own devices. To be honest, my sister and I were concerned. She didn’t drive, she never dealt with paying the bills, she had no idea what to do when the pilot light went out in the gas furnace, which seemed to happen all the time on the coldest days of winter. Can she really take care of herself, we wondered.

That was 17 years ago, and she more than took care of herself: She blossomed.

I’m driving down to CT to have dinner with my mom, the woman I’ve loved the longest in my life, and when she blows out her birthday candles tonight, all those little gas flames, I will make a wish too — the singing, the clapping, and so much wonder!

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In addition to the ongoing tariff drama with Mexico and Canada (Will Trump impose tariffs on them tomorrow?), here’s the rest of the supply chain and logistics news that caught my attention this week:

Heavy-Duty Electric Trucks: Selling What Nobody Wants

Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit, but true for the most part.

In the Wall Street Journal this week, Paul Berger reports that “Trucking industry executives say the road to electric trucks has become particularly cloudy in California…[The state] has rolled back some of its rules because of the new administration in Washington even as some of the state’s zero-emissions demands remain in place.” As a result, “the changes have left truck manufacturers and dealers in a limbo as they contend with a requirement to sell zero-emissions electric trucks to fleets that have little regulatory incentive to buy the new rigs.”

Here’s more from the article:

California still has in place a rule that forces manufacturers to sell a growing number of zero-emissions trucks each year. That means manufacturers such as Daimler Truck North America, one of the country’s largest truck-makers, is requiring that dealers sell a certain number of battery-electric vehicles so that manufacturers comply with the law, even if demand for the trucks is tepid.

“Customers aren’t going to lean into something they don’t have the ability to charge,” said John O’Leary, chief executive of Daimler Truck North America. But “we have to convince someone to buy electric trucks that they may not otherwise want.”

A couple of weeks ago in “Pulling The Plug On Electric Trucks?” I wrote about the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) decision to withdraw its request for a federal waiver to require commercial truckers to transition to zero-emissions vehicles. Rather than repeat myself here, I encourage you to read that post and the others referenced in it.

Remember when Coca-Cola introduced New Coke? Just because you make something and say it’s better doesn’t mean people will want to buy it.

In this case, truck manufacturers don’t even want to make heavy-duty electric trucks, but they are being forced to, and buyers still prefer the Old Coke, diesel version. And now that fleet owners in CA are not being forced to buy electric trucks any more, you end up in this limbo created by politicians.

You gotta laugh sometimes.

And with that, I gotta go, I have a date with my mom. Have a meaningful weekend!

Song of the Week: “Giving Up” by Michigander