In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss the Tesla Roadster delay, EV deliveries in the US, battery swap coming back, and more. more…
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss the Tesla Roadster delay, EV deliveries in the US, battery swap coming back, and more.
more…
Source: Electrek
Tesla has begun volume production of its electric Class 8 Semi truck at its Nevada factory, a major milestone as the company prepares to expand commercial deliveries in the U.S. and enter the European market in 2027. The Austin, Texas-based electric vehicle manufacturer confirmed the production milestone Wednesday in its third-quarter earnings report, listing installed annual manufacturing capacity of 25,000 Semis at its Nevada facility. Tesla CEO Elon Musk also highlighted the development during the company’s earnings call with analysts on Wednesday. “We also began production of the Tesla semi-truck in Q3, our Class 8 heavy-duty truck,” Musk said during his opening remarks. Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) provided updated performance figures for the Semi in its third-quarter earnings presentation, highlighting the truck’s range and energy efficiency and its high-volume production line at the company’s Nevada factory. “The top variant can go 500 miles at a full 82,000 lbs gross combination weight while achieving an efficiency of 1.7 kWh/mile,” Musk said. “That efficiency allows the Tesla Semi to use a third of the energy used by a comparable diesel truck to haul the same payload. In a transportation market where energy is one of the largest components of total cost per mile, this will provide a meaningful advantage to Tesla Semi operators.” However, Tesla did not disclose how many Semi trucks were produced or delivered during the quarter, and its reported manufacturing capacity does not necessarily reflect its current production rate. Tesla reported third-quarter revenue of $28.05 billion, essentially unchanged from $28.1 billion during the same period last year. Tesla reported adjusted earnings of 48 cents per share in the third quarter, down 4% from 50 cents per share a year earlier. GAAP earnings fell 44% to 22 cents per share. GAAP net income attributable to common stockholders fell 43% year over year to $787 million, compared with $1.37 billion in the third quarter of 2025. Operating income declined 56% to $718 million, while operating expenses increased 39% to $4.78 billion. Tesla reported $1.53 billion in free cash flow and ended the quarter with approximately $45.45 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments. The company produced 464,391 passenger vehicles during the quarter and delivered 486,532, down approximately 2% from the same period in 2025. Tesla also revised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to approximately $20 billion as it continues investing in manufacturing, artificial intelligence, robotics and energy infrastructure. Tesla’s expansion plans extend beyond North America, with the company targeting its first European customer deliveries of the Semi by the end of 2027. During the IAA Transportation conference in Hannover, Germany, in September, Dan Priestley, head of Tesla’s Semi program, said the company planned to begin European customer demonstrations during the first half of 2027. The initial European trucks will be manufactured at Tesla’s Nevada factory. “What we’re working on right now is lining up customers that are highly interested in experiencing the truck through demonstrations in the first half of next year, with the opportunity then to take delivery, targeting by the end of next year,” Priestley said during the conference, according to FreightWaves’ earlier reporting. Tesla has also outlined plans to begin deploying more than 100 Megacharger stalls in Europe in 2027, with a charging capacity of up to 1.2 megawatts per stall. Priestley previously said the company had not made a decision on establishing a European Semi manufacturing plant, citing available capacity at its Nevada facility. Tesla’s third-quarter earnings presentation did not provide a new European delivery schedule or disclose the number of trucks allocated to the market. Tesla’s manufacturing milestone follows its selection as the lead supplier for a 2,500-truck battery-electric Class 8 order announced in September. The order is being coordinated through ZET SCALE, the Zero-Emission Truck Shipper-Carrier Alliance Leading Electrification, organized by Catalyst Mobility and Smart Freight Centre. Key figures from Tesla’s Q3 report Why it matters: Tesla’s transition from limited fleet deployments to volume manufacturing could reshape competition in the electric Class 8 market, although actual production and delivery volumes remain undisclosed. The post Tesla Semi enters volume production as 2027 rollout approaches appeared first on FreightWaves.
It was hard not to read the quarterly letter to shareholders by Aaron Graft, the CEO of Triumph Financial, and not get a sense that he was taking the first few steps into a victory lap. Triumph’s message to investors for years has been consistent, and it has been amplified every three months in Graft’s multi-page letter to shareholders, unique among CEOs. That message has been that Triumph Financial (NYSE: TFIN), while still being a bank at its most basic definition, was building an infrastructure to become the supplier of a vast array of financial support services to the trucking community, all the way down to independent owner operators. window.googletag = window.googletag || {cmd: []}; googletag.cmd.push(function() { var gptSlot = googletag.defineSlot('/21776187881/FW-Responsive-Main_Content-Slot1', [[300, 100], [320, 50], [728, 90], [468, 60]], 'div-gpt-ad-1709668545404-0').defineSizeMapping(gptSizeMaps.banner1).addService(googletag.pubads()); googletag.pubads().enableSingleRequest(); googletag.pubads().collapseEmptyDivs(); googletag.enableServices(); setInterval(function() { if (!document.hidden) { googletag.pubads().refresh([gptSlot]); } }, 60000); }); googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1709668545404-0'); }); Factoring? Got it, since it’s essentially the original Triumph Financial business. Payments? Ever since Triumph Financial bought HubTran in 2021, it has been building its Payments system to process invoices. Intelligence? It bought Green Sheets last year. How about what amounts to a digital wallet for drivers and small fleets? It launched LoadPay in 2024 for that purpose. While this was going on, it hasn’t been an easy ride for investors. Triumph Financial stock is down about 43.5% over the last five years. But the data released in the company’s third quarter earnings report featured numbers that were almost universally positive and suggested those years of investment–which pinched profitability–are starting to pay off. More importantly are the company’s North Star Metrics, which Triumph Financial set two quarters ago. Those North Star metrics in the third quarter broke down as follows: Transportation Revenue Growth: Long-term target is above 15% growth, third quarter was 37.8%. About a third of it is organic, so it is not just being pushed higher on the back of a stronger freight market and higher diesel prices. Factoring operating margin: Long-term target is above 40%, third quarter was 43%. Payments EBITDA, exclusive of the LoadPay wallet offering: More than 50%, 39% in the third quarter after being 34% in the second quarter. Intelligence Gross Margin: Above 85%, but Graft said in his letter that metric will be dropped from its North Star goals. Intelligence revenue was a mere $2.4 million, down slightly sequentially. “We told investors we would invest through the freight cycle, and we did exactly that,” Graft wrote in his letter. “Not everyone agreed with the strategy, but we were true to our word.” Triumph will now look to “translate that potential into earnings performance consistent with our historical results and beyond,” Graft wrote. “Doing so will demonstrate the returns on the investments we have made.” window.googletag = window.googletag || {cmd: []}; googletag.cmd.push(function() { var gptSlot = googletag.defineSlot('/21776187881/fw-responsive-main_content-slot3', [[728, 90], [468, 60], [320, 50], [300, 100]], 'div-gpt-ad-1665767553440-0').defineSizeMapping(gptSizeMaps.banner1).addService(googletag.pubads()); googletag.pubads().enableSingleRequest(); googletag.pubads().collapseEmptyDivs(); googletag.enableServices(); setInterval(function() { if (!document.hidden) { googletag.pubads().refresh([gptSlot]); } }, 60000); }); googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1665767553440-0'); }); Triumph Financial’s revenues have been impacted since the start of the Iran war by higher diesel prices. Even if the linehaul portion of a freight invoice stays flat, if the price of diesel rises, that number goes into the invoice it factors or processes (or both), which as Graft conceded in his letter has always led to the question: “How sensitive (is) our average invoice prices…to the cost of diesel?” Graft’s answer was complicated and simple at the same time: it depends. Factors that would go into answering that question can vary widely among customers, including such things as the carrier’s fuel surcharge formula. But Graft did seek to answer the question. Year-on-year, he said, dry van revenue is up 40% but diesel costs, as measured at the pump (as opposed to trucker fuel discounts) have risen by 67% during that time. Driver costs have risen, with Graft putting a figure of 70 cents/mile on current levels. Throw in insurance, interest costs and equipment, and Graft laid out an inflationary landscape. “As a result, the revenue per mile a trucker must generate and thus the average invoice size is almost certainly going to be double-digit percentages above historical norms until market forces change,” he wrote. window.googletag = window.googletag || {cmd: []}; googletag.cmd.push(function() { var gptSlot = googletag.defineSlot('/21776187881/fw-responsive-main_content-slot4', [[300, 100], [320, 50], [728, 90], [468, 60]], 'div-gpt-ad-1709668086344-0').defineSizeMapping(gptSizeMaps.banner1).addService(googletag.pubads()); googletag.pubads().enableSingleRequest(); googletag.pubads().collapseEmptyDivs(); googletag.enableServices(); setInterval(function() { if (!document.hidden) { googletag.pubads().refresh([gptSlot]); } }, 60000); }); googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1709668086344-0'); }); But Graft ultimately did provide a benchmark on what the market means for the company. For every $100 upward move in the average invoice price, he wrote, “Triumph should generate roughly $12 million in incremental annual revenue, $8.5 million in pretax earnings and 27 cents in earnings per share,” he said. But he added: “The inverse is also true when invoice sizes decline.” While Factoring in recent years might have been considered the less sexy part of the Triumph business, with so much focus on the Payment sector, Graft used the third quarter letter to promote that sector. He disclosed several pieces of data. Graft said according to Triumph’s data, there are more than 90,000 “factored carriers” in the U.S. Triumph services about 8,000 of them, growing at the rate of 78 net new clients per month. He also said costs to service an invoice have dropped by about 20% in the last year. But Graft said Factoring’s importance at Triumph has grown for other reasons besides the bottom line. window.googletag = window.googletag || {cmd: []}; googletag.cmd.push(function() { var gptSlot = googletag.defineSlot('/21776187881/fw-responsive-main_content-slot5', [[728, 90], [468, 60], [320, 50], [300, 100]], 'div-gpt-ad-1665767778941-0').defineSizeMapping(gptSizeMaps.banner1).addService(googletag.pubads()); googletag.pubads().enableSingleRequest(); googletag.pubads().collapseEmptyDivs(); googletag.enableServices(); setInterval(function() { if (!document.hidden) { googletag.pubads().refresh([gptSlot]); } }, 60000); }); googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1665767778941-0'); }); “Factoring remains both an attractive financial business and the principal carrier-acquisition gateway into the Triumph value chain,” Graft wrote. “When we win a factoring relationship, we have an opportunity to serve that carrier through LoadPay, equipment finance, insurance, fuel, and Intelligence. The economic value of Factoring therefore extends beyond the margin earned on an individual receivable. That broader relationship is one reason renewed growth in this business remains a strategic priority.” Among other data points and observations in Graft’s letter: Graft did not mention the decision in Montgomery vs. Caribe Transport II. But it was hard not to think of it when he wrote: “The scarce resource in freight today is not trucks. It is trusted, deployable capacity, because a truck that cannot be verified and deployed with confidence is not defensible, and thus, is not truly usable capacity. Freight is moving from a market defined by abundant capacity to one defined by defensible capacity.” EBITDA in the Payments sector had been negative for many quarters. Progress was often measured in just how much negative EBITDA had been reduced, though Payments has been a positive EBITDA margin for more than a year. “The Payments business has graduated from logo acquisition to revenue growth to EBITDA margin expansion and, finally, is becoming a driver of earnings,” Graft said. “As a result, we will provide more commentary on operating income in future letters alongside insights on revenue growth and EBITDA margin. Over the next several quarters, we expect operating income to continue to grow through a balanced combination of organic revenue growth and cost savings with less contribution from repricing.” The Payments EBITDA whether it was 30.8% for the full Payments group or the group’s margin excluding LoadPay of 39%, was the highest in the company’s history. More articles by John Kingston English language rule’s comments bring criticism from Sikh organization window.googletag = window.googletag || {cmd: []}; googletag.cmd.push(function() { var gptSlot = googletag.defineSlot('/21776187881/fw-responsive-main_content-slot6', [[728, 90], [468, 60], [320, 50], [300, 100]], 'div-gpt-ad-1665767872042-0').defineSizeMapping(gptSizeMaps.banner1).addService(googletag.pubads()); googletag.pubads().enableSingleRequest(); googletag.pubads().collapseEmptyDivs(); googletag.enableServices(); setInterval(function() { if (!document.hidden) { googletag.pubads().refresh([gptSlot]); } }, 60000); }); googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1665767872042-0'); }); FMCSA split sleeper berth pilot program moves closer to launch Texas judge upholds nuclear verdict against C.H. Robinson The post CEO’s letter boasts of lots of arrows pointing up at Triumph Financial appeared first on FreightWaves.
Somewhere in your truck right now, a connected system is quietly recording how it is driven, how hard it works, where it goes, and how healthy its engine is, and that stream of data is no longer just a maintenance convenience, it is becoming one of the most important numbers in your business, because at a recent candid session with Daimler Truck leadership, a reporter cut straight to the point and asked whether all that telematics information is effectively his new credit score, and the answer from the people who finance and insure trucks was close to yes. That exchange deserves attention from every carrier, because it marks a real shift. The information your equipment generates is increasingly shaping what you pay for insurance, how quickly you get financed, how your warranty claims are handled, and even how a lender sizes up the risk of doing business with you. Here is what Daimler’s leaders said about how that data is already being used, and what it means for an operator trying to protect both the bottom line and a little privacy. From Maintenance Tool To Risk Engine Telematics started as a maintenance and tracking tool. You could see where your trucks were and get a heads-up when something needed attention. What has changed is that the same data is now feeding decisions that used to be made with paperwork, gut feel, and a credit report. Kevin Bangston, who leads Daimler’s financial services arm in North America, described the connected ecosystem built around the manufacturer’s Detroit Connect system and was candid that the company uses it for a wide range of purposes. On the service side, the data helps decode whether a truck has a problem that can safely wait until the next scheduled maintenance or whether something needs immediate attention, which ties directly into how warranty claims get prioritized and handled. That alone changes the economics of uptime, because catching the difference between a wait-and-fix and a fix-now can save a breakdown on the road. But the more consequential uses are financial. Bangston acknowledged that in the cases where loans default, the connected data helps the company locate its trucks, and because it knows where the trucks are, it is actually reducing its losses. Read that plainly. The same system that tells you your truck needs service also tells your lender where to find it if you stop paying. That is not sinister on its face, it is how a modern secured lender manages risk, but it is a reminder that the data flows both ways. Connected Insurance And The Geico Pilot The clearest example of data becoming your rate is insurance. Daimler announced a connected insurance program with Geico, and Bangston said it was tailored primarily for small fleets rather than mega fleets, with the company looking at how to extend a similar approach to mid-sized and large operations in another format down the road. The idea behind connected insurance is that precise, real-world data about how a truck is actually operated and where it is can be used to price coverage more accurately than traditional broad-brush underwriting. For a safe, well-run small operation, that is potentially good news, because it opens a path to being priced on your actual behavior rather than lumped in with everyone in your category. The flip side is the obvious one. If data can reward the careful operator, it can also flag the one whose trucks are driven hard, and the same transparency that lowers one carrier’s premium can raise another’s. The reporter’s instinct to call it a new credit score was not far off, because that is exactly how a score works, it turns your behavior into a number that other people price off of. Faster Money, Built On Data And AI The data story runs straight into financing, and here the news is mostly good for carriers. Stephan Unger, chairman of Daimler Truck Financial Services, and Bangston both described how artificial intelligence and analytics are compressing the time it takes to make a credit decision from days down to hours. For a carrier waiting on approval to put a truck to work, that speed is real value, and Unger tied it directly back to customer benefit, noting that faster, more efficient decisioning can also flow through to better terms. Behind the scenes, Daimler is also using advanced analytics on its own portfolio, learning from the pain of the multi-year freight recession to build something more resilient. Bangston described using smart analytics to figure out how to construct a portfolio that performs better in the next downturn and to target where the company should be acquiring business. The company even noted that its head of operations is the driving force behind its AI activity in North America. What this means for you is that the same data-and-analytics machine that speeds up your approval is also constantly assessing which kinds of carriers and segments represent good risk, which quietly shapes who gets the easiest access to financing and on what terms. The Two Sides Every Carrier Should Weigh So is this good or bad for a small carrier? Honestly, both, and pretending otherwise would not serve you. On the upside, connected data can lower your insurance if you run clean, speed up your financing, catch mechanical problems before they strand you, and help you prove you are a professional operation worth doing business with. For a careful operator, data is a chance to be judged on your actual record rather than a stereotype about small fleets. On the other side, the same data gives lenders and insurers a level of visibility into your operation they never had before, from how your trucks are driven to where they sit to when you are struggling. It can locate your equipment if you fall behind, and it can feed decisions about your rates and your terms that you do not fully see. The reporter who asked whether this is his new credit score was pointing at a genuine shift in power, because a score is something others control and price you on. The practical response is not to reject the technology, which is becoming unavoidable, but to understand that your telematics is now part of your financial reputation, to run your operation knowing it is being measured, and to ask pointed questions about what data is collected, who sees it, and how it affects your rate before you sign up for connected programs. Why It Matters The data a fleet’s trucks generate has quietly crossed the line from operational tool to financial instrument, now feeding insurance pricing, credit decisions that have compressed from days to hours, warranty triage, and even asset recovery on defaulted loans. For fleet and finance leaders, that means the same transparency that can lower premiums for a well-run operation and speed access to capital also hands insurers and lenders a level of visibility into the business they never had, so the strategic question is no longer whether to connect but how to govern that data, understand how it shapes rates and terms, and treat it as the reputational asset and exposure it has become. This article is based on a panel discussion with Daimler Truck and Daimler Truck Financial Services leadership at the DTFS North American headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, featuring Stephan Unger, chairman of Daimler Truck Financial Services, and Kevin Bangston, president and CEO of Daimler Truck Financial Services USA LLC. Program details and statements are as presented by the executives. The post The Data Your Truck Sends Home Is Becoming Your New Credit Score, And Your Insurance Rate Too appeared first on FreightWaves.
