It’s hard to believe that we are at the end of 2025. It’s been quite a year, one in which I have adjusted to a new reality of my life without my wife, Letty. I am learning a different way of doing things and also being reminded of just how special she was. And I want to take a moment to once again thank all of you who have either shared Letty stories with me, listened to me talk about Letty, or who offered me support and positivity. It has meant a great deal to me and has helped me move forward.
NACFE is moving forward as well. In 2025, we completed our fifth Run on Less event. In 2026, we will publish five separate reports on Run on Less – Messy Middle. The first will focus on what we call the mechanics of the Run. We like to think of it as a blueprint for how to conduct a similar event. Next, Dean Bushey, NACFE’s director of programs, is putting the finishing touches on the operations report. This report, Real-World Performance Across Four Powertrain Technologies, will focus on fleet-level results and will contain a cross-fleet analysis as well as offer some practical guidance to fleet decision makers concerning powertrain solutions.
We are also actively preparing emissions and total cost of ownership reports for publication in the spring. Our final report from the Run will contain our final findings and recommendations. These will likely be influenced by what we learn at our potluck-style data workshop in February, where we will take a deeper dive into the data with many key industry participants.
We also plan to continue our work in helping to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles in the urban delivery market, as well as in applications that use vans and step vans, those that use medium-duty box trucks, and in short regional haul day cab tractors. In addition to encouraging fleets to look at BEVs in these applications, we will support efforts to shorten site electrification interconnections.
We will continue our research and reporting on fast-charging battery and hydrogen fuel cell electric trucks. We will also be collecting and analyzing data so we can complete our 10th Fleet Fuel Study that looks at the adoption curves of more than 85 efficiency technologies on heavy-duty tractors and trailers.
We expect to continue participating in and supporting the efforts of various trucking industry coalitions. We also want to advance the understanding of key facts and operations of real-world trucking to make sure the industry is prepared for the coming energy transformation.
And I would be remiss if I did not mention that we plan to update many of our existing Confidence Reports on current technology. While NACFE is very invested in guiding emerging technology, we are not abandoning our mission of improving the freight efficiency of the movement of goods across North America. That means we need to continue to do deep dives into technologies that are available today and share the benefits and challenges of these technologies so fleets can make a decision about whether a given technology is right for their operation.
And while I think our goals and plans for 2026 are ambitious and on target, I want to make sure that NACFE is providing the industry with what it wants and needs. I would love to hear from each of you about what things you would like to see NACFE focus its efforts on in 2026.
If there is something you really think NACFE needs to be doing, please email or call me so we can discuss how we can make NACFE work better for the trucking industry.
