Back when I was the national sales manager for a major aftermarket exhaust manufacturer - around 2009, we made a very memorable call on a large class-8 fleet in Wisconsin. We got involved with talking to the maintenance manager of the fleet, then a bunch of mechanics joined in - people with hands-on real world info. They had all newer stuff - from every brand: Petes, Kenworths, Freightshakers, Macks, & Navistar. This was during the height of the Cascadia vs. Pro Star era - FLEET power units. EVERYBODY was talking about what POS these new emissions trucks were - SO many things wrong. Plugging DPF's, needing to regen all the time, excessive underhood heat talking out wiring, vacuum lines, components, fans, switches, all of them constantly throwing codes, etc. It was a real mess.

I finally asked this group of all the different power units they were using, which one was the "best?" It was pretty unanimous: Navistar Pro Stars. Everything else was junk according to them - worst one was Mack. They said the Macks were at the dealership more than they were on the road. To me, this was a defining moment for the trucking industry. Moving forward in the name of environmentalism. Lots of new technology, but not enough positive results to justify the leap of faith. And yet here we are - now trying to develop & iron-out a whole new type of power - electric. As told to me just this past August by a friend & longtime Chrysler engineer, he said the biggest problem he sees moving forward with EV's is FIRE. He said the biggest problem he sees is that the batteries used to store the juice can combust at any time, & for no apparent reason. He said if you have an electric vehicle & you park it in your garage, you are crazy. He also said that Chrysler is ceasing all engineering efforts on gas-powered vehicles after the end of 2022 & all development efforts will transition to electric vehicles. He said he wants no part of that because he feels it is going to be a big failure - that's when he is going to retire. 2022...............welcome to the brave new world.