Highway Inspections Put 64% of Freight Out of Service!

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0:56Malcolm Harris: Ladies and gentlemen, it is August 19th, your hump day. It's a Wednesday, but we got the fastest 45 minutes and freight on deck, man. I'm Malcolm Harris, joined, of course, by Mr. Michael Vinson. Another episode of What the Truck. Mike, what's up, baby? Yo, I thought it was Friday, man. You're wearing that Hawaiian shit. Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm feeling a little festive, you know? You are, dog. You look like from Honolulu. It's Malcolm Harris. You know? Tiny bubble. I feel like I'm feeling good, man. I'm feeling good. How you feeling, man? You're looking good, man. You look good. This is just a love fest right now.

1:35You look good, brother. I took a shower. I feel good, man, from 146 Media Studios in Fort Worth, Texas. What the Truck West.

1:43Malcolm Harris: I love it. I love it. What the Truck West, baby. How's things going out in Texas and Tejas? It's hot, baby. Hot. Yeah. Hot. It's a day of mourning, dude. We lost Frank Beard yesterday, dude. Oh, man. Look at him. This is sad. The only one without a beard. Yeah, man. ZZ Top. I thought we'd start off the show with a little LaGrange or something like that. You know what I mean? No. A lot of nice girls. This is some historian facts coming from you, man. I hate to see that. I love me some ZZ Top, man. They were badass in the day, man. I mean, holy shit. What the hell, man? they had that animals tour whatever it was yeah look this before your time bro but they did a tour and they used to have they had zoo animals come out on the stage and stuff is freaking nuts i don't know if cody could find any pictures of that stuff but it's pretty freaking crazy is there a celebrity death that is just like rock your world can you name one that you're just like yeah absolutely i came home from school to learn that uh on the day and learned that lennon was shot killed in front of the dakota okay that's a john lennon i was a huge i was a huge beatles fan uh and when they split i i became a uh before harrison really got going i was a i was really a harrison guy but uh lennon uh is still one of my heroes for sure one of my huge uh he was fantastic yeah that was a that's the one that got me because i was of the right age to be really influenced by something like that you know like it it mattered to me because you know your world is different in in those days but uh yeah that's the one that got me uh just because a lot of people just don't understand how what a good dude he was man i mean you look at documentaries and stuff like that like people would he fans would come up and sit outside his house and wait and talk he would invite him in and have lunch with him yeah he was one of the guys he was just a guy right no matter how famous and stuff he got he he was just a guy no matter how nutty they were like you wrote that song about me and stuff like i mean because crazy crazy people out there and um but he would talk him off the ledge and and be cool and then someone decided to kill i don't get it it was it's messed up but yeah that's that that one that one got me i would say young dolf whenever he was also shot and killed that was the one i was like man like yeah who would want to kill young dolf that's just really sad yeah yeah i mean dying of uh you know i mean frank beard was in hospice and stuff he was he died of whatever it was i forget what it was but um and others that have died of disease you know it's sad and you hate to see somebody go and you're losing something of your you know your past and that type of stuff you know what i mean because it's part of what you watched or loved but to see somebody senseless killed no matter who it is is is is awful i think what makes these worse is just you know because look yesterday there were thousands of people who are much better people and much greater loss than frank beard it just worked right great people whatever that that and i get that uh and loved ones uh but when they're really good people and they're also out in front of the public it just affects more people because you know of them right 100 100 and hopefully i mean it's just you know violence you know continues to hopefully cease and decrease because it's never fun i mean but yeah what you said i like how you put that in perspective is that there's like a bunch of different folks that probably didn't see today that were better contributors to society.

5:13Malcolm Harris: However, it's like, yeah, I get that. I get that. But they're relatively unknown. And violence isn't always bad, dude. I mean, look, in like less than 14 days, it's going to be really good because you got college football coming back, right? And that's just mindless, violent hate on a football field is fantastic. Oh, man, I cannot wait. Here, of course, at Five Crown Media, we got some stuff cooking with the Times Free Press. Really excited to talk about that here. Oh, oh. Yeah. Oh. It's that time. It's that time. Good tease. That's a good tease, bro. It's about to be popping. It's also that time for On Deck.

5:47Malcolm Harris: Let's look who we got today for this show. Yeah. Two great guests that are going to be here with us. I'm excited. You've seen one prior on What the Truck. He is awesome. He's the EVP of Crime and Theft Specialist at SPG Cargo. And he is also the chair of Top of Americas. And this guy is Mr. Scott Cornell. He needs no introduction. really really uh enjoy talking with scott every time he's on the show he had an article contribution that we talked about and teased on monday that we're going to get into today on what the truck excited to have him on board to get through that with us and talk a little bit about uh cargo theft carry verification and much more and then the senior strategic advisors at westport is going to be here mr jim arthur's just got in and i'm excited to speak with jim gonna break down the real path to decarbonization, heavy-duty trucking, natural gas, RNG, hydrogen, battery, electric, and much more.

6:42Malcolm Harris: All right. So between - Wait, is this a 45-hour show or 45 minutes? We're going to try and cram it in 45 minutes, but you know, it might go 50. You never know with us, but we got some good stuff on the way. It would not be possible, of course, without Gnosis Freight. You guys remember Jake Hoffman coming up on the show on Monday. He was fantastic, and it kind of shows just how amazing the folks are at Gnosis Freight. You got a firsthand experience with us. Again, if you're still checking carrier websites, copying container data into spreadsheets, chasing updates through email chains, you got to get Gnosis, all right?

7:16Malcolm Harris: Because it's an AI operating system for global logistics, one platform to track every single container, automate execution, and protect your margins across the full container lifecycle. We talked about it in great detail on Monday, but for those that want more information, all you got to do is check them out right now at gnosisfreight.com book a demo and make sure that you tell them that the guys at what the truck sent you again that is gnosis freight shout out to that great team awesome episode on monday if you have not looked at it definitely go back and check it out and also you need to check out the future of freight festival because we are coming to you live and direct october 27th and the 28th at the signal it is going to be one awesome show excited for this one to get kicked off and on board.

8:01Malcolm Harris: You're going to have different entertaining conversations like that guy right there. You're going to have much more happiness than keynotes. You're going to have speakers. You're going to have conversations. You're going to have demos. You're going to have lizard mascots. You're going to have Craig Fuller. You're going to have Thomas Wasson. You're going to have a bunch of different folks. Dale Prax is going to be there. Who is that guy? You're going to have so many people in the building. You're going to have Charles Gracie. in the building. Mr. Chuck Gracie in the building. Who is that guy? You guys put me in here quite a bit, man.

8:34Malcolm Harris: I appreciate the love, but it's much more than a Malcolm show. Make sure you guys are checking this out. And again, for those that are on the fence right now and wanting a little bit of a discount, all you got to do is use this promo code. It is TAKE20. All right? T-A-K-E 2-0. Use that code right there that is on your screen for 20 % off of the ticket of admission. Again, that's the future of Freight Festival F3, October 27th and the 28th here in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee. Alright, so now that the bills are paid, Mr. Vincent, let's get to the show. How does that sound? Let's do it! I think we should do it, bro.

9:11Malcolm Harris: I think we should do it. Let's start out in the UK. Man, this one, ladies and gentlemen, is absolutely bonkers, and I want you guys to know about it. Alright. Starting overseas, police in the UK arrested six people as part of an investigation into organized cargo theft authorities rated six locations and leads and recovered suspected stolen merchandise drugs and weapons now the big story here isn't the scale of the problem cargo theft here is estimated to cost the uk around 88 million a year with this being said this one was absolutely crazy because there was a bunch of different things happening at one time mike did you did you get a good look at this because there's a bunch of moving pieces bro there's a bunch of craziness i like that how it kind of implies that six people stole 88 million dollars right right that was what we call those uh and reel it in that's what that was like okay i loved it i loved it yeah that would that would caught me that would caught me first it's it there are a lot of moving pieces right because there's a lot smaller pieces, right?

10:25Malcolm Harris: Yeah, for sure. I mean,$88 million is a lot of money to me and you, not to a lot of people, but there's... Yeah, just... Do you have a list of all the different pieces that went together for this? Because there's a lot of small things that add up to the$88 million. I mean, based off of what I see right now... And that's what makes it so hard. There's so many different things that are going on because you've got to get creative. I mean, there's just not that much freight moving in the UK. There's not. Relative. That's a great point. There's not relatively a lot. And also, I think that with Phil, he really couldn't get into everything because he was working off of limited information because the West Yorkshire Police Department, they were not really forthcoming with releasing the details as the investigation continues.

11:16Malcolm Harris: All right. So. Yeah, go ahead. No, I was going to say details of the theft that they were arrested were deliberately left out. Authorities may provide further information as the case progresses. So that's kind of why I'm just like, eh, this is great and all, but where is the meat? Where is the main course? This is kind of like an appetizer, right? Yeah. I don't know. Last time I heard about Leeds was when I bought my Live at Leeds Who album, which is fantastic. That version of Magic Bus will blow your mind. So go out and check it out. I love it. Pete Lundenfeld, you know what I'm talking about.

11:51But look, here's what's interesting to me, right? $88 million is what the UK can verify that is stolen on an annual basis there. Okay? Okay.

12:03Malcolm Harris: And they're free. I'm following. And that's what they report,$88 million, right? Yeah. We can verify$291 million, but we report$6 billion. Yes. So there's that. There's absolutely nope. There's absolutely zero proof of anything more than$291 million a year here. $88 million in the UK is 0.15 % of all the freight moved. Yeah. Right? $291 million, which is the only number we can verify, is 0.0025 % in the USA. There you go. There you go. I mean, and the reason I'm bringing this up is, you know, I think it's something that it's a big problem. It's getting worse and it's getting more and more sophisticated.

12:52And I can't wait to talk with Scott Cornell because he's done some great things through his career, right? And has seen things. And he's the guy going, look, it's getting more and more organized and more and more. And he's absolutely right. We got to kill it because he can't do this. but I also do it because, you know, the next story will put our priorities in perspective.

13:15Malcolm Harris: Yeah, most definitely. In my mind. In my mind. I don't think you're wrong by saying that. I really don't. You can check this one out right now. Again, Freightways.com came out yesterday from Phil Brink. I want to transition now into a CDL crackdown and violations that have happened. We're going to go over this one real quick. There's a chart that I'm going to go through with you guys that is pretty significant in kind of showing the violations. All right. So with this and the CDL truck crackdowns, we're talking impaired drivers, unsafe equipment, and false logs, much more here as well. It's in multiple spots.

13:48Malcolm Harris: All right. So we're going to go in the Tempe area in Arizona, also Flagstaff in Arizona. We're going New Mexico. There you go. We're going Louisiana. Here's the chart that I want to break down for you guys. All right. Shout out to Cody for getting this chopped up. So we're going to have a total vehicle one here in proper load securement out in Tempe. And then from there, we got a DUI out in Flagstaff in New Mexico. We got about 20 vehicles, 62 CMV citations, 58 moving for equipment. And then in Louisiana, we got 26 lane citations for additional safety violations. And then out in Ontario, 29 provincial offense notices for breaks, load securement, frame defects, and false logs.

14:33Malcolm Harris: And then out in British Columbia in Merit, we're going to have more than 1 ,400 in fines. So I wanted to bring this to you all quickly. This is from Noy Mahoney, but after going through this chart, things are definitely still the wild, wild west out here. No, Mike? They are. And for all you longtime freight nerds, they're talking about Ontario, Canada, not the Inland Empire. I just seriously, there's people out there going, oh, yeah, Ontario, that's Inland Empire. No, it's Ontario, Canada. But it's and this is what I'm saying, dude. When you take these stats and put these together, right, 25 % of the commercial trucks running around in the United States should be put immediately out of service.

15:2025%.

15:20Malcolm Harris: Yes. Yes. Not.0025 % that we're all screaming about the headlines, get all the clicks on cargo theft. 25%. one out of four trucks is going to kill your family in the next second. I mean, that's how you got to look at this. In Ontario, Canada, what the hell is going on in Ontario, Canada? 64%. That's 64 % of the trucks should be immediately out of service. What? That's wild. Like this is an epidemic. Like it really is. Holy mackerel. Where's the protests? Where are the people on the street? And then I read people on LinkedIn going, it's like random checks on every driver out there on the streets.

16:05This is ridiculous. It needs to be stopped. No, it needs to be increased. You kidding me?

16:10Malcolm Harris: I agree with you. And I'm not even arguing with drivers. When you go out there and you go to the truck stops and you talk to drivers, they'll tell you the same thing, dude. You need to stop and check more drivers because people out here need to be taken off the street. And they got motivations. One of them is safety and one of them is respect. And the other one is rates. What's wrong with that? take the unsafe drivers over here and then they can make some money because there's less capacity come on do the right thing do the right thing like spike lee man make sure you guys are looking at that article so you can get a full breakdown from noy mahoney right now on this is a malcolm harris joint this is a malcolm harris joint i see what you're saying oh man so my middle name for those that don't know is jerell all right so it's malcolm jerell harris there is another when i call you isaac the other day called me the other day and i laughed because i have an uncle named isaac and oh okay i literally had to sit and uh yeah that that got me you almost got me out of character i almost just anyway um there's this guy and we're gonna go to this next story uh there's a jarell that is is not getting out of jail anytime soon all right well he may he may postpone i don't know but there's a copper case that needs y 'all's attention all right because is that jarell nightingale man jerell nightingale all right jerell lamont nightingale he is a 41 oh man florida he is facing two felony charges and one concealed gun count all right this is from the kinley police department all right jerell lamont you lamont you big dummy dude is in trouble man all right so the kinley officers they recovered both the equipment and its contents all right 258 000 in copper wire on friday all right so the kinley police department received information about the suspected organization on August 20, excuse me, on August 14th.

18:01Malcolm Harris: The tip described criminal activity extended beyond North Carolina investigators and coordinated with unnamed out-of-state agencies. And they ended up getting Mr. Jarrell out of here. All right. So they, again, charged him felony possession, stolen goods with some other stuff as well. And a stolen motor vehicle, a third count again. And a gun. Yeah, he had a gun. The court set a$20 ,000 secured bond, so he's going to have to come up with two bands. So he could get out realistically, so I don't want to be the dean because I don't want him to come and chat a new again and show me that concealed gun.

18:39Malcolm Harris: But what are you talking about? First, when I looked at it, I was like, man, that looks like way more than$250 ,000 worth of coffee. It does. It does. If you look at this picture on the article, and yeah, thank you, Cody. If you look at this, like that looks like a lot of copper. Like it looks way more than what I think$250 ,000 in copper would look like. I mean, that's a whole truckload, man. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, what the law is going to do to him is like far worse than what Shelly was going to do to him in her office. Shelly Simpson going to bring the wrath on that one. Hey, listen, man.

19:19Malcolm Harris: Shelly Simpson. That's somebody I wouldn't want to mess with, man. No, listen. I'm a huge fanboy of Shelly Simpson. Same, dude. Same. This is not going to go well. No, no. Because she runs a good and tight ship, my friend. She does. She's fantastic. One of the best in the business. Yeah, no, look. It's crazy. And it's, yeah, I don't know how significant this is. It's another thing, right? And it's desperation. Here's a guy trying to make a buck and willing to risk life in prison to do it. You know what I mean? Yeah. And these type of crimes, like these thefts, like this type of stuff, I don't see these guys as that awful of human beings.

20:06I really feel like for how desperate they are and that type of stuff, right? Because they're not directly sticking a gun to Malcolm's head and stealing the money from you, right? I mean, there's no human involved. It's a human-less kind of crime, right? So it's like easier to commit, like just stealing some money. I'm not justifying it in any way. But I feel like I just have a heart for people that are at that desperation, right? It's kind of that they're willing to do this stuff to get, because you need to get fed. You're going to get fed. You know what I'm saying?

20:38Malcolm Harris: I mean, yeah. And maybe that's what, because it's$250 ,000. What's he going to sell that for? Maybe 30 %? They're going to sell that for maybe 30, 35 % of its actual value on the street. If that. Right. I mean, I mean, you know, that's how it goes on the street, right? It ain't like you don't steal a million dollars of freight and get a million bucks. I mean, top you're going to get for that is like 300 grand. No, for sure. I mean, and to your point, people are put in these positions and yeah, they're choosing a life of crime, but also like we got to look at the why behind that. And we've talked about this time and time again, when it comes to fraud and stuff, it's just It's like, all right, there's a reason.

21:13Malcolm Harris: I don't know. I'm not justifying it by any means. No. Look, the guy needs to be caught. He needs to be prosecuted and throw the book at him. He needs to go to jail. You need to do all this kind of stuff. But we also need to look at, okay, where, because I always say this, right? If your bathtub's overflowing, Malcolm, in your apartment, you don't go over there and just start bailing the water out. You turn off the valve and then start cleaning it up, right? Absolutely. So if, you know, that's all I'm saying. We got to look at both sides. For sure. Great stuff. Great analogy, by the way. You're on fire this morning.

21:46Malcolm Harris: I'm very impressed. I've had two cups of coffee, my friend. Listen, I'm feeling it. I'm feeling it. Let's end out our headline segments the right way. You know, everything's not doom and gloom. Everything's not doom and gloom. We talk about layoffs probably biweekly now from Noy Mahoney. Noy's, of course, one of the best riders here at Freight Waves. He put together some great data that I want to take a look at real quick. with his freight distress report. All right, 7 ,000 jobs have been cut here recently in a new wave of closures. All right, there's a chart here that I want to talk through. I want to say with these 7 ,000, the majority of them are from one company, and this is Tyson Foods.

22:27Malcolm Harris: All right, two locations on Jocelyn, Illinois, as well as Eagle Mountain, Utah. All right, so this is due to plant closures and beef business consolidation amid a cattle shortage. Then you're going to have different companies. I'm just going to highlight, again, the biggest ones. It's also because people like Malcolm are quitting eating beef. We quit eating beef, man. Listen, we're going to chicken. We're going to fish. We're going a healthier route. There's a lot of different layoffs. I will say, with this headline, do not let it scare you. There are a bunch of different companies, though, just kind of naming the big ones.

23:03Malcolm Harris: You got Ryder. You got Mission Foods. You're going to have West Marine. You're also going to have HelloFresh, United Natural Foods, as well as Daimler Truck. All right. So those are kind of the big ones. Of course, you got FedEx on here, Staples. There's just a lot of reshuffling. Again, you see some fulfillment center closings. You see some consolidation of facilities. So with that, yes, it's not pretty. I'd never want to over glamorize a layoff or something of that nature. But these are the numbers that have happened recently and wanted to present those to you. Mike, did I say that? Did I justify that okay, just candidly?

23:45Yeah, I think you did. I mean, look, we report these things because they're happening, right? And report it in such a way to get people to read them. Unfortunately, most people look at the headline and go, wow, the industry's hurting and there's all these layoffs, which is not even close to reality. Because, I mean, even Daimler, there's no layoffs in Daimler. No. It's complete BS. They left Oregon because they unionized and they went to North Carolina where they could actually still produce trucks and make money because there's not stupidity in the unionizing there. Okay. FedEx. FedEx is just, they're getting taught a lesson.

24:27Oops, the pandemic was an anomaly. Boy, yeah. You know? A lot of these things aren't even supply chain or not even logistics, right? I mean, they have nothing to do with. And if you really, if you look at this, look. Okay. DHL, right? Yeah. 7 million square feet of new warehousing capacity launching in 2026. That's over a thousand new jobs. General freight trucking, 667 ,000 new workers. 2.5 % job.

25:04Malcolm Harris: Keep going. Physical distribution and logistics and processing, 179 ,000 new jobs. 30 ,000 new jobs over the last four years. Not to mention, we didn't talk about the Toyota. There are currently, yeah, and there's currently 108 ,000 open positions in logistics and transportation right now. So it is also, like I said, to justify for report, but then also it's like, it's not all doom and gloom. So good reporting by Noy to bring the numbers, but I'll let y 'all know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to see, you know, look, Tyson overcapacity as insolvency for Ascendant. West Marine was its retailers just dying.

25:47I mean, you know, post-pandemic Calypso, HelloFresh. These are just bad ideas, right? But we're talking about 520 ,000 new jobs created every year. There's 10 ,000 new job postings every week.

25:59Malcolm Harris: Yeah. No, couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more. That was your headline roundup, of course. The only way you can get it here on What the Truck. Make sure you check out all those articles in full. And then also with the Morning Minute, man, you will get a full recap of that today as well at noon with Craig Fuller and Julie Vanderkam on Freight Waves today. So much more in store there. But we got somebody in store right now because coming here on the show is a repeat guest, man, is a family friend, a guy's guy. He doesn't need much introduction. all right but for those that don't know i want to milk welcome uh from spg cargo and logistics as well as the chair of tapa americas this is mr scott cornell scott what's up brother welcome back to the show so good to see you man what's going on guys how are you this morning feeling good feeling good it's uh it's awesome to have you man it's it's a good time mr sunny brockport Well, yeah, I was wondering if you had updated your knowledge about football, you know, for this show.

27:01Miss. Miss. Have you guys gone to the national title game at any point in the history of the sport? I was just curious how well you prepared for this. I know you're off on the cargo theft number, so I'm going to have to correct you on something else again. So this is like, if I need to come on here every couple of weeks and just fact check you, bud. And that's what I need. I need to get straightened out every once in a while. I was researching tapas, but all I could find were, like, Mexican hors d 'oeuvres and appetizers and stuff.

27:37That's all I could find. It's taponline.org. Oh, I got you. I got a couple people that can help you with your internet research skills, so I can hook you up with those. They're right there in chat. I love it, dude.

27:56Look, and I wasn't even going to throw any shade at you today. I was going to bring up some good stuff. Oh, baloney. I just launched the first one, and now you're trying to act like I'm being the one. You launched it after last time. I don't know why you are. Look, look how they treat me, Malcolm. Look how they treat me.

28:13Malcolm Harris: You get what you get, man. Y 'all, this got out of hand fast. This is what I'm looking for. Or Phil Brink won't bring it. So we got to have Scott on more often. You won't bring it back to me. Look, what was it? New York Probe. You were involved with New York Probe, right? It's been around in New York State. What is it now? Looking at all the different theft and investigate, like private investigation type of work into different thefts, et cetera, right? Through like a JFK and all the different ports and going through all those kinds of things. and it's really hard to find any information from there but i do appreciate the fact and malcolm i were talking about this how you're talking about how there's this progression of freight theft and how it's getting more and more sophisticated and more and more organized and important i mean like we have this picture from back in the day this was how they like this was freight hacking right i mean like you look that's how they used computers to steal freight back in the day with a computer.

29:22It's a lot different now, right? I mean, you're not breaking wings.

29:26Malcolm Harris: Malcolm, take the AI controls away from him. We've got to get a hold on it at this point because it's making you look like a monster. Look at this. Look at this. First of all, why would I do it that way? This was not you actually. It's easier to go through the door than it is through the windshield. Well, that's what I'm saying. It's getting, let's talk about how it's getting more and more sophisticated. Cause that was you, you're doing a training video back in the day on how to catch threat. Like this is most likely how they do it right now. Just to be clear, that is not a real video of me.

30:05So let's start with the numbers. Cause I heard you talking about the numbers, right?

30:09Malcolm Harris: Let's go. Yeah. It's an important topic. I'm a big advocate for this. So, first of all, and I'm not all kidding aside, the 231 million or whatever it was you were mentioning before, I don't know exactly where you got that. But let's just start with Cargonet, right? I use Cargonet as my resource for numbers. And last year they reported 732 million in cargo theft that they were able to document, right? Now, I've always said, so when you look at cargo theft in the United States, it's not trapped by the federal government. So when you look at the numbers, you have to understand that we're getting the numbers from private sector organizations that get cargo theft reported them on a voluntary basis.

30:57So they only get a sample size. I've always said, based on what I see and what other experts and I talk about, that these independent organizations get about one-tenth of all cargo theft if you're talking full truckload and one-fifteenth of all cargo theft if you're talking full truckload and pilferage combined. so i think you take that 732 million you multiply it by 10 you're in the neighborhood now tappa we're in the process of doing a putting together a research project that will actually research the true theft of cargo the true the true value of cargo theft in the united states and we're just going to give it to the industry we're going to give it to people like you so you can talk about it we're going to give it to anybody who wants it where it's our gift to the industry so we're going to be working with the university to create that study.

31:49And what's also important behind that, if you even take that 732 million number, even if you don't multiply it by 10 or whatever, that's not the true value. That's just the value on the bill of lading or the value on the shipping receipt. Usually values are under declared, right? Secondly, there's the cost to remanufacture, or whatever it is, there's a cost that you lose in the marketplace. There's the cost of insurance behind it. There's the cost of investigation behind it. There's a cost of retransporting it. So we think that there's a formula. That's what we're going to be working with the universities on.

32:25We think that there's a formula that's maybe, you know, electronics is five times what you see on the value. Food and beverages is three times down the value. Not only the extra work or the rework that happens, right? Right. But it is the loss of manufacturing on the other side when you're talking about components, parts, raw materials that are sold, like all that copper that was taken. Right. That two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which, man, that looks like a lot of copper for two hundred and fifty grand. I think they got a deal. But it is now. But really, seriously, loss of production down the line.

32:57What was that going to produce? You got all that that's not calculated in the value. There's so much involved in it. You're hitting it dead on. Right. Right. So the difference is value versus economic impact. Right. And you're trying to bring in that economic impact of it. Right. Right. And the other part of it that we have to understand is that, like I said, the federal government doesn't track cargo theft. So a police officer in Iowa can respond to a cargo theft and they may say, well, it's an auto theft because it has a tractor tied to it. And a police officer in Missouri might have a cargo theft and they may say, well, there's$500 ,000 worth of televisions in the back.

33:35So I'm going to call this property crime. You name the you name the statute that they use. And so we don't get cargo theft numbers. So when you're looking at those cargo theft numbers, you have to understand it is just a sample size because true cargo theft gets diluted into all the other uniform crime codes across the United States. We don't see cargo theft in the federal reporting yet. And that's what the Corka bill, one of the things the Corka bill would require. let me let me ask you this why the discrepancy between um the estimated and the actual known number right i i did the 291 million because it was like half of this year was like 131 million or something like that and then you add like the the known um data center thefts that have occurred and i use that number so it was just meant to spark argument um sure really and and i and i did for you today to have this conversation.

34:35What motivates people to under-report? Right? Because I believe you're right. The billion dollars is probably more realistic than$725 million, really. Yeah. Like I said, I think you multiply that by 10 and you're in the neighborhood, right? Yeah. But why that discrepancy? Why don't they do that? Because it seems illogical to not report? Well, again, first of all, we're not getting the true numbers of cargo theft, right? Because CargoNet's the organization that tracks it for the industry. They do a fantastic job, especially showing us the trends and everything like that. But they don't get all cargo theft reported to them because they're an independent organization and it's voluntary for people to report to them.

35:23Law enforcement reports under different crime codes, so it gets diluted. So we just don't know what the real number is. Why the discrepancy? Because most of the time when you take the value of a cargo theft, you're just going by what's on the bill of lading or on the shipping receipt or what the shipper has declared as the value or anything like that. And you're not taking into account the full part of it. Keep in mind, too, that of all the cargo thefts that CargoNet gets reported to them, they don't get a value on every one of them. So even when you look at the$731 million number, that's just based on ones that include the value when they report and they don't all include the value.

36:01So we really just don't know. We know it's bad. I can just tell you from doing this for so long, you know, I used to go and speak in front of a conference and, you know, for this topic and there would be 100 people in the room. Now, sometimes there's 300 to 400 people in the room. I used to say, hey, raise your hand if you had a cargo theft prior to this conference, and maybe 10 people would raise their hand. Now two-thirds of the room raises their hand. There's a reason why people are going to the federal government and asking to pass the Corka bill and have some federal resources because cargo theft has exploded since 2020.

36:37We just know that to be factual.

36:39Malcolm Harris: yes yeah i want to talk real quick about this data center piece that you had uh with this uh with phil because we talked about it a little bit on monday but no he's a guy he's a he's he truly is like amazing at what he does for living um talk to me a little bit about you you said what 110 million in terms of what you've seen so far this year in terms of these i guess what two thefts and then also um there was something else that i had on top of mind uh i guess the the bump and uh the bump and run method or bumping what what is it exactly yeah let's get into both of those so it's a hundred i think it's roughly 110 million since june 3rd oh but even more than that if you go back a year or so and yeah i think you put in the notes um that you know they ranged anywhere from 2 million, which we saw some Bitcoin mining machines that were in the$2 million range, all the way up to 38 million and everywhere in between, numbers everywhere in between.

37:40So we are seeing a heavy, heavy targeting of these data center related or high technology related loads targeted across the country. And on two of those loads, and I always want to be careful with this because I feel like I've been blessed with a voice here on this topic, and you guys are part of the reason why I get that. I get to talk about that and I appreciate it. But I also want to never cause any panic. So it's only two. It's only two where we saw the bump and run. That is an escalation. That's something that we haven't seen before. And that's something that we're used to seeing south of the border or in other countries around the world where cargo theft has a little bit more of that type of activity around it.

38:26So it's not something that we're used to seeing here in the US. But it really started with the vetting of the drivers. If you bump the security escorts on a load and the drivers are good guys, the drivers are going to do what? They're going to go to the next truck stop or they're going to call 911 and they're going to wait for the security escort to be back with them. The screening of these drivers allow bad guys to get through. So you have bad guys driving the truck. So now if they bump the escort, it works because the bad guys are driving the truck and they just take off and disappear with

39:02Malcolm Harris: the loads and that's what we saw in both of those loads okay now that makes sense to me i know we uh are short on time scott but we will see you next month for two things for a cargo theft report one and for a college football report two so make sure you're ready to go i will read out to you personally and we will get this set up and ready to go for next month. And I just appreciate you making time, bro. Yes. Hey, thanks for having me. I love coming on with you guys. You guys are a blast and I appreciate you guys getting this word out on this stuff. We appreciate you. Amen. Thanks. Right on. Thank you, Scott.

39:40Malcolm Harris: Thank you. Have a great morning. You too. Right on, brother. I'm hungry. I'm hungry for some tapas. I'm hungry for some tapas too, man. I got my shirt on, my feel good shirt. And this is a guy coming up here that is, he looks like a fun guy, man. And I know that we're going to get into some fun topics. This guy, again, is the Senior Strategic Advisor at Westport, amongst other things. He does quite a bit and has a really, really commendable track record and career in this industry. So with that, I want to welcome now Mr. Jim Arthur. Jim, welcome to What the Truck, man. I'm excited for the debut here with Mike and Malcolm.

40:20Malcolm Harris: How's it going, man? It's going really good. Good morning. How are you doing? Doing good, man. It's good to see you. Look at this. Look at this guy. What's going on, man? He is, right? Look, he looks like the Duke. I mean, am I looking at John Wayne here or what? Yeah. I don't know about that. I'd have to see you walk to see if you got that gait. You know what I'm saying? That's pretty good. Hey, look, I looked into Calgary to try and find distinguished alumni other than yourself. And the only thing I found was the recent Russian spy who went there. That guy who got me out there. Were you in a class with that guy?

41:05I think we got a picture of...

41:11Are y 'all kidding me? That's hilarious. Check it out, dude. Cody is the man. Look at this. No, I mean, this was like a 2018 or something like that, right? But it's interesting because, look, this guy used the school to get fake – or not fake. He got his own credentials to make it look like he was legitimate when he went to Norway doing investigation. And then he was nailed like flying drones around Oslo Airport. and filming different weird stuff, which is just absolutely crazy. But anyways, I found that it was actually a legitimate class. I didn't know they had drones back in the day when you were going to school there, though, dude.

41:58No, we didn't have drones. That was advanced technology, right? Yeah, when I was going to school, we were still using punch cards for computers. So we were a long way from drones. Yeah, yeah, right? I mean, I think when I was just getting into college, we had floppy disks. Yeah. Yeah. And the real floppy kind. Yeah. Yeah. The actual floppy kind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The reason that save icon on your computer is, is that way, which most people don't understand what that icon is.

42:27Malcolm Harris: Is that what that means, Scott? No, I'm kidding. I'm not. Jim, I want to talk about this for a second because Westport is delivered technology. I mean, designed to help decarbonize some of the hardest segments in transportation. From the tech side specifically, what has changed most dramatically when we're talking alternative fuel? Because, I mean, we've talked renewable here on What the Truck at least five, ten times since I've been here. But Westport has a bit of a different take. And you're, I mean, you're humble, but you're essentially the mastermind behind a lot of what's happened, man. Well, some of it.

43:07I've been working in the natural gas space since 2010. Was president of Cummins Westport for a long time and chairman of that business. So we brought out the spark-ignited natural gas engines with the 12-liter coming out in 2013. And I've been working since then to help transform the heavy-duty trucking space. And I think what we've seen over the last three or four years has been what NACFI calls the messy middle. We don't know where we're going. We're leaving diesel behind at some point, maybe moving to cleaner things. But electric has been a big focus on electric for quite a while. Hydrogen is in the mix, not nearly as popular yet.

43:50And then natural gas, which has been around for a long time, has sort of been coming back. So Cummins launched the X15N, engine 15 liter, full heavy duty engine a couple of years ago. It's getting out there. Fleets are liking it. So it's challenged a little bit as it's not as efficient as the diesels. The technology they use in the engine is a little older. But what you have, and you have to think about it's the truck, and then it's also the energy that you're using. And what we've seen in the last little while is, you know, electricity. If you go back three, four, five years ago, and people were thinking about electric trucks, they were thinking they were going to get their electricity for, you know, 14 or 15 cents a kilowatt hour.

44:33in reality when people are putting in you know distribution centers with megawatt chargers and things like that it's it's a lot more expensive uh you know fleets are paying 40 to 50 cents a kilowatt hour for electricity because yeah they can buy electricity for 14 cents 15 cents a kilowatt hour to power their lights and their computers but if you want to amp that up to you know megawatt power and you're dumping a lot into it you have to pay for additional you know infrastructure at your location a different additional transmission capacity you probably have to pay standby fees and so you end up at this 40 42 cents let's say 42 cents a kilowatt hour for electricity is the same as seven dollar diesel you know on an energy equivalent basis that's what it is so all of a sudden it doesn't pencil out and you know we've seen the same thing with hydrogen hydrogen is you know, 20 plus dollars a kilogram, which kilogram is pretty close to a diesel gallon.

45:30So again, you don't, the energy is just priced out of market. So what's happening with natural gas, and it's nothing new, is that natural gas just is a lot cheaper than the other sources as far as the energy. So, you know, right now, and part of the issue is we have all these different currencies, hydrogen kilograms, kilowatt hours, million BTUs and barrels of oil. You have to kind of normalize all that. So if I just look at natural gas today, it's$2.86 per million BTUs. That's what it's trading for today. And oil is at, you know, 86 bucks for West Texas and 91 for Brent. Well, how do I compare those?

46:08Well, 5.8 million BTUs in a barrel of oil. So I take that 286, I multiply it by 5.8 and I get$17. So natural gas is selling for$17 for a barrel of oil's worth of energy versus 86 to 90 dollars for petroleum that's where that's where you know the numbers really you know stand out to say natural gas is the cheapest form of energy that you can use to run a truck so now we've got you know the x15n doing a good job it's a full heavy duty truck and what we're working on at westport um is bringing the technology we've launched in europe so we have a direct fuel injected natural gas engine in europe uh we've we've now got 12 ,000 on the road 500 horsepower 1850 pound-feet of torque it was a volvo the g13 they call it's a d13 engine the european version of that and the big difference between it and and the the sparking night engines is we get the same fuel efficiency as a diesel so that's kind of the breakthrough instead of you know a diesel getting eight and a half miles per gallon and a sparking night engine getting five and a half or six we're getting eight and a half we get the same and so that's why our numbers are up.

47:22So year over year, we just closed our second quarter. Year over year on a rolling four quarter basis, our sales are up 36 % on that technology. So it's starting to really catch hold. And so now what we're working on is to bring that technology to North America. The difference is where we sell in the 37 countries we've sold this technology, they're all LNG countries. They buy their energy as LNG and they transport it as LNG and they store it as ONG. That's not the case in the U.S. The U.S. is a CNG market. We transport things through the pipeline. We compress it. So we're working on a CNG fuel storage system.

48:00And that's up and running now. We've got a couple of trucks running in Vancouver. We've been having fleets come ride along. They're very, very pleased with what they've seen. And so now we're just into the process of bringing that technology to the market. Fantastic. Sorry for a long answer to a short No, no, no.

48:16Malcolm Harris: I mean, it was really what we wanted. So why CNG versus LNG? Is it more efficient instead of liquefied to do it as compressed? Yeah, it is more efficient. It costs you money. So if you think about it, so in Europe, they don't have natural gas that they produce. They import it all. So it comes in as LNG. It's already liquefied. And so when you liquefy natural gas, you're chilling it down. And that costs energy. And you've got to keep it super cold, so you have to have these insulated tanks and insulated transport trailers and all that. Whereas what we have in North America is, number one, we produce a third of the world's natural gas, and we have a huge pipeline system.

49:03So you can visualize it. The natural gas pipeline has about the same number of miles of infrastructure as we have paved roads. Oh, wow. So it's massive. And you can transport natural gas for practically nothing through the pipeline. So basically, it's already a gas. You haven't spent money to liquefy it. You haven't spent a lot of money to transport it around in a trailer. And so, yes, it's definitely more efficient to use the pipeline gas. It's a tremendous strategic asset. So outlet infrastructure for refueling, et cetera, should be fairly easy to just expand throughout the country, right? Yeah, I mean, there's 1 ,600 or so CNG stations right now.

49:49Oh, wow. People like Clean Energy and Chevron and Opal Fuels, they operate stations. In a lot of cases, the bigger fleets want their station on site. So we have stations that are literally right at the distribution center. If you look at people like WM, the refuse company, they have their fueling set up so that they have a distribution system. So the driver pulls this truck into the stall for the night. He plugs in a CNG hose. All the drivers do that. They go away. They come back the next morning. The truck is full. And so there's no really refueling time. It's just all done that way. So fleets do this.

50:30They call that time fill where you just have a big compressor. We have some companies, Freedom, AFI, and Sertaris are big in this, where they have a fuel station in a cargo container. And so if you're getting started with natural gas, you call them up and they'll say, okay, well, how many gallons a day sort of thing? And they'll drop a cargo container, hook it up to the pipeline, and you're in business.

50:55Malcolm Harris: Jim, I know we're about to be up on time, which is great. It's very cool. We literally, I think we could talk about this literally for 45 minutes. Where are we going in terms of the industry when it comes to this? Where do you think, based off of, I mean, you've been in this for a long time. Yeah. And I think that you have the inside lane more than anybody else that we probably even had on the show. Where do you think we're going? Well, I think what we're going to for heavy-duty trucking, regional haul, long haul, all that, I think natural gas for the next long time is going to be the best overall solution.

51:29You know, it's inexpensive. expensive. The trucks are finally capable to really do the full job, do long haul and that sort of stuff. And the other thing is, we didn't talk about it, it's renewable. So last year, of all the natural gas that was used in vehicles, 94 % of it was from renewable sources. So we get RNG from dairy farms, we get it from landfills, we get it from human waste, we get it from all sorts of places. If you think about a landfill or dairy farm, that garbage that's rotting or the manure that's rotting is sending you know methane up into the air we're capturing that and using it as a fuel so it's you know decarbonizing in a huge way and you know dairy dairy manure when you use that in a truck is actually negative carbon you're you're emitting less carbon than you you less greenhouse gas than you would if you uh just left that that manure in the field so we've got a you know a clean fuel it's a additional source of revenue for farmer you know for dairy farmers So it's the one energy source and now truck technology that we think over the next decade or more will beat everything else.

52:36And, you know, even diesel, we've got much better numbers than diesel. If diesel is at$5.50 a gallon, you know, and CNG is$1.75 a gallon at the pump, that's kind of where we are right now. You know, there's nothing that's going to beat that. And with electricity, I think down the road, electricity will play a bigger role. and it's and you know you look at a truck like the tesla semi it's a fine truck you know and it's not that much more expensive and it's you know super efficient all that but they're using they're having to use the equivalent of seven dollar diesel and they're competing with data centers and all these other big voracious users of electricity so that cost electricity is not likely to go down for a while so i think we will have the edge certainly over the next decade or too.

53:21And, you know, we're looking forward to bringing our product into North America to, you know, take advantage of that wave.

53:27Malcolm Harris: Jim, we're going to have to have you flying on a drone down here to Chattanooga for a live show. This is one of my favorite topics. And I hate that we just didn't have a full, full segment. So we'll definitely get this back on the book. And just thank you. Sounds good. Love to do that. Making a few minutes just to speak with Mike and myself. No problem. And I enjoyed your show up to now. So good discussions. Thank you. Thanks, Jim. Thank you very much. All right. thank you i mean we got to talk about infrastructure and all kinds of stuff with i mean there's so much to go through right so much rng rng's i'm a big fan i think it is one of the most slept on things in supply chain and in trucking right now like i really really don't think people understand the scope of what that man was saying and what our other guests who have talked about rng i could talk about it for hours but we got to get up out of here but coming up the road ahead for friday let's see what we got shaking and baking the founder and CEO of Alvey's Mr.

54:22Malcolm Harris: Nick Darman is going to be in the house we got Nick and he is going to be here on Friday that's it for the dude and the boy it's Malcolm Harris and Michael Vincent make sure you like subscribe follow do all the things it's the peace sign we'll see you on Friday holla at you love it

55:00We'll be right back.