Category Archives: Strategy

Revolutionizing Trucking Operations: Aifleet’s AI Insights

Posted on July 17, 2025 by | Leave a comment

Trucking is a big business with a great many operational challenges. Trucking firms and fleets deal with them every single day and there’s a lot of associated administrative overhead.

So it seems strange to me that startups have not tried to address these operational problems using AI.

This article presents some of what aifleet, a trucking firm with around 200 vehicles, is using to make trucking a better place to work.

Aifleet CEO El Khoury seems to me to be very farsighted, especially in the current state of innovation in trucking.

The new money flowing to AI in logistics seems to be going to applications relating to brokering. It is not going to routing and scheduling.

But it’s routing and scheduling where big efficiency gains can be made. It’s also where the lifestyle of truckers can be improved, an area many big carriers ignore. I think there would be easy pickings for AI-enhanced scheduling and routing practices. aifleet thinks the same.

John Kingston Friday, July 11, 2025

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/at-a-conference-of-mostly-green-investors-alfleet-pushes-marriage-of-ai-and-trucking

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Posted in Investing, Logistics, Strategy, Trucking

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Pacific-Atlantic Rail Link: A Game Changer for China-Brazil Trade

Posted on July 16, 2025 by | Leave a comment

The announcement of an agreement to build a Pacific-Atlantic rail link across South America is important to global commerce. If it actually succeeds, it would allow many goods to skip the Panama Canal in transit from Brazil to the Far East, including China.

The idea seems to be a combined intermodal and bulk rail line from the East Coast of Brazil to Chancay Port in Peru.

China of course imports bulk grain and oilseed cargoes from Brazil. Brazil also is home to some manufacturing which might be cheaper than Chinese manufacturing has become. And Brazil consumes many manufactured goods now as the country develops. China is an ideal source for these.

It’s called the “Two-Ocean Railway”. It should cut the China-Brazil trip to 10 days.

China is already investing $1.3B in Chancay Port in Peru. This railway will create guaranteed demand for the port’s capabilities.

In the light of President Trump’s tariff machinations and his threats surrounding the Panama Canal, it’s wise for the Chinese to create an alternative.

Brazil and China are an ideal trading pair to show comparative advantage at work; each nation produces what it’s best at, and trades for the other goods. The result produces lower costs for both parties, even including transport costs.

Katherine Si, China Correspondent July 15, 2025

https://www.seatrade-maritime.com/ports-logistics/china-and-brazil-plan-pacific-and-atlantic-rail-link

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Posted in Logistics, Ports, Rail, Shipping, Strategy, Supply Chains

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Impact of Trade Wars on Sustainable Energy Projects

Posted on June 6, 2025 by | Leave a comment

How will the trade wars affect sustainable energy projects and products? S&P Global has a report that analyzes this.

Any long-term conclusions are risky, given the US propensity to alter course (TACO tactics). But thanks to them for giving it a try.

This traffic light analysis is helpful to understand the implications for different utility grade technologies.

Batteries seem to be hit the hardest. Wind falls within the medium range for most criteria. However, it suffers from policy bias by the current US administration. Distributed generation, such as home solar, is also at risk because of policy and cost implications.

Retaliatory measures from trade partners add more complexity and unpredictability to decisions for these technologies.

The full report is available here.

Energy Transition, Electric Power, Renewables, May 28, 2025

Analysis by Paola Perez Pena, Alex Kaplan, Tiffany Wang, John Murray, Timothy Stephure. With contribution from Indra Mukherjee, Tom Kim, Jiani Wang, Jessica Jin, George Hilton, Cinthya Pena, and Edurne Zoco

https://www.spglobal.com/commodity-insights/en/news-research/blog/energy-transition/052825-the-new-normal-how-trade-tensions-and-policy-uncertainty-may-reshape-the-us-cleantech-landscape

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Posted in Strategy, Sustainability

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