Rolf Lockwood

Opinion: Renewable natural gas (RNG) seems like a tidy solution

Renewable natural gas (RNG) seems like a tidy solution for trucking, and we need to double our efforts to get off the diesel train as soon as we can.

A New Autonomous Player

June 12, 2019 Vol. 16 No. 12 Well, here’s an interesting one, not the wildest bit of news but a twist on what you might expect. Fiat Chrysler US…

Serious About Autonomy

May 29, 2019 Vol. 16 No. 11 Daimler Trucks is establishing the Autonomous Technology Group as a global organization, as of June 1, bringing together its worldwide expertise. The…

Opinion: Rust never sleeps, but what’s your biggest truck maintenance headache?

What’s your biggest maintenance headache? I actually do want to know because, believe it or not, planning for next spring’s Canadian Fleet Maintenance Summit on April 15 is already underway. It’s at a preliminary stage, for sure, but we’re already at it. We haven’t yet held a meeting of the dozen or so members of the advisory council that helps us devise the program, but individually we’re creating short lists of subjects to cover.

Let’s Work on the Fundamentals

May 22, 2019 Volume 1, Number 5 There was some good thinking in the air at the recent Heavy Duty Trucking Exchange in Scottsdale, AZ. Much of that came…

A fuel-cell breakthrough?

May 15, 2019 Vol. 16 No. 10 Engineers at the University of Waterloo say they’ve made a significant breakthrough in fuel-cell technology, making it cheap enough to displace the…

Opinion: Use your head when approaching emergency workers at roadside

Every time I see a policeman or a tow-truck driver working at the side of a busy road, I get the willies. The risk is so obvious, so profound. A driver’s momentary inattention or wilful carelessness can snuff out a life in a millisecond. It happens far too often.

Hydrogen or Batteries?

May 1, 2019 Vol. 16 No. 9 So much to report on the electric truck front. I haven’t seen anything dominate the news since the days of impending new emissions…

Sometimes It’s the Simple Things

April 17, 2019 Vol. 16 No. 8 In an age of comprehensively complex and expensive technologies – like the Nikola Two truck, which I’ll get to in a minute —…

Goodbye, Bill MacKinnon

There are people who just plain shouldn’t die. Ever. Bill MacKinnon was one of those guys, a pillar in our industry with a trucking history that goes back to the 1920s. But die he did on March 22, at home in Guelph, Ontario, after a long illness. He was 90 years old.

In the New Age of Stratotech

April 10, 2019 Volume 1, Number 4 Do you remember that phrase ‘high tech’? Can’t recall when we first started using it, maybe around the time that electronic engines and…

And the Collaborations Continue

April 3, 2019 Vol. 16 No. 7 Collaborations of several sorts were the main topic of my last newsletter and that trend is continuing. Two weeks ago I talked about…

New Collaborations Aplenty

March 20, 2019 Vol. 16 No. 6 We’re seeing an unprecedented bunch of collaborations and partnership these days as trucking technology grows ever more complex and the push for efficiency…

From Race Cars to Military Trucks

March 13, 2019 Volume 1, Number 3 Happens all the time – I see the sign above a tire shop or a burger joint proudly proclaiming, ‘Serving the community since…

Plenty of talk, little action on driver training

Man, I am so fed up with the utterly endless discussions about driver training in this country. I’ve heard the mostly empty chatter for 40 years now, with precious little…