Playbook: Equipment, Maintenance & Tech

TruckSmarter and its AI chat-based driver app, Dispatch, have been sold and will be shut down on Friday.

Every experienced driver has a story about it, or knows someone who does. A truck follows a navigation app built for cars, and the app cheerfully routes it toward a bridge it cannot clear, a road it is too heavy for, or a turn it physically cannot make. The low-bridge strike is one of the […]

Autopilot dispatchers rank freight by posted rate because nobody gave them the arithmetic. MapUp’s new MCP server prices a lane’s fuel, tolls and time in seconds.

Continental brings a national dealer footprint and decades of tire expertise. myMechanic brings the software that turns a phone chain into a tracked digital event.

Oil in the power distribution box can knock out lights, wipers, brakes and engine power on 5,919 new Kenworths and Peterbilts. Most failures give no warning.

A Business That Did Not Exist Yet In 1997, if a fleet needed a repair, the truck went to a shop. That was the entire menu. That was the year Bob Dickinson started what became Dickinson Fleet Services out of a small operation in Indianapolis, and his grandsons Kyle and Kevin Coltrain grew up around […]

Congress is fast-tracking a bipartisan DEF relief bill. The half in the press release stops trucks from derating to 5 mph over a false sensor code. The half you have to read the text to find suspends the 2027 emissions rule for 10 years

The pardons ended nine ordeals. The mandate that created them is still on the books, still in the field, and still pointed at the trucks that move America’s military freight.

For any owner-operator who has ever been stranded on the shoulder of an interstate at 5 miles per hour because a sensor decided the diesel exhaust fluid system had a problem, the announcement PACCAR made on July 6, 2026 will read like overdue relief. The company is rolling out updated software for trucks equipped with […]

On July 3, 2026, President Trump pardoned early a dozen people who were convicted under the Clean Air Act for tampering with diesel emissions, months after the Justice Department stopped prosecuting diesel cases entirely. The technology is still bolted to every truck on the road, and nobody in Washington wants to discuss the “what now” of who pays for it.

A claim is circulating that stops you mid-scroll: a California small fleet can now buy a Tesla Semi for as little as $50,000. The Tesla Semi carries a $290,000 sticker. The post lays out how two California incentive programs stack to knock $240,000 off that price, leaving a net cost of roughly $50,000, which it […]

(The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of FreightWaves or its affiliates.) Snap-on Incorporated just bought Diesel Laptops for $100 million in cash. The deal closed on June 8, 2026. The move gives Snap-on a stronger foothold in the world of big truck and heavy […]

How maintenance frequency maps to violation patterns, and why the carriers stretching their service intervals are the same ones showing up with brake and hub seal failures at roadside.

Pre-trip inspections are the first line of defense against mechanical failure on the highway. For most of the industry, they are a 30-second checkbox exercise completed in the cab. That gap between regulation and reality is showing up in courtrooms.

FreightWaves SONAR will launch its first virtual Driver App Shortage Hackathon on June 15-22 to address the lack of software built primarily for truck drivers.

Why This Matters More Than It Did Two Years Ago Trucking insurance is expensive and getting more so. According to ATRI’s 2025 Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking, insurance premiums hit a record 10.2 cents per mile in 2024, following a 12.5 percent increase in 2023 and an additional 3 percent rise in 2024. […]

On October 17, 2025, President Trump signed a proclamation under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, imposing a 25% tariff on imported medium and heavy-duty trucks and truck parts — Class 3 through Class 8 vehicles, engines, transmissions, tires, chassis components. It took effect November 1. For USMCA-compliant parts out of Mexico […]

This article is not an argument for or against autonomous trucks. It is not a prediction about what the freight market looks like in 2035, and it is not an endorsement of any technology company’s safety record or business model. It is a set of questions that the industry — carriers, drivers, regulators, first responders, […]

Walk a truck dealer lot right now and you will see something you have not seen in years: inventory. Real inventory. Trucks lined up. Choices. And prices that look — compared to where used equipment was in 2022 and 2023 — like someone left the door open. That is not an accident. That is the […]

Every year, roughly the same time, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance runs its International Roadcheck. Three days. Thousands of inspectors. Tens of thousands of trucks. The dates get announced months in advance, the focus areas get published, and somehow, fleets still get caught off guard.