Episode 28 | The Catalyst Series: Electrifying Drayage: A Trucker’s Real-World Story

Can small trucking companies lead the transition to zero-emission freight?

In this episode of Smart Freight Conversations: The Catalyst Series, Andy Golding, Director of Strategic Services at Smart Freight Centre, speaks with Jennie Abarca, Owner of King Fio Trucking, about her experience electrifying drayage operations at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
From purchasing her first electric trucks to navigating customer demand, charging infrastructure, and operational realities, Jennie shares a firsthand perspective on what it takes to make freight electrification work in practice.

The conversation explores:
- Why drayage is a strong use case for electrification
- Lessons learned from deploying electric trucks
- The role of collaboration between carriers, shippers, and customers
- Challenges facing small carriers in the transition to zero-emission freight
- The future of electric trucking

Whether you're a carrier, shipper, logistics provider, or sustainability professional, this episode offers practical insights from someone leading the transition on the ground.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hello and welcome to another episode of Smart Freight Conversations, where we share interesting and important insights and updates on freight decarbonisation and the drive towards a zero emissions logistics industry. I'm Andy Golding, Director of Strategic Services here at Smart Freight Centre, and I'll be your host for today. Today's episode is a really exciting one because it's not typical, it's almost out of the ordinary for the kind of episode that we would do. And I'm really excited to have Jenny Abarker, the owner of King Fear Tracking Company, on the couch with me today. Today we're talking about all things tracking, electrifying tracking, and what's getting in the way and how do we get out of our own way in terms of accelerating the drive towards electric freight. Jenny, yes, it is really cool to have you here today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm gonna go back to the beginning. Okay. Because let's call a spade a spade. Yes. When one thinks of a trucker, one does not picture Jenny. For those of you who are not seeing this and who might just be listening, Jenny is a beautiful woman. Sat on the couch here. Thank you. Um, how did you come to identify as a trucker?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Okay, so my father was a mechanic, and I grew up um around engines and oil and rough men. And um, I growing up, my uh my maybe my sophomore year of college, I had a family friend who had a trucking business, and his father suddenly passed away. And so my friend was now in charge of the his family's trucking company, and he called me and said, Do you want to come work for me? You're in college, you might know how to run a business. I was not going to school for anything like that. But I I went and worked for him, and from day one, I loved it. Every day is Super Bowl Sunday. Every day you have a mountain of work and a mountain of problems, and you have to find your way through it. And I just thrived in it. I could be loud and be myself, and it was just it was such an exciting place to be. And so that's where my career began as a trucker. Um, I worked for him like kind of an accounting, and then I learned how to dispatch, and then he ended up selling the company to another company, and I went to a bigger company. So I went with it, and that is where I really learned how to be a trucker. I learned how to run a business, how to think like a trucker, um, how to prioritize routes, you know, how to how to treat drivers, how to not treat drivers. And um there I met a man who ended up, well, we ended up getting married, and we bought, we we borrowed $30,000 from my dad in 2010, and we bought our first truck. And uh we put our heads down and we just continued to grow and to work. And I used, you know, all the contacts and friends I had made in the industry to bring in business and to grow the company. And so here we are, uh 15, 16 years later, uh, 35 trucks, 11 battery electric, uh, over 208 chassis, 52 employees, a warehouse too, uh, and 20 Teslas coming.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

I love those stats. That was like bam, bam, bam. This is what we've done, this is where we are, this is what we have. You said something that I think is important. You said you learned how to think like a trucker. Yes. You also have 11 battery electric trucks. I do, yes. My babies. Your babies, yes. Okay, I want to talk about your babies. Okay. Your battery electric trucks, obviously, we want to talk about sustainable tracking. Yes. We want to talk about the drive towards a zero emissions freight and logistics future, but it's a shift, it's a it's a mindset shift for the industry. So, as somebody who lives in both worlds, how can a trucker, how does a trucker, or how might a trucker reframe their thinking towards an electrified future?

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Okay, so I am a very specific type of trucker. I'm a Drayman, a Dre woman. And uh what I do is I work in the harbor, I work in the ports and I move containers. So what's great about Dreage is that most of the routes are pretty port adjacent. So really not going over 60, 70 miles. Now, I do go further, I go out of state, I do other things, but the majority of my deliveries are port adjacent. So um electrifying made sense because you know, you have you're a little bit of shorter range, and you know, you need to go in and charge at night. You can't roll in and charge in five minutes. I'm sure that technology is coming soon. But it, you know, drayage is a is a perfect case study for wanting to go electric. I also am a climate enthusiast. I love the planet, I love the city where I live. I am from the city of Long Beach. The quality of life here matters to me. I have children, I want them to have beautiful, pristine oceans and uh uh a sky that's not full of smog. And I just really started to look at what is possible, what can and I made a I made friends in the industry that were kind of pushing this. Um the ACF ruling was still in effect, which was you know to change completely take diesels off the road by uh by 2035. And so I just decided um I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna change. And it's not gonna be easy, but I'm gonna try it out and I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

I really appreciate it. You were like, I'm gonna have a go. Yes. You're gonna have a go at making this work. Yes, good for you. And that first truck, can you talk me through the process and the experience of securing, procuring, buying, and signing for that first truck? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

So I made a friend and I talked a little bit about this yesterday, and that friend sells electrons. And he lots of conversations with him about wanting to do this and like what it looked like. And you know, there wasn't really anybody that had the trucks yet, maybe a few companies, but there there weren't not small companies, right? I'm a small company. And that friend took me to a convention called ACT, and um, that's the advanced clean technology convention, and that's where I got to see all the trucks, everything that was coming out, and it it showed me that the product's there, the truck is there, and so I had some appointments with other OEMs. I will not name names. One of them did not show up. Uh, I called an OEM and said I want to buy 10 trucks, and that he did not show up to the meeting. Um, another OEM uh asked me to have my father call him because he thinks I think he thought I work for my dad. Oh wow. Um so it wasn't until I was introduced to Volvo and specifically Melanie at Volvo that I someone started to take me seriously. And Melanie went over the truck from um, you know, headlights to uh back, you know, chassis. She went over the entire truck with me. We drove in the truck, and um then we started to look at incentives. And so, because of Melanie and her time and her whole team, my first three Volvos were delivered in 2024. And so um that that's where it started. And the truck has been an exceptional vehicle. I've had very little issues, very dependable. The charging has been easy, you just plug them in, you know. Uh, my drivers at first were like, what is that? And so I I I put in my um older, most seasoned drivers in the trucks first. And when they saw how much easier it was on their bodies, everyone started talking about the trucks. And so now I have a waiting list of drivers that want to be in electric trucks because trucking is very hard on your body. Uh, and you know, I've just been running and working the trucks, just like any tool in my in my toolbox.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

I love that I think your perspective is really unique in that a lot of the time we can have the decarbonization conversation from the really large perspective. The organize the the very big organizations, a lot of the time we don't have the conversation from the smaller company, right? perspective. And you've just said we're a small company. And this is such an amazing example of decarbonization in action at a small scale, but it's it's like the starfish in the ocean analogy, right? A guy's walking along the beach and a whole bunch of starfish has washed up and he throws one back into the ocean, and a person walking past says, Why would you bother? You can't save them all. And he picks one up and throws it back in and says, Well, I made a difference to that one. Right. And this is how, with every single one, you make a difference, and this is how scaled change happens. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

It was surprising to me uh where I didn't get the support. And I thought uh in 2024 when I bought the trucks that I would have customers, clients um banging down my door. Like, we want to, we want to work for you, we want to work with you, we want you to haul our freight. That has not happened. And that has been the hardest part for me uh to contend with because I come to things like this, I come to events like this, I do these all over the United States, and I see all these sustainability managers that have these goals. And it's like, okay, you have these goals, but your people in operations and your people that are handing out the work, they're not aligning with your goal. And here I am, I want to help you get to your goal. And I need, like I said yesterday, I need a committed business partner. And so that has been the hardest part is to actually get customers interested in using my trucks. Um, and then I'm still working on it and fighting for it.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

And I know that um one of the themes that we need to talk about in these conversations is firstly this collaboration and just being willing to open doors for one another. So, how are you navigating that reality?

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Uh, I it it's been a hard pill to swallow because I think what, and not just me, the other carriers in the port of Long Beach in LA that are trying to make this change, I think it's very important. I think uh wanting clean air and caring about the gener the problems future generations are gonna have to deal with doesn't need to be political. It should be outside of politics. It's just about being a mom and a good human. So it's been hard not to get the support that I was hoping for. So I've decided just to put my head down and work. Just to put my head down and put the trucks to work and treat the truck like any other truck in my fleet. And instead of just talking about it, let's just do it, right? Yes. And so that is what I've been busy working on. I have seen more traction lately from customers interested in using me. Uh, but yeah, it's um I do need collaboration. I need partners like Smart Freight, like the Climate Pledge, to get the word out and to let clients know I can put more trucks on the road, I can take diesels off if you give me work and invest in my company.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Completely. And I think that that's where alliances like the EDA, the electrifying drage alliance, becomes so important because it brings all of the players together to have this conversation. And yes, you know, as you say, the work of the Smart Freight Center of the T the Climate Pledge TCP is really critical in driving this change of you're saying, I'm here, I want to work with you, I want to do the thing, and the the sustainability managers saying, Well, we have these targets, so let's come together, let's make it happen. Right. Where does legacy come into this? And how do we need to be open to change in order to really accelerate this and really drive this forward?

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Yeah, um, I think if we don't change, we we just get left behind. You know? Uh at one point, and I said it in the in the video, we were delivering freight by course and buggy. This is just the next evolution in logistics. And uh, you know, supply chain is always getting quicker and more efficient. And this is just another like cog in that wheel to make supply chain quicker and more efficient and um, you know, take tar carbon out of the atmosphere. Also, when you're a trucker, you don't have a lot of power with diesel, diesel prices. You're you're really like you have no power at the pump at all. But when you are electric, you get a lot of that power back. And let me explain what I mean for that. The cost of an electron is outside of politics and war and all the things that affect diesel prices. So right now is a perfect time. I think when I left the US, diesel was over $7 a gallon, close to $7 a gallon. But the cost to charge my truck is still the same and is going to stay the same, I hope, for right now. But it's nice to get a little bit of that power back.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

What a I think that's a really nice analogy, you know, with everything that's going on now with the Straits of Hormuz and the the war, etc., that does add a lot of complexity. And I think it's that analogy of getting the power back. Um I think it's an important one, and it's an important thing for people to pay attention to. You also mentioned the video, and the video, which we'll link in the show notes to this episode, is a mini-documentary created by the TCP, The Climate Pledge with the Smart Freight Center, really explaining the electrifying Drage Alliance, the power of this work, and actually focusing on Jenny's story. And the video is actually the first time that I learned about you. It's the reason that we met, it's the reason why we're sitting on this cast together at the moment. Um, and it's just a really it's a really inspiring story of I'm one person. This is the action that I've taken. Right. This is the work that I've been able to do. But where to from here? You said you've described yourself as a small, as a small trucker, a small operator, but you're also a climate enthusiast, you're also a mom, so you have a vested interest in how do we make this better. Right. Where to you from here?

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Uh, I would like to grow the biggest zero emissions trucking company in the Port of LA and the Port of Long Beach. I would love to come back here next year and say, because of the EDA and the climate pledge, and this week, uh, I got a whole new, you know, push from customers. Um, it lit a fire, and I hope that I get to come back here and say, and I have, you know, 20 more trucks in my fleet. But I would like to build the biggest um zero emissions trucking company possible. And I'd like to, you know, kind of give the middle finger to everybody who said it wouldn't work.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

I love that. Do it works. Do it. You have my full support. And um, yeah, I think it's it's so important to keep telling your story and to keep sharing your message because it's it doesn't get more practical than this. It doesn't get more practical than I put 11 trucks on the road. Yes. Um and it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy going. I just put my head down, worked, did it, got it done. Um, and I think that a lot of the work to a zero emissions future is just elbow grease and hard grass. I agree. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Jenny, if somebody is listening to this going, I want to take action, I want to get started, I want to get going, what what advice would you give to somebody who hasn't yet put their first electric trucks on the road?

SPEAKER_01 17:01

If they're a trucker and they want to do this, my advice would be first align yourself with a truck manufacturer. What kind of truck do you want to buy? Because the truck manufacturers have people there that know the grants, that know the different programs that they can get you and they know how to stack grants so you can get, you know, more money and incentives on the truck. So go do your research on the trucks, decide what, you know, you can buy any every kind of truck, but decide what kind of truck you want and start there because they will help you get into the truck. And then I think also aligning with a charging for service depot like forum mobility, they have been one of my biggest supporters. They have brought me business, they have stayed up late talking about things. Uh they're here, they're here with me uh today, but uh get a charging depot um so that you know you have a place to charge because it's very hard to get charging behind the fence in your yard. Once you have those two things, it's easy. The technology works, the trucks work, uh the drivers will love them. So, yeah, start with the the OEM and the charging depot.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

And looking forward, what's the one thing that you're really excited about in the next one to three years? I am very excited about Teslas.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Okay. Okay, the Tesla. Uh I'm not sure what I can say because I did sign an NDA with Tesla, but they change a lot for us. They make, I think it's going to be less than to operate a diesel. And the range is 500 miles, the charging time is 30 minutes. So it's a product coming into the market that really far surpasses a diesel engine. And so I'm very, very excited. I hope I get to be on your podcast in a cook in a year and say my Tussles are running and they're everything we thought they would be.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

I hope so too. And I look forward to that conversation. Jenny, that's a wrap for today's episode. Uh, thank you so much for having me here and to for sharing a little bit more of your story. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of Smart Freight Conversations. If you'd like to learn more about all things freight decarbonization, head to academy.smartfreightcenter.org, where we have a whole host of courses and free educational resources to help you scale your impact and your knowledge in freight decarbonization. And if you found value in this episode, if you found it interesting, if you are a trucker, if you know a trucker, or if you're just really inspired by Jenny's story, please share this episode with the people in your network. Until next time.