27. Innovating Commercial Trucking – Bill Combs of Penske Transportation Solutions

There is more to Penske than meets the eye. As the largest non-governmental commercial trucking fleet in the world, Penske has instilled a culture of learning to tackle practical innovations to improve and advance the industry. This week, host Grayson Brulte chats with Bill Combs, Vice President of Connected Vehicle Strategy and Experimentation at Penske Transportation Solutions, about the world of commercial trucking. The conversation kicks off in a unique way as Bill compares the lessons he learned experimenting with food ingredients in culinary school with the technology experimentation he now works on at Penske. Bill discusses how some of Penske’s partnerships with companies like Daimler and TuSimple have enabled the organization to better serve all of its fleet and maintenance partners through learnings about electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles and data analytics. Bill explores the changing landscape of the commercial vehicle industry, tackling the issues of electrification, autonomy, deploying a hub-and-spoke distribution model, and how data analytics is critical for fleet scalability and vehicle utilization.   Learn more about Penske at www.penske.com.   For more on this topic, check out Bill’s recent appearance on SAE LIVE with partner, TuSimple: https://www.sae.org/livechat/request-form1.   Subscribe to SAE Tomorrow Today or visit www.sae.org/podcasts to stay up to date on all the latest information from SAE. If you like what you’re hearing, please review and comment on your podcast app. Follow SAE on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.