What happens when the world’s biggest exporter of one of the most important substances for modern civilisation decides to stop exporting it?
We might be about to find out.
Primer on US diesel and the coming fuel crunch, inc why it could be especially grisly for Britain.
Sky News Ed Conway has come forward with a series of some of the most valuable explainers since the outset of the Iran war and the global energy crisis.
No matter what this miserably incompetent and out of control administration does from here, every option just super charges the rush away from fossil dependence.
Heavy trucks were supposed to be the place where batteries stopped working.
Electric cars could manage school runs and commuting, critics conceded. But long-distance freight needed range, rapid refueling and maximum payload. Batteries would be too large, too heavy and too slow to charge. Buses might electrify predictable urban routes, but serious trucking would require diesel, hydrogen or renewable liquid fuels.
The market is beginning to deliver a different verdict. Global sales of zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles rose 86% in 2025, exceeding 520,000 units, according to new data from the International Council on Clean Transportation. China accounted for nearly 90% of sales, but the European market also accelerated: zero-emission trucks rose from roughly 2.5% to 4.5% of new sales, while the battery-electric share of buses increased from 18.5% to 24.8%.
Smart Freight Centre and Catalyst Mobility (formerly CALSTART) are announcing that a coalition of the world’s largest cargo-owning shippers has enabled the largest electric truck order to date in the United States — 2,500 battery-electric Class 8 trucks— a single deal that nearly doubles the U.S. electric Class 8 fleet.
The order is organized through the Zero-Emission Truck Shipper-Carrier Alliance Leading Electrification (ZET SCALE), a program jointly operated by Catalyst Mobility and the Smart Freight Centre. By aggregating freight demand at a scale no single company could reach on its own, ZET SCALE is building a market for electric trucks that did not exist before. The Alliance’s ambition runs to 10,000 trucks and beyond.
The 2,500 Tesla semi trucks will be bought by 15 operators after the truck manufacturer won a competitive bidding process to provide the vehicles.
Other collateral damage? Rural schools in Red America.