We’re thrilled to open the nomination period for our Distributor of the Year Award, which kicks off this week’s roundup. We also provide an update on the FleetPride and TruckPro merger, touch on Decisiv’s purchase of KEA Advisors and a former Rush Enterprise exec taking over at Dobbs Truck Group. Finally, we look inside the Tesla Semi and address the Diesel Truck Liberation Act which, if passed, would permanently strip the EPA's ability to regulate diesel emissions.
Lucas: Hey everybody. Lucas here for today’s TPS Weekly News Roundup. I hope you’ve had a great week. We’ve had a great week at TPS. Let’s go ahead and get started.
Our big, exciting news this week is we opened the nomination period for our Trucks, Parts, Service Distributor of the Year [Award]. If you haven’t made a nomination yet, please do so. Our nomination form will be open through June, but don’t wait until the end of June to make your nominations. Please make your nominations now because the distributors that receive the most nominations during our period are the ones that are chosen as finalists. So, if you know a distributor across North America that deserves this award, that deserves this recognition, please do not hesitate to let us know. Please submit those nominations as quickly as you get the chance. The link is available in the newsletter and on the website. Be sure to do that as quickly as possible.
Also in the dealer channel, I had a story on Monday, talked with the team at FleetPride about their ongoing merger with TruckPro. How they’re optimizing their sales teams, how they’re looking for efficiencies across their network, what they’re trying to do as they move to bring those two national networks together. If you didn’t check out that story, please do so.
Some other news on the topic of efficiency, Decisiv announcing this week, they are in the process of acquiring KEA Advisors. Keith Ely and Associates, KEA’s team has been supporting the dealer channel for many years. Decisiv is bringing in that dealer excellence, that analytical background that KEA has supported for so long, making their platform stronger. Big move, smart move for decisive. Great opportunity for the dealer channel.
Some other news this week, we had a video sort of checking out the Tesla Semi. The Tesla Semi was at TMC a couple weeks ago. One of our editors from Commercial Carrier Journal (CCJ) got the chance to check it out, look on the inside, walk around, get a better understanding of what this Semi’s going to be capable of. If you didn’t check out that story or the video, please do so.
Another note, Dobbs Truck Group announcing Thursday that Jason Wilder, previously the COO at Rush — he stepped down a couple weeks ago — has now stepped into the role of CEO at Dobbs Truck Group. So a change there in the dealer channel.
And then one other thing we want note: the Diesel Truck Liberation Act, which is a new bill that was introduced by Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate this week that would effectively stop federal agencies, predominantly the EPA … from creating emissions mandates and emission regulations. This is your greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations. Obviously, we’re very early in this process. They’ve just announced the bill. It hasn’t moved forward. I don’t know if it will. Bills like this have been announced before, but something to keep an eye on that there is a push from Republican lawmakers across Capitol Hill to push this through and to really limit and further curb EPA’s ability to set emission regulations moving forward. So, check that story out.
One last thing before we jump off. I mentioned Distributor of the Year [program] earlier. Our Successful Dealer and our Trailblazer Awards — those nomination programs are also still ongoing. So if you want to support a truck dealer, a trailer dealer, you want to nominate someone you think is deserving of recognition in 2026, please do so. Again, you can find those links on the website.
All these stories, everything we mentioned, as always, on the website. Also, check them out in the newsletter. Have a great weekend. We will see you next week. Thanks everybody. Bye.
