It’s not just the intense vibration, noise pollution and toxic contaminants associated with trucking that we need to address, but the broader environmental fallout from depending so heavily on a petroleum-based combustion-centric mode of transport. Heavy overland transport vehicles demand a massive amount of power to move them from place to place; advanced battery technologies may soon allow us to power them using electricity, but we need to build the infrastructure to produce, store and transport all that green energy.

The vehicles could “switch-out” their batteries at “filling stations” of the kind conceived by Shai Agassi’s electric vehicle infrastructure company Better Place, but a business model needs to be applied nationally, and almost universally, in order to enable this new paradigm to fit the trucking industry. We need to look at and hash out the technical and organizational challenges, and try to push for this better, cleaner trucking paradigm, for the health and wellbeing of the truckers themselves, as well as our communities, our environment and our future.

How close are we to something better, quieter, cleaner, which will allow us to improve our quality of life without degrading the environment or our children’s future?