The presidential election was not kind to the commercial vehicle market. Then, the following rollback of federal regulations was unkinder. 

Despite the headwinds, many operators who paused their electrification plans are returning with renewed commitment. This is particularly in California, where regulatory pressure remains intact despite shifting federal policy.

“Obviously the presidential election sent the entire industry sideways for a bit,” said Paul Gioupis, CEO of Zeem Solutions in an interview with FreightWaves. “After, let’s say, a quarter or two of settling, Zeem started picking up the pace again and came back with a nice little roar.”

The Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) was the regulation that created an initial wave of early adopters. Those fleets purchased vehicles to comply with California’s aggressive decarbonization mandates. When federal rollbacks appeared imminent, some fleets balked. That hesitation, however, was short-lived.

“There was this sort of celebratory moment that ACF went away, then they started realizing that CARB in the state of California is going to do everything they can to keep their finger on making sure these fleets comply,” Gioupis said. “Many California fleets have realized they’re not out of the woods and they still need to think about decarbonization.”

The California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) continued enforcement means operators in the state face a fundamentally different calculus than their counterparts elsewhere. The good news for the broader industry: improved vehicle performance is driving adoption even without regulatory mandates.

“The good news is the remainder of the country wasn’t under that kind of pressure, and they’re seeing OEMs bringing product to market that performs much better,” Gioupis said. “I think it’s an inflection point year—2026.”

The Tesla Semi-sized Elephant in the Room.

The Tesla Semi has emerged as one catalyst reshaping the perceptions of what heavy-duty electric vehicles can do. Zeem has had the second-generation vehicles since December, with real-world results that challenge the skeptics.

“It’s consistently getting well over 400 miles on a full charge,” Gioupis said. “Tesla is going to bring it to market. A lot of the competitive OEMs were downplaying it, saying they weren’t serious about it, that it wasn’t going to come.”

The company’s relationship with Tesla has deepened as adoption accelerates. Zeem now buys vehicles on behalf of customers and for its own fleet. It leverages infrastructure that supports Megawatt Charging System (MCS) compatibility through V3.5 skidded charging solutions.

“Bottom line is we’ve been test driving the vehicle,” Gioupis said. “These are the second-generation vehicles. We ended up buying one of those and operating it with our fleet since December.”

Tesla’s rapid iteration stands in stark contrast to traditional original equipment manufacturer (OEM) development cycles. When drivers complained about bump-out windows that prevented handing paperwork to port officials and toll booth attendants, Tesla responded quickly.

“They came back very, very quickly, made that repair, and put in an automatic roll-down window,” Gioupis said. “I know how minimal that may sound, but for fleets it matters.”

Gioupis, who watched Tesla’s automotive division overcome early doubts as an investment banker, sees history repeating itself. He recalls when the company’s market cap fell below $1 billion and critics predicted the vehicles wouldn’t last a year.

“I feel like I’m watching that in slow motion right now with the Tesla Semi truck,” he said. “So while all the doubters—those OEMs—are coming out and saying, ‘They’re not going to build that truck, it’s not going to have that range,’ I think a lot of it was fear.”

The Power of Skids and Modernizing Infrastructure

Zeem has developed a skidded EV charging solution designed around 2.5-megawatt building blocks. These scalable, modular systems avoid the extensive ground excavation and traditional construction requirements.

“We took all that experience, all those learnings, we’ve come back and just simplified the build and modernized EV infrastructure,” Gioupis said.

This addresses a fundamental disconnect between utilities and charging depot operators. When Zeem contacts utilities in new territories, representatives often request building plans that don’t exist.

“I tell them, ‘I don’t have a building. I’m going to put in a bathroom and a lounge, but I have parking lots and I have a parking layout that I can send you,’” Gioupis said. “They don’t even know how to carry on the conversation, and they tell you, ‘I don’t even know how to get to the next level.’”

The problem stems from outdated regulatory frameworks. Utility equipment was never modernized with parking-lot charging hubs in mind.

“I simply came and said, if I’m in the middle of a parking lot, why do I have to build something that complies with being three feet away from a building?” Gioupis said. “So I have to pay all this extra money to comply with building codes, but I’m not building a building. I’m going into a parking lot.”

Predictive Power Management and Utility Partnerships

Managing power draws predictably has become central to Zeem’s operational model. The company designs sites around an “8,760 map”—understanding exactly what load profiles look like for every hour of the year.

“Take a depot like the one at LAX—we’re constantly drawing at least one megawatt, and then during peaks while we’re charging everything up we’re up there at four to five megawatts,” Gioupis said. “These fleets operate methodically on the clock. So what happens is you can understand exactly what your loads are on a site.”

That predictability creates leverage with utilities. The current rate structure penalizes operators for peak demand—even if that peak occurs only once annually.

“If you pull a megawatt and the remainder of the time you’re only pulling one hundred kilowatts, you’re pegged to a megawatt, and that’s how they tie your rate,” Gioupis said. “So what happens now is you have this nine hundred kilowatts of room you’re never using—you’re only using it one time a year.”

Night-time charging, when grid demand drops, positions fleet operators as beneficial grid participants rather than problematic peak-load drivers.

“I’m a good citizen of the grid if I’m doing that,” Gioupis said. “What I foresee is turning to the utility and saying, ‘This is what I’m going to draw, and I want you to give me special rates because I know at night, while nobody’s using it, that’s when I’m using my power the most.’”

Utilities are beginning to offer “flexible interconnection” arrangements that account for predictable usage patterns rather than worst-case scenarios.

The Role of Trucks as Distributed Energy Resources

Truck batteries represent untapped capacity for grid support and facility operations. Ten Volvo trucks at 565 kilowatt-hours each provide 5.5 megawatt-hours of available power—a substantial distributed energy resource.

“That’s a lot of power,” Gioupis said. “So if you could use that responsibly, I think that’s what you’re going to see in the future.”

Food haulers pulling $100,000 to $350,000 monthly electricity bills for cold storage represent an immediate application for peak shaving.

“If you have the trucks positioned and plugged in—and by the way, it’s always done at night—what happens is when you’re ramping up and you’re getting your HVAC systems going to cool, you go to the battery,” Gioupis said. “It’s just very intermittent. It’s not drawing the full thing. You could put the system right in place where it’s cutting right at a half a megawatt. So now your electricity bills go down significantly.”

Gioupis noted that Tom Gage, who pioneered the AC propulsion motor with Tesla and developed bi-directional charging technology, has joined Zeem’s team. Gage created a mobile battery solution that charges at Zeem depot sites and deploys to third-party locations for large-scale charging operations.

“It’s that kind of distributed energy resource—we’re going to see companies get a lot more creative,” Gioupis said. “So it’s not just charging and leasing of vehicles—that’s just the beginning of it.”

Grid resilience applications extend beyond commercial benefits. Fleets providing power back to the grid during emergencies could earn compensation—though Gioupis emphasized those arrangements require further development.

“To me, that’s the future, but that fleet should be very well compensated for doing that,” he said.

Shifting Service Models: Shared Depots vs. On-Site Infrastructure

Shared depots like the LAX facility remain essential for small and medium-sized fleets that cannot justify dedicated infrastructure.

“A lot of the small- to medium-sized fleets will never be able to build their own infrastructure—they’re always going to need that shared depot,” Gioupis said.

Larger fleets, however, are pursuing a different model entirely.

“The very large fleets, or even the medium-sized investment-grade fleets, are saying the time is here now and they want to bring that infrastructure directly on site,” Gioupis said.

The emerging approach bundles vehicles, charging infrastructure and long-term service agreements into unified contracts.

“This bundle—give me a truck or an OEM contract, wrap that up into a ten-year bow—that’s going to be the way forward, in my opinion, and that’s going to change the way logistics is done forever,” Gioupis said.

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