66% of logistics pros say talent quality — not cost — is the #1 factor in choosing a nearshore partner. Rapido's integration model explains why that's the right question to be asking.
Plus, a carrier pleading guilty to mob money laundering while still FMCSA-active, Iran's first post-ceasefire attack and what it means for diesel surcharges, FedEx Freight's first earnings as a standalone company, and more in today's newsletter.
Freight brokers are measuring their inboxes wrong. Most inbound email is monitoring, not work. And the longtail categories that look like noise are costing real margin. Here's how to audit what's actually in your inbox, and why it matters in 2026's margin-first market.
March's freight market update. Plus: Elon's $25B chip factory in Texas, UNFI closing a Wisconsin DC, Chick-fil-A building its own supply chain, and more.
TGIF. Small carriers are parking trucks due to diesel costs, and the freight market is tighter than it looks on paper. Full breakdown below.
Plus:
🤖 Elon Is Building a $25 Billion Chip Factory Next to the Biggest Truck Hub in Texas. Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI are combining forces on "Terafab," a massive semiconductor facility planned for the North Campus of Giga Texas in Austin. The project aims to produce 100 to 200 million AI chips annually and is expected to cost between $20 and $25 billion. Tesla's CFO confirmed the investment is not yet in the company's existing capital plans. Construction starts later this year. If you run flatbed lanes in Central Texas, start paying attention. That build is going to need a lot of steel.
🏭 UNFI Is Closing a DC and Blaming the Robots. United Natural Foods is shutting its Sturtevant, Wisconsin, distribution center later this year, cutting 443 jobs in the process. The work is moving to a facility in Joliet, Illinois, where UNFI is installing full-case automation and an advanced warehouse management system. This is the second DC UNFI has closed in two years as it swaps human labor for automated systems across its network. For carriers servicing that Wisconsin facility, the freight is not disappearing. It is moving 90 miles south to Joliet.
🍗 Chick-fil-A Is Building Its Own Supply Chain. Chick-fil-A is investing $50 million in a tri-temperature distribution center in Lubbock, Texas, with freezer, refrigerated, and dry storage. Construction starts in May, with the facility expected to create 80 jobs at an average salary of $60,000. Lubbock was chosen for its location and access to West Texas restaurants. This is part of a broader push by Chick-fil-A to build at least four in-house distribution centers across the country. The chicken sandwich people are getting serious about the supply chain.
Big announcement from OTR Solutions this Monday, March 30th.
Stay tuned for more details after the weekend. 🚚 📈
Arrive’s latest market update confirms what brokers and carriers are feeling on the ground: diesel is driving everything right now.
Fuel prices have jumped due to geopolitical tensions, which is immediately pushing contract rates higher through fuel surcharges. But spot rates haven’t caught up yet, creating a lag in which carriers pay more upfront while waiting weeks to recover those costs.
Smaller, spot-heavy carriers are getting squeezed the most. Some will push for higher rates. Others will park their truck. Either way, capacity tightens.
Tender rejections are back near multi-year highs, hitting ~14–15% in early March as produce season ramps up. That’s not normal for this time of year.
In yesterday's newsletter, we shared how a trucker on YouTube published a video highlighting how the truck stop he fuels at every week was unrecognizable this week. Few trucks and open trucking spots are available easily. Small operators are parking their trucks due to the diesel surge. This will tighten capacity even more.
At the same time, demand isn’t exactly booming, but it’s stabilizing.
Here’s where it gets more complicated.
Shippers are reacting to higher fuel costs by shifting freight to rail and intermodal to protect margins.
So the market looks confusing:
If diesel stays high, something has to give.
Either:
Both lead to the same outcome: A tighter freight market heading into peak season.
Check out the full Arrive market report (one of the best in the industry) here.
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🤝 Echo & ITS Are Officially One Company. Echo Global Logistics closed its acquisition of ITS Logistics, creating a combined 3PL with $5.2 billion in revenue. The deal was announced in January. It is done now.
📉 Oakland Imports Down 14.5%. The Port of Oakland processed 163,254 TEUs in February, down 14.5% year over year. Carriers are increasingly routing U.S. imports through Mexican and Canadian hubs, where freight is railed or trucked across the border.
🚛 Idaho Freed the Trucks. Governor Brad Little signed House Bill 664, eliminating the lower speed limit for semi trucks and matching them to passenger vehicle speeds. On most rural highways in Idaho, that means 80 mph.
💰 USPS Is Raising Rates 8% Starting April 26. The Postal Service is hiking prices on Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express, Ground Advantage, and Parcel Select through January 2027. The reason: diesel at $5.38 a gallon and an agency that's a year away from running out of cash.
🚂 Rail Is Having Its Best Start in Years. U.S. rail traffic for the week ending March 21 totaled 502,252 carloads and intermodal units, up 1.2% year over year. Cumulative carloads through 11 weeks are up 4.7% year over year. One soft spot: Mexico rail volume fell 6% for the week.
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Plus, a carrier pleading guilty to mob money laundering while still FMCSA-active, Iran's first post-ceasefire attack and what it means for diesel surcharges, FedEx Freight's first earnings as a standalone company, and more in today's newsletter.
Bad carriers are gaming the weigh station system. Plus, C.H. Robinson's own engineer goes scorched earth on Reddit, the Ghost Truck Act gets roasted, and more in today's newsletter.
Plus, overseas ELD tampering, 100 pallets of stolen womenswear, 20,000 Mexican truckers losing US visas, and more in today's newsletter.
While everyone in trucking is watching rates, capacity, and fraud, a much bigger shift may be happening quietly in the background: the future of rail.
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