Where ZEEM fits into the Trucking and Drayage Industry

In this episode of Resources for the Road, host Gabrielle Bejarano sat down with Paul Gioupis, CEO of ZEEM Solutions. The two discuss how Gioupis got into the trucking industry, as well as where ZEEM fits into the trucking and drayage industry as a whole. 

“We started focusing on areas that we knew were going to have high concentrations of electric trucks that would run routes between 150 or 200 miles or less,” which includes areas near airports, ports, and distribution centers. ZEEM’s first location, which has been up and running since December, is located near LAX in California, where they can house 220 trucks overnight and about 80 vehicles in their fleet. 

But the battery electric solution is not for over-the-road trucks operating more than 200 miles a day. “Trucking operations have been run the same way for a very long period and they’ve always been diesel minded. So the moment you come in and try to apply new regulations to a trucking business like this you cause major disruptions.” 

Gioupis explains that they understood a lot of the large fleets were going to have to start to go electric and they are willing to pay the prices to do so. If a trucking industry or trucking operator was looking to go electric, they would have to time several steps perfectly, which can quickly become incredibly difficult. So instead, ZEEM comes into those areas where they know there is going to be a high density of electric truck operations. “The idea for us is to come into areas, find a plot of land, and set up operations for anywhere between 250-300 trucks to park there overnight,” Gioupis explains, “And for those who want to domicile vehicles at their locations, we provide high power charging throughout the day for those operators that need the ‘juice’ as we call it.”