The end of my year has seen a flurry of activity, between producing new curriculum for HAZWOPER refreshers and teaching drilling apprentice classes. I finally got a Sunday off to begin writing my December article.
As I sat there on likely one of Chicago’s last nice days this year, I began thinking about our industry and where it could head over the next 10 or 15 years. As I often do in these articles, I look to other similar industries for hints at the direction that we may go. One thing that surprised me this year is the public’s acceptance of electric vehicles, and not just any electric vehicle, but electric pickup trucks. As of this writing, Ford Motor Company reported they surpassed 160,000 reservations for their all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck. If you had asked me last year how well an electric pickup truck would do with the general public, I would have told you, “I’m not sure we’re ready for that.” Yet, Ford has such confidence in these numbers that they will invest $250 million more than originally planned and add 450 jobs to increase production capacity to 80,000 all-electric trucks annually.