Energy-security jitters set the tone this morning. Vessels kept threading the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend even as Tehran repeated its closure claims, while the rest of the board stayed busy: a 3PL push into Mexico, fresh LiDAR money for Class 8 trucks, and another electric-truck trial in the UK. Here is what moved.
Operations & 3PL
Echo Global Logistics is widening its Mexican footprint with a new suite of intra-Mexico transport services, pitched as one integrated offering that runs on both sides of the border. The bet is on domestic Mexican freight, not only cross-border lanes. It lands as nearshoring keeps pulling volume south. Source: American Shipper
Rhenus Alpina lifted its Swiss revenue to CHF 454 million in 2025, holding ground through trade disputes and softer export demand. Warehouse utilisation stayed between 80% and 95%, and a new site in Mohlin added capacity with more automation. Its Cargologic arm renewed the Swiss WorldCargo air cargo deal for another seven years. Source: Container News
Is the truckload upcycle built to last? FreightWaves reads the current tightening as supply-driven, with carriers struggling to absorb demand that SONAR’s volume and rejection indices show climbing. Capacity has thinned faster than freight has. How long the squeeze holds is the open question for anyone budgeting into the back half of the year. Source: American Shipper
Technology & Automation
China’s carmakers are chasing humanoid robots as EV margins thin out, and BYD is now in the mix. Many of them were customers of robotics startups first. Now they are building their own, which sets up a fight with the very suppliers they once bankrolled. The price war that reshaped electric vehicles may be heading straight into robotics. Source: DIGITIMES
Bendix picked Aeva to fold 4D LiDAR and perception software into its next collision-mitigation systems for mass-production Class 8 trucks, extending the Fusion ADAS platform already running across most major OEMs. Roughly 300,000 new Class 8 trucks reach the North American market each year. The aim is one of the first LiDAR-based L2+ driver-assist packages built for active safety, not full autonomy. Source: American Shipper
In a rare public Q&A at the AGI House event, Google co-founder Sergey Brin argued that the missing piece of artificial general intelligence is the physical world, not language. For warehouse and robotics teams, that framing matters, because embodied AI is where the next gains may sit. A definitional fight over what even counts as AGI is now opening up. Source: DIGITIMES
Sustainability & Energy
DP World is scaling up its UK Low Carbon Truck Programme with a new electric-HGV trial called EVITA, running from July to 2029. Hauliers can rent electric trucks for 12 weeks at costs close to diesel, building on a January pilot with Cambridge’s Centre for Sustainable Road Freight and Project JOLT. More than 1,500 trucks across 60-plus operators are already enrolled. Source: Container News
The fight over Gotion’s US$2.36 billion EV battery plant in Green Charter Township, Michigan, shows how fraught cross-border cleantech investment has become. Residents voted out the board that backed the project, the new board rescinded it, and the dispute has turned costly for the township. Battery localisation looks less like a done deal than a running battle. Source: SCMP Business
International Markets
Ships kept moving through the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend, even as Iran repeated claims it had closed the waterway and floated transit tolls. Traffic is tentative rather than normal. With a large share of seaborne oil routed through the chokepoint, owners are weighing war-risk premiums against their schedules. Source: Lloyd’s List
Beijing’s Ministry of Commerce added 10 US entities to its export control list on June 22, blocking dual-use shipments to them and barring anyone from passing China-origin dual-use goods their way. It is another turn in the tit-for-tat that keeps rewriting compliance maps. Procurement teams sourcing dual-use components should recheck their exposure. Source: DIGITIMES
Benin is Africa’s largest cotton producer, yet moving the crop from the northern belt to southern ports has long meant slow trips on unpaved roads. The Glo-Djigbe Industrial Zone near Cotonou, built with Chinese backing, now processes cotton at home as the government pushes to end raw exports. A small case study in how processing keeps migrating closer to the source. Source: SCMP Business
Emarat Maritime is stepping into container shipping, ordering up to six 930 TEU vessels at China’s Guangji Xinneng Shipbuilding: three firm, three optional, with the confirmed ships due in 2028. The order widens the UAE operator’s remit beyond its existing trades. Another regional player wants its slice of the box market. Source: Container News
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