In September 2025, NACFE worked with 13 fleets as well as OEM and numerous supporting suppliers to stage a demonstration on four powertrain solutions — diesel/renewable diesel, natural gas/renewable natural gas, battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell — currently being used in the long-haul segment of the trucking industry. The trucks operated across the U.S. and Canada.
The goal of Run on Less – Messy Middle was to bring clarity to the long-haul segment of the market. The purpose of this demonstration was to learn about the performance of heavy-duty Class 8 trucks — sleepers and day cabs — in long-haul return-to-base and over-the-road duty cycles.
While long-haul represents a small portion of the total trucking industry, it contributes a significant portion of emissions. If we are going to decarbonize trucking, we need to better understand the options available to fleets operating in that duty cycle and help them determine the powertrain solution that is best for their specific application.
Download the report How NACFE Helped Bring Clarity to the Messy Middle here
NACFE is currently working on additional reports from this Run.
- The Operations Report will document the operational realities of Class 8 decarbonization across 13 fleets and four powertrains (diesel, CNG/RNG, BEV, and hydrogen). This report will be released on March 15, 2026 at TMC.
- The Emission Footprint Report will look at what was learned about emissions from the data collected during Run on Less – Messy Middle. This report will be released April 15, 2026.
- The TCO Ramifications Report will analyze real-world data from Run on Less to compare the TCO across diesel, CNG, BEV, and hydrogen powertrains. This report will be released May 1, 2026.
- The Final Findings Report will revisit the initial findings from the report to see if those findings are still valid in light of the more detailed dive into the dataset by NACFE staff members and from the learnings at the data workshop. This report will be released June 17, 2026.
View the Run on Less – Messy Middle Fleet Profiles here
View the Run on Less – Messy Middle Metrics here
View the Messy Middle Bootcamp trainings here
RESULTS BY FLEET
DATASET
All trucks were tracked using Geotab technology capturing data points for all trucks and then specific data for each powertrain. The dataset is available for download below.
