Glīd

The United States is losing control of its supply chain backbone. Every year, over $1.7 trillion in goods moves through U.S. freight corridors, but the first mile is breaking down. Outdated diesel fleets, labor shortages, and inefficient transload operations cost American industries more than $200 billion annually in fuel waste, delays, chassis and container dwell time, and lost throughput. Over 80,000 material handling jobs remain unfilled. Legacy port and rail equipment is being phased out due to climate mandates, yet no scalable replacement has emerged. At the same time, 43 percent of U.S. rail infrastructure remains underused, wasting billions in public investment. While highways are congested and warehouses overflow, the nation’s most efficient freight corridors sit idle because there is no platform that bridges road and rail. This is not just a commercial failure. Defense agencies face the same breakdown. In contested logistics environments, there is no autonomous system that can move critical payloads without GPS, stable roads, or secure infrastructure. Without a modular, dual-mode transport platform, the United States leaves a $20 billion defense logistics gap wide open and its forward-operating forces vulnerable. From ports and agriculture to energy, defense, and disaster response, every sector is absorbing the cost. The price of inaction is not just economic. It is strategic. It is systemic. And it is growing every day.