It would be wonderful if you could just introduce yourself and give a little bit of background about how you found yourself in the role of CEO at Arena Group.

Absolutely.

Thank you for inviting me.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Yes, I've been part of the arena company for 17 years now.

It's a funny story.

I was working in sports and sports marketing.

um we talk one last question um for you today we talk a lot about ambition um at future plus it's really important to us to be able to you know to have something that's achievable but ambitious to get to in the future so is there something that you know arena is going to be involved in so many incredible moments in the next few years you know you've already talked about la 28 you know fifa world cup is coming up What is it that you hope for for Arena as a whole, even outside of the ESG strategy over the next few years and for yourself?

Why is that issue significant beyond what might seem on the surface like just an administrative error?

Yeah.

This was one of the more interesting avenues that the reporting took me on for the story.

During the reporting, I managed to get ahold of the VIN numbers for all of the, uh, Windrose trucks that have been or currently are in the United States, and at least a couple of the trucks that are in the US today carry VIN numbers that basically say the trucks were made in America, specifically in Georgia.

When I checked that with the CEO of Windrose, he told me, "No, all of our trucks are made in China." The reason that is important, and it was pointed out to me by people I spoke to for the reporting for the story, including at least one former Windrose worker, is that the trucking industry, much like the autos industry writ large, largely relies upon self-identification and self-certification.

And so if you have an instance where you find a manufacturer like Windrose saying that its vehicles are made in the United States when in fact they're made overseas, according to at least one of the people I interviewed for the story, they said it raises a red flag, right? Because what about all of the other self-certification that Windrose has done? And they question whether it could raise issues around safety, because a lot of the safety that goes into the truck is also self-reported by the manufacturer to federal regulators.

Uh, how much does geopolitics factor into a story like this, and how difficult is it for Chinese-founded manufacturers to build trust with regulators and customers in the current environment?

I think in this particular case of Windrose, I'm not so sure, especially with the claims being made by the former workers, that geopolitics factors into it so much.

And how has Han responded to these claims?

He disputes most of the claims of unpaid wages and severance and benefits for various reasons, depending upon the circumstances of each person's complaint.

He has also admitted that to some degree the company has made mistakes.

So for example, during the reporting of the story, we managed to determine the vehicle identification numbers of all of the Windrose trucks that have been or currently are in the United States and found that some of them were actually misidentified.

According to those numbers, which you're required to give to the federal government, some of the trucks were allegedly made in the United States, whereas in fact, as Wen Han told us, the trucks were made in China.

He says that one of his employees made a mistake, and then just more generally, he basically says that he has faced anti-Chinese animus in the United States and puts some of the criticisms of his former workers down to the fact that he believes that they are intentionally or unintentionally harboring some kind of anti-Chinese animus.

How much competition could Windrose give them in this sector?

The big difference between Windrose and Tesla is that although Tesla has taken almost a decade to reach this point, they have finally reached the kinda mass production stage for their semi-truck, and those trucks are gonna start rolling off the production line in the hundreds and then into the thousands, possibly tens of thousands over the next eighteen months to two years.

Why now, and what does that tell us about how companies are reading the tariff and the trade outlook?

So basically, I think it comes as a surprise to many people, but a-actually the peak shipping season for the end of year holidays normally begins in the summer.

Ordinarily, we'd see July and August as the peak seasons for bringing in Halloween decorations, Christmas decorations, toys and gifts.

The difference this year is that the peak season has come a little bit earlier.

We've seen rates, uh, ocean shipping rates rise rapidly in June, and that's happening for a couple of reasons that are all coalescing at the same time.

The first one is that obviously retailers have been having to deal with tariffs now for more than a year.

And as you're aware, the Supreme Court struck down many of the administration's tariffs in February, and the administration implemented temporary lower tariffs that are currently ongoing, but that will be ending soon, and there is an expectation that the kind of new suite of tariffs that will be coming in will be slightly higher.

So how difficult does planning become both for retailers and for logistics firms when businesses are trying to navigate several sources of uncertainty at once?

And how is rolling out a truck compared to rolling out a car for Tesla? What are some of the additional obstacles that they need to think about when providing vehicles for a profession rather than drivers?

I actually think one of the biggest obstacles is battery size.

The Tesla truck, the Semi, has to be capable of carrying loads of tens of thousands of pounds, but at the same time, tractor trailers have weight limits, so the battery also has to be light enough so that it doesn't preclude the trucker from carrying all sorts of different kinds of loads.

Then of course it needs to be able to travel hundreds of miles on a single charge, and you want it to charge quickly because in trucking, time is money.

The Semi answers many of those questions far better than other battery electric trucks, but it's still basically not as good as a diesel truck.

What are the reviews looking like so far?

Truckers absolutely love them.

When you talk to the drivers, you know, they say a lot of the same things that you'll hear when they've been testing out other battery electric trucks.

And how is rolling out a truck compared to rolling out a car for Tesla? What are some of the additional obstacles that they need to think about when providing vehicles for a profession rather than drivers?

I actually think one of the biggest obstacles is battery size.

The Tesla truck, the Semi, has to be capable of carrying loads of tens of thousands of pounds, but at the same time, tractor trailers have weight limits, so the battery also has to be light enough so that it doesn't preclude the trucker from carrying all sorts of different kinds of loads.

Then of course, it needs to be able to travel hundreds of miles on a single charge, and you want it to charge quickly because in trucking, time is money.

The Semi answers many of those questions far better than other battery electric trucks, but it's still basically not as good as a diesel truck.

What are the reviews looking like so far?

Truckers absolutely love them.

When you talk to the drivers, you know, they say a lot of the same things that you'll hear when they've been testing out other battery electric trucks.