“I figure the supply chain issues will sort out in the next year or so.”
No they wont. Because the cost of diesel is so high, the trucking firms will fold. They cant pay higher wages BECAUSE of fuel/tire/repair costs.
The “New” trucks run half the time the older mechanical trucks ran. One little sensor goes bad and the truck shuts down. Air filter getting plugged? Well it warns you, you have a certain amount of time to correct it, dont correct it and the truck shuts down. Or the engine blows.
I hear you. It may take longer but eventually the backlogs will clear. But yes you are right about the trucks. Those regulations and the controlling impulses of heavy-equipment makers need changing. It takes something like 10,000 trucks turns to haul off one container ship. (one container = one truck x 10,000-30,000 containers per ship). Well there will be 100+ ships in Los Angeles this weekend alone. Even if they could haul them all where can they put them? How to get them to their destination? Resources are either not available or are regulated out of the opportunity.
Local hauling is also a huge bottleneck. I shipped half a trailer of goods using a major carrier. It took 3 days before they could pick it up in the local route. It arrived at the hub four states away in 3 days (1 day faster than estimated) and then sat in the hub 11 days. They couldn’t get enough drivers to deliver my shipment just a few miles from their hub.