Rebecca Tinucci grew Tesla's Supercharger network. Now she runs Uber Freight, the logistics arm of Uber (UBER). A year into the job, the Journal's Liz Young reports, Uber Freight has grown revenue two quarters in a row. That hadn't happened in three years. The unit still loses money. But the freight market under it just turned.
The Cass Freight Index tracks U.S. shipping demand. It rose 2.1% in August and 1.9% in September. Those are the first increases since January 2023. Demand is still soft overall. Capacity got tighter, though. A federal crackdown on certain immigrant drivers has cut capacity and pushed rates up. Tinucci said shippers are “interested in working with fewer providers” to simplify their supply chains.
Uber Freight's numbers show it. Volume rose 6% in the second quarter. North American brokerage volume rose 30%. It has signed twice as many managed-transportation customers this year as in all of 2025. The loss narrowed to $24 million from $26 million. Customers run from Colgate-Palmolive (CL) and Target to chemical and auto companies. Uber bought Transplace for $2.25 billion in 2021. Then revenue fell by double digits when freight slumped in 2023. It now ranks No. 7 among domestic transportation managers.
Growth first, profit later
Tinucci says she'll follow the playbook of Uber's rides and delivery units. Those lost money for years and are now profitable, multibillion-dollar businesses. Profit isn't the top priority yet. She said the company won't optimize for it “at the detriment of top-line growth.” Evan Armstrong, whose firm ranks the industry, said Uber Freight is big enough to start focusing on margins and “making money.”
Our read
This is Cash Flow · M5, read through a trucking index. We don't hold Uber in any model book, and nothing was added. Colgate-Palmolive sits in 6 books at weight. The reason to read this story isn't the stock. It's the price of moving a box. When freight demand rises and driver capacity falls, shipping rates tend to rise. High diesel prices add to that. Fuel oil was up 74% over the year in September's inflation report. The CPI's own line for moving, storage and freight was still down 7.1% from a year ago. That's the lag. The turn in the Cass index is the early read on when that line flips.
In your own plan this touches the goods lines of the budget: groceries, household items and the online orders with a delivery fee. Shipping is baked into all three. This week's check is small. Pull the last two months of card statements, find the delivery fees and the free-shipping minimums you spent up to, and total them. Then set a number for the holiday orders before the season sets it for you. You fix the gutter before the storm, not during it. Bring that total to a review and we'll fit it into the monthly plan.