For heavy-duty pickups, the real issue isn’t hype. It’s energy density, refuel time, range, and what happens when the truck is actually working. A diesel truck can be fueled in minutes and put right back to work. A battery-electric truck has to carry a lot of battery mass, then gives up usable range to charging limits, temperature, and battery conditioning in hot or cold weather. That gets harder fast in 2500 and 3500 class trucks where weight and towing load drive energy demand. The practical bridge is hybrid. A well-executed hybrid can use engine power and electric drive together instead of forcing the whole job onto the battery. That matters in trucks because it keeps the vehicle useful in the real world, not just on a spec sheet. The takeaway is simple: diesel is still alive in heavy-duty applications because it solves real work problems, and hybrid is the next logical step where the engineering makes sense.
Gale Banks opened the conversation by introducing KJ Jones, a longtime friend and a senior content producer within MotorTrend's truck and off-road group. Jones explained that his title reflects the industry's shift away from traditional print roles and toward the broader category of "content," which now includes text, photography, and video for digital platforms. He had previously served as editor-in-chief of Diesel Power before that title was folded into a digital-first publishing model.
That transition framed much of the discussion. What had once been a magazine business built around monthly issues is now centered on web publishing, mixed media, and a constant flow of shorter and longer stories. Jones described the current challenge as balancing quick, "snackable" pieces for short attention spans with deeper technical articles for readers who still want substantial information. In his current role, that means covering trucks and off-road vehicles while continuing to carry forward much of Diesel Power's technical and enthusiast focus through Truck Trend's digital presence.
Jones grew up in White Plains, New York, in Westchester County, just north of New York City. He described himself as a vehicle enthusiast from the moment he could say the word "car," and recalled sleeping as a toddler with Hot Wheels clutched in both hands. That early fixation never faded. Through childhood and high school, he was immersed in cars, trucks, motorcycles, and go-karts, and he developed practical mechanical skills through shop classes and hands-on work.
His original career goal was not journalism but engineering. He wanted to become a mechanical engineer specializing in engine design and imagined creating a major high-performance engine program, perhaps for Corvette or another flagship performance platform. He applied to several engineering schools, including the GM Institute of Technology, but was rejected. An admissions officer at the University of Pittsburgh gave him the blunt explanation: his math preparation was not strong enough. Pittsburgh offered him a path through general studies to improve his math and eventually enter engineering, but Jones decided that route would take too long. Instead, he pivoted to communications, a field that matched his interest in radio and broadcasting.
At Pitt, he studied communications broadly rather than through a specialized broadcast curriculum. Most of his practical training came through the student radio station, where he worked his way up through internships and station responsibilities until he became station manager of the FM station in his senior year. That experience led directly into professional broadcasting after graduation.
After college, Jones spent a total of seven years with CBS in New York. He began on the radio side and later moved into a hybrid role that connected radio and television operations. He worked around the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and other news broadcasts, serving as a liaison inside the television studio who could gather material or coordinate elements needed for radio. It was a fast-paced news environment, far removed from automotive work, but it sharpened his communication skills and taught him how to operate in professional media.
Even while working in broadcast news, his off-hours were devoted to cars. He was still wrenching, racing, and modifying vehicles. One of his early projects was a Pontiac Grand Am that received an engine swap using an HO engine from a Chevrolet Cavalier. He also owned a Honda that remained relatively stock, but his real enthusiasm eventually centered on late-model Mustangs, especially the Fox-body platform. That scene became the bridge between his mechanical interests and his future in automotive media.
In 1997, Jones moved from New York to Southern California with the goal of entering the automotive industry professionally. His challenge was that his resume showed communications and broadcasting experience but no formal automotive employment. To solve that, he searched newspaper classifieds for automotive jobs and landed at Galpin Lincoln-Mercury as a service advisor.
He made an impression by arriving in a heavily modified Mustang that announced itself loudly enough to draw the technicians out of the shop. Fortunately for him, the service department was full of enthusiasts, including the service manager, and they recognized immediately that he was a genuine car guy. Although his resume suggested he was overqualified for the position in some ways, he convinced them that he needed the opportunity to establish himself in the automotive field. The job gave him exactly that foundation.
Jones remembered the late-1990s Galpin environment as a particularly strong one, especially in truck and SUV sales. The dealership was a major player in categories such as the Lincoln Navigator, and there was already discussion of what would later become Galpin Auto Sports. He also recalled meeting magazine staffers who came through the service drive with modified vehicles and warranty concerns that were obviously not going to be covered. Those encounters would later matter when he moved into publishing.
After Galpin, Jones joined Edmunds.com during its early years, working in the data department as a Ford specialist. That role gave him another way to combine communications with automotive knowledge. At the same time, he had already begun building relationships in the Mustang world through drag racing at Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey, and through early online communities such as Prodigy message boards.
He had met key figures in Mustang publishing, including Steve Collison, Evan Smith, and Mark Houlahan. Those connections paid off when Smith, then a tech editor at Muscle Mustangs & Fast Fords, contacted him with a freelance assignment. Smith had a California-based project involving an exhaust installation, pre- and post-install dyno testing, and an article write-up. Jones and his wife Crystal obtained an early Sony Mavica digital camera, completed the work, documented it, and shipped the package back to New Jersey. The article ran, and Jones got paid. That first check confirmed that he could turn his technical enthusiasm into professional automotive journalism.
Freelance work followed while he remained at Edmunds. Eventually, after leaving Edmunds, he sent out an email blast announcing his availability for freelance assignments. Steve Turner responded and connected him with an opening at 5.0 Mustang & Super Fords, where Mark Houlahan needed a tech editor. Turner had seen Jones online, at events, and in the Mustang scene, and believed he could handle both the technical side and the mechanics of producing a magazine.
Jones joined 5.0 Mustang & Super Fords in 2005, first as tech editor and later as senior tech editor. He described it as a dream job: he was working with the platform he loved most, building project cars, testing parts, and writing technical stories for an audience that cared deeply about accuracy. He emphasized that a good tech editor is difficult to find because the role requires both mechanical understanding and the ability to explain clearly what was done, why it mattered, and whether the results were real.
His approach was simple but demanding: tell the truth, whether the outcome was good or bad. He believed that credibility belongs to the writer first. If a publication misrepresents a product and readers cannot reproduce the results, the damage falls on the editor's name as much as on the manufacturer. That principle guided his work with aftermarket companies and project builds.
One of his most memorable projects was his 1986 Mustang LX coupe, a rare T-top notchback. Fox-body T-top hatchbacks were more common, but a T-top coupe, especially a black 5.0-liter five-speed car, was exceptionally unusual. He found the car through an online classified listing and drove out with a trailer to get it. The seller ultimately gave him the car, which had no engine or transmission. Jones decided to build it into a Drag Week-style machine: still recognizable and usable, with interior and identity intact, but fast and safe enough to compete seriously. The build became widely known among Mustang enthusiasts, to the point that the car later appeared on a commercially sold T-shirt. Jones still owns it and regards it as one of the defining projects of his career.
When 5.0 Mustang & Super Fords was shut down in 2014 during a consolidation of Mustang titles, Jones was moved into Muscle Mustangs & Fast Fords. Soon after, Sean Holman approached him about a larger change: becoming editor of Diesel Power. Jones admitted that, at the time, his diesel knowledge was limited mostly to owning a 1995 Ford F-350 tow rig and understanding the basics of operating and servicing it. He was not a diesel insider in the way the magazine's audience expected.
That created immediate culture shock. Diesel enthusiasts were intensely loyal to the title and to its previous editors, and when they searched Jones's background they found page after page of Mustang history. He knew he would have to establish credibility quickly. His first major move was deliberately provocative: he put smoke on the cover and questioned whether rolling coal represented meaningful performance or simply inefficient spectacle. The issue argued that smoke was wasted energy and not a legitimate measure of diesel excellence.
The reaction was intense, but it worked. Some readers were angry, yet others recognized that he was willing to challenge assumptions and pursue technical truth. The issue reportedly sold very well, and it established Jones as someone who would not simply repeat diesel clichés. From there, he focused on producing accurate, polished technical content and making the magazine more accessible. He pushed contributors to spell out company names and product identities rather than relying on insider shorthand, so that a new reader could understand the story without already belonging to the diesel subculture. Over time, readers told him the magazine had evolved from something that stayed in the garage to something polished enough for the coffee table, while still retaining its technical value.
As print contracted, Jones moved with the industry into digital publishing. He noted that newsstands now show a dramatic reduction in magazine presence compared with earlier decades. Within MotorTrend's current structure, the truck and off-road group covers both segments under a digital model that mixes quick-hit stories with deeper installs, tests, and technical features.
That work still includes substantial aftermarket coverage. Jones cited recent Banks-related content involving a differential cover, exhaust system, PedalMonster, and iDash installation package. For him, this kind of material remains central because it preserves the practical, enthusiast-oriented technical storytelling that once defined print truck magazines. At the same time, the digital environment demands shorter pieces and faster turnaround, so the editorial challenge is to serve both casual browsers and serious readers without losing technical integrity.
The conversation then shifted to the future of trucks, especially the tension between battery-electric vehicles and diesel-powered heavy-duty platforms. Jones agreed with Banks that diesel remains very much alive in the United States, particularly in heavy-duty pickups that manufacturers still cannot build fast enough to satisfy demand. He also shared Banks's skepticism about the idea that the market can move directly to full battery-electric trucks on a national scale by 2035.
Both men argued that infrastructure, charging time, battery temperature sensitivity, and energy economics remain major obstacles. Banks pointed out that the road-load energy required to move a heavy-duty truck is the same regardless of whether that energy comes from diesel fuel or electricity; the real question is cost and practicality. He also emphasized that public claims about electricity pricing often ignore real-world peak charging rates and the hidden energy consumed by battery thermal management in hot and cold weather.
Jones connected those concerns to his recent exposure to Magna International's heavy-duty electrification work. He had driven Magna's system, which includes an eBeam rear axle integrating electric drive hardware and a front motor arrangement that can provide controllable all-wheel drive. From an engineering standpoint, he found the hardware impressive and potentially viable for heavy-duty applications. The unresolved issue, in his view, is battery support: energy density, weight, cold-weather performance, heat management, and long-term usability in real truck duty cycles. He saw Magna as proof that the axle and drive hardware can be solved, but not yet the entire system-level problem.
Banks argued that the real bridge technology is hybridization, not pure battery-electric propulsion. He contrasted series and parallel hybrid layouts, praised Toyota's Tundra hybrid approach, and noted Toyota's continuing diesel-related patent activity as evidence that diesel technology is far from dead. Jones agreed that the economics of oil, plastics, transportation, and commerce make a complete abandonment of petroleum unrealistic in the near term.
To close, Jones discussed one of the most dramatic recent diesel performance stories he had covered: Justin Zeigler's Cummins-powered truck at Ultimate Callout Challenge. The engine was built by D&J Precision Machine in Ohio and installed in a former Levan Miller UCC-winning truck. UCC combines dyno competition, drag racing, and sled pulling, making it a comprehensive test of diesel performance rather than a single-discipline event.
In recent years, 3,000 rear-wheel horsepower had become the new benchmark in the diesel world. Two other competitors were widely expected to reach that threshold first, but Zeigler's truck ultimately stole the show. Jones had already seen video of the truck on Firepunk Diesel's dyno and was struck by how violently it tried to climb off the rollers. At UCC, the truck delivered 3,336 rear-wheel horsepower, a number Jones described as phenomenal. Zeigler went on to win the event for the second consecutive year. Jones took pride not only in the result but in the broader arc of diesel competition, noting that many UCC competitors had roots in Diesel Power Challenge, which helped develop the enthusiast base that now feeds top-level diesel motorsports.
The discussion ended with a return to gasoline performance and auction culture through a recent Jones story on a low-mileage 1991 GMC Syclone at Mecum. That prompted Banks to recount GMC's internal history with the Syclone name, the original turbocharged concept work, and the rivalry with Chevrolet's big-block SS truck programs. From there, the two circled back to future plans, including Banks's interest in diesel-hybrid performance development and a possible Pikes Peak effort using a hybridized diesel truck. The episode closed on that shared theme: whether in print, digital media, diesel competition, or hybrid engineering, the real work is still about telling the truth, testing ideas honestly, and following the technology wherever it leads.