By Mike Quimby, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Element Fleet Management

It’s no secret that trucks are high-cost assets and it’s crucial to maximize their value to your company.

Operating a cost-effective and efficient fleet requires insight into the total cost of ownership. For example, a good maintenance-tracking program is required to identify maintenance and downtime. When it comes to trucks and total cost of ownership (TCO), the following are key factors to consider:

Get the most out of your trucks
Every truck in your fleet should be maximized. Review acquisition-optimum truck specifications for operational and secondary market risk requirements. It’s also important to identify the vital key performance indicators for measurement, including cost per mile (CPM), miles per gallon (MPG), uptime and downtime. Be sure to identify and match the expense with utilization of the asset.

READ MORE

By Jeofrey Bean

Make it easy for people to learn about your business and real customers to advocate for it.

People using social media have made customer experience more important than ever. People can share the experiences they have with your company before, during and after they become customers. Ultimately you want people using social media advocating for your company with the social media they choose.

In the past, people made shopping decisions based on trusted friends’ recommendations. Now, those recommendations have gone digital, encompass more people, and are crucial for the success of most businesses.

But social media options keep evolving. How are customers exchanging information about companies like yours?

READ MORE

Forbes

In America, Volkswagen AG sold nearly 600,000 diesel cars with cheater software, and the company is facing the full brunt of the law. In Europe, the company sold some 8.5 million of cars that emit cancer-causing gases in much higher concentrations than already lax EU laws allow, and there is little more than finger-wagging.

In America, Volkswagen’s cheater-diesels could have caused some 100 earlier deaths, the New York Times figures. In diesel-saturated Europe, the emissions are estimated to cost more than 100,000 lives per year, but the matter is swept under the carpet.

READ MORE

Autoblog

On the same night President Obama pressed the need to build a “21st century transportation system” in his final State of the Union speech, a new report released by one of the companies leading that charge showed serious potholes remain ahead.

Self-driving cars are one of the most promising technologies in that vision. One day, they could help reduce traffic fatalities, improve mobility and ease congestion.

READ MORE

gizmag

In an automotive consumer study presented at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, IBM found that consumers expect to use cars differently and don’t necessarily want to own one in the traditional sense – especially when the car has “self-enabling” technologies. Meanwhile, Ford has taken the lead in creating an alternative ownership model.

The IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) developed its A New Relationship – People and Cars report, based on the study. According to the report, consumers have a high level of interest in “self-enabling cars,” defined as cars that can learn, heal, drive, and even socialize.

READ MORE

New York Daily News

British media is buzzing about a recent report that petroleum (that’s gas in Brit-speak) could soon be cheaper than bottled water as a result of plummeting fuel prices worldwide.

Crude oil prices at $30 a barrel, the lowest since 2004, and average gasoline and diesel prices are 1.025 pounds per liter and 1.032 pounds per liter, respectively, dropping below 1 pound per liter (a little more than a quarter of a gallon) in some areas for the first time since 2009. So to say gas is pretty cheap by U.K. standards would be an understatement.

READ MORE

Motor Trend

It’s no secret that introducing a new technology is a costly endeavor, and that’s why Honda Motor Co. and General Motors have decided to join forces to manufacture hydrogen fuel cells. Though the two automakers have been working together on this technology since 2013, the decision to jointly manufacture fuel cells is more recent.

READ MORE

The Car Connection

If you’re one of the many folks who’s criticized federal agencies for being behind the times on auto issues, we’ve got good news. The feds have heard you, and they’ve got a three-point plan to bring themselves — and automakers — up speed. For a while, it seemed as if there wasn’t much love for the auto industry or the agencies that regulated it.

In the wake of the Great Recession, car sales hit the skids, and automakers were criticized for not being nimble enough to adapt to a rapidly changing marketplace. Some companies declared bankruptcy, like General Motors and Chrysler (now Fiat Chrysler, thanks to its restructuring). Others shed brands, as Ford did.

READ MORE

By Wayne Smolda, President and CEO of The CEI Group, Inc.

The most disturbing news for fleets to come out of 2015 was the projection that traffic fatalities for last year were going to increase by the greatest rate we’ve seen in many years, a warning that fleet accident costs – including repair and other “hidden” expenses – could do the same next year.

Even without higher accident rates, fleets face an increase in the cost of accident repairs, given the continuing growth in the number of safety systems appearing in new vehicles and in the use of non-traditional materials, like aluminum, plastics and high-strength steel, all of which are costlier to repair.

READ MORE

Forbes

After talking in his last State of the Union address this week about investing in the country’s transportation system, Obama and his Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced a 10-year, $4 billion plan to fund pilot projects that would accelerate the adoption of self-driving autonomous vehicles.

Such programs, if funded in the fiscal year 2017 federal budget, will test connected vehicle systems in “designated corridors” around the country and work toward a multi-state regulatory framework that covers the industry.

READ MORE