By Jeff Schlesinger

Themes that dominated the AFLA conference that I recently attended in San Diego were mobility, safety, driverless and Uber.

While safety has been the cornerstone for fleet managers for years, the other three are gaining popularity and how one views and manages these new entrants to the fleet manager’s portfolio will be exceptionally significant.

Mobility focuses on vehicles at the lighter end of the vehicle class spectrum, and more importantly the ability of the sales teams to engage with prospects and customers. There is no question that mobility will gain greater attention in the near future. The traditional marriage between a single driver and a single car may not be the optimal solution for every situation, and fleet managers need to assess their current policies.

There are several questions that need to addressed by every fleet manager:

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Heuristic evaluations are extremely effective in identifying potential issues. However, these evaluations are just one part of your product design cycle.

By Wendy Eichenbaum

How many times have you made changes to a document and then selected close before saving it? Did you lose your data? Most likely you did not. Instead, the UI displayed a warning message prompting you to save your changes. However, if the application only had discarded your changes, the application would have violated a usability heuristic.

A usability heuristic is principal of good UX design. If any part of a website or software application violates a principal, then users are likely to be confused and frustrated.

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The Washington Post

Tesla, the upstart all-electric automaker that once landed Consumer Reports’ best-ever performance rating, has now achieved a far less impressive feat, with a ranking from the reviewer that labels it one the least reliable car companies in America.

The Consumer Reports’ ranking, released Monday, places Tesla at no. 25 of 29 for reliability, with reviewers saying the automaker’s new Model X SUV “has been plagued with malfunctions,” including with the “falcon-wing doors” that have become its signature.

The rough review, based on annual surveys of the magazine’s subscribers, marks only the latest hurdle for America’s youngest major automaker, which has energized the country’s scrawny electric-car industry but has also struggled with repeated production and delivery delays.

Tesla’s sedan, the Model S, was recommended by reviewers after its reliability scores improved from what Consumer Reports last year called a “worse-than-average overall problem rate.”

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MichiganRadio.org

In the past decade, fatal car crashes for teen drivers ages 18 to 20 haven’t declined as much as those for younger teens, ages 15 to 17.

That’s according to a study commissioned by Ford Safe Driving for Life, a program to teach teens to be safer drivers.

Jim Graham is Manager of the program.  He says the problem appears to be that more teens are waiting until they are 18 or older to get their license.

“They probably didn’t have any training until they went in to get their driver’s license,” says Graham, “because after 18, you don’t have to go through graduated driver’s licensing, you don’t have to go through driver’s ed.”

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The New York Times

Tesla Motors said on Wednesday that it would equip all of its new vehicles with technology that enables fully autonomous driving, but would not activate the system until it undergoes further testing.

In a blog post, the maker of electric cars said the new hardware included cameras, sensors and radars that allow the vehicles to operate without a human driver.

The company said the technology would be installed in all of its models, including the much-anticipated Model 3 sedan, which is expected to reach the United States market next year.

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The Washington Post

Indiana college student Wyclife Omondi likes to be punctual. But that’s a lot

That’s because of the Kenyan city’s bus system, which 70 percent of residents rely on to get around. The system, with its 15,000 minibuses — or matatus, as locals call them — is informal. Fares, routes and schedules change constantly, making the system unreliable and hard to navigate.

“Basically, it’s unpredictable,” said Omondi, 22, a senior at Earlham College in Richmond, Ind. “You don’t know where the bus is, what time it will come and what time it will leave.”

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Fleet World

Arval has become a leading partner in one of the UK’s largest hydrogen fleet car trials to date, enabling it to gain operational insight into the running of hydrogen fuel cell cars by fleets.

The leasing and fleet management specialist is taking part in the Hydrogen Hub initiative, which will see fuel cell technology tested in a wide range of domestic, commercial and transport applications in Swindon, where Arval’s UK head office is based.

Initially, two vehicles will be leased to local companies by Arval, subsidised by the Government’s Office for Low Emission Vehicles. These are a Hyundai ix35h for the National Trust and a Toyota Mirai for Nationwide Building Society.

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BT, which operates one of the largest motor fleets in Europe, has recently revised and updated its occupational road risk policy and programs – in part to allow for improved privacy management and detailed data integration through its Driver Index and risk data warehouse. To date, the company has cut its collision rate from over 60 per thousand vehicles in 2001 to 30 in 2009, reducing costs by approximately £12 million per annum in the process.

This has been achieved through a range of initiatives including:

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By Laura Jozwiak, Senior Vice President of Sales and Client Relations, Wheels, Inc.

What an honor it is to be asked to contribute to Fleet Management Weekly, especially regarding a topic I am passionate about – customer service!

My mission with this column is to engage with the extensive and varied experiences of the fleet industry on this important topic. I invite you all to take part in the conversation that will, hopefully, inspire each of us to strive for more — more positive results, more exceptional experiences, and more trusted relationships.

It often can be just that one more thing that takes us from average to exceptional. Actually, the difference between average customer service and exceptional customer service is relatively small. I think about the ‘one degree’ rule. At 211 degrees Fahrenheit, water is hot. At 212 degrees, water starts boiling and turns to steam. Steam can power locomotives, factories and ships. Hot water can’t.

What you do above and beyond the norm is what creates customer loyalty, trust and superior service.

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Detroit Free Press

Anyone who has spent more than a decade in the auto business knows the cycle will turn, and after a six-year renaissance from near death we may be approaching such a point.

But don’t hit the panic button.

Yes, Ford is idling four assembly plants for two weeks in Louisville, and taking one week off at each of two plants in Mexico and a week off in Kansas City, where workers produce the F-150, the highly profitable Clydesdale of Ford’s lineup.

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