FleetManagementWeekly AmeriFleet
May 23, 2017

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Editor's Analysis & Top Industry News


Falling in Love

We have been traveling in Norway for the past week and have fallen in love with the country, justly renowned for its stunning natural beauty and gracious people.

On our many walks through Bergen and Oslo, we noted something was missing. In the center of these two main cities, where buses, trams, and bicycles are ubiquitous, the streets are tranquil and traffic noise pollution is dramatically diminished. Why? One good reason is that near-silent electric vehicles and their charging stations are abundant. In fact, a staggering 40 percent of new vehicle registrations in Norway are EVs.

Elon Musk loves Norway, too, and in this article had something to say about Norway’s goal to purge the country of fossil-fuel powered cars by 2025. We think they’ll easily do it.

Janice Sutton
Editor in Chief


Thought Leadership

Fleet Marketing – Guiding principles for fleet providers to improve marketing and increase sales.

Fleet Asset Management – Best practices for work truck management.

Globally Speaking — Perspectives on the Multinational Fleets

Customer Driven — Engage your organization to create customer loyalty, trust, and superior service

On Fleet Driver Management Solutions to improve your fleet’s accident rate and cut costs on collision repairs

Safety & Risk — Impactful driver safety and risk management tools and techniques.

The Fleet CX Toolbox – Solid steps to implementing and improving fleet customer experience.

BIG Data. BIG Results. BIG Future– Harnessing big data to achieve big results using cutting edge technology.

Talent Management – Smart guidelines to help you manage the talent in your workplace.


VIDEO: Maximizing Efficiency for Global Fleets

One of the biggest trends in global fleets remains the same as over a decade ago: continually working to control spend and maximize efficiency.



VIDEO: Smart Fleet Insights

  Smart Fleet Helps Procurement Teams Make the Right Decisions
 

The Smart Cube has been working with procurement teams for over a decade, and offers unique insights into the problems they face. Now, with the launch of their Smart Fleet product, they have upped their game. The result is better supplier choices for fleet managers.


VIDEO: Fleet Remarketing
  Kontos Kommentary – April 2017 Edition
 

In the latest Kontos Kommentary, Tom Kontos, Chief Economist at KAR Auction Services, provides his insight and updates regarding used vehicle market conditions. To read the entire Kontos Kommentary for April 2017, visit https://www.adesa.com/kontos-kommentary.





The Fleet Spot


Waze Wants to Help You Hitch a Ride

Bloomberg

The traffic app tries its hand at carpooling.

A more literal ride-sharing service than taxi alternatives such as Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc., Waze Carpool lets drivers schedule passenger pickups along their planned routes in exchange for a few bucks worth of gas money from riders, or even to just speed up their commutes with access to the carpool lane.

Riders can book at the last minute or reserve in advance. To discourage cancellations, rider and driver profiles share personal information that the users have agreed to supply from Facebook or LinkedIn.

READ MORE

Top 5 Cities with the Worst #TrafficJams in America

USA Today

Overcrowded roads clogged with cars are a fact of life in many cities.

A recent study found that the United States was the most congested developed country in the world, according to transportation analytics firm INRIX.

Congested roads cost U.S. motorists almost $300 billion last year in wasted time and fuel.

Luckily, with the popularity of social media, we can chronicle traffic jams all across the country.

READ MORE

ARI to Offer SiriusXM Fleet Program to Clients

SiriusXM and ARI just announced that ARI is the first fleet management company to offer the SiriusXM Fleet Driver Program to its clients.

ARI clients with SiriusXM-equipped vehicles can now provide qualified drivers with the benefits of SiriusXM – including a two-month introductory subscription to SiriusXM’s “All Access” programming package as well as discounted subscription rates – giving drivers access to more than 150 channels of commercial-free music, plus sports, entertainment, news, comedy and more at their fingertips.

READ MORE

NAFA Awards First-Ever Sustainable Fleet Certificates

NAFA Fleet Management Association stands at the forefront of sustainable fleet education and practices.

The Association’s commitment remained unparalleled as graduates of its latest initiative, Sustainable Fleet Certificates, received special recognition during the Association’s recent annual conference in Tampa, Florida.

NAFA President Bryan Flansburg, CAFM®, recognized the first-ever certificate recipients, stating, “You are blazing a path for all fleet managers to follow, showing them that not only is being sustainable a good thing for our planet, but it can also be a good thing for your employers.”

READ MORE

Globally Speaking

By Mark Boada, Senior Editor

The Holy Grail of traffic safety is that someday self-driving vehicles will make traffic accidents a thing of the past.

But as increments of that technology are introduced, drivers must be thoroughly trained in their limitations or else run the risk of depending on them for more than the equipment can deliver and of being involved in crashes they thought couldn’t happen.

Case in point: a senior vice president at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) warned the audience at a global symposium on automated vehicles in Princeton, New Jersey, last week that the currently most successful type of crash avoidance system can’t prevent all kinds of crashes.

READ MORE

 
The Fleet CX Toolkit

By Wendy Eichenbaum

Too many companies believe that everyone is their target customer.

But products don’t speak to the masses, only to a defined audience. You need to find your niche and concentrate on that group.

When you start by defining a niche audience, you can invest your marketing budget on a highly targeted audience that is already talking about your industry. You can create custom websites that address specific needs or pain points. And you can craft your product’s feature set to meet those needs.

Consider two areas when defining your target audience. First, create a fictional buyer whose needs align perfectly with your product.

READ MORE

 
Ignite Your Selling Potential

By Susan A. Lund, President of MR3

Selling is a lot like driving. People have beliefs that shape their behavior. Some of those beliefs are false and take them off road.

What are beliefs? Beliefs are what we know to be true. When people have false beliefs, it prevents them from succeeding. There are two types of beliefs; true beliefs and false beliefs.

During the next few sessions, we will talk about several beliefs that can take you off road — and how to adopt successful beliefs, true beliefs that will help you succeed.

Belief #1

When people drive and text, they believe that they won’t go off road.

Is that true or false? False!

When people text while driving it increases the risk of going off road, having an accident or even going in the ditch. The same applies for selling.

READ MORE









Fleet Trends & Issues


A Roadside Test for Texting and Driving?

The Washington Post

Ben Lieberman, whose son was killed in a crash involving a distracted driver six years ago, wants to find a way to stop drivers from texting and driving before other teens are killed.

He has given talks at schools. He has attended law enforcement conferences. He has seen people throw up their hands over the lack of a reliable field test to determine for sure whether a driver in a crash had been texting around the time of impact.

“I kept hearing over and over again, there’s no such thing as a Breathalyzer for distracted driving,” Lieberman said. “So I asked why not?”

READ MORE

Uber’s New Fare System Raises Its Cut While Angering Drivers

Fortune

Uber has acknowledged that an experimental pricing system it introduced last year may result in drivers collecting a smaller portion of some fares.

The ride-hailing company made the disclosure in an email sent to drivers on Friday, confirming suspicions that have been breeding driver resentment for months.

Under the new system, in place in 14 major markets, driver pay is no longer directly tied to how much passengers pay.

READ MORE

Apple CarPlay to Work Wirelessly on New Cars

Detroit Free Press

Good news for Apple iPhone users: CarPlay, the system that reduces distraction using your smartphone in the car, now works wirelessly on some new cars and more are on the way.

BMW’s new 5-series, and most of the automaker’s other 2017 models, now offer CarPlay’s benefits via their Wi-Fi hot spot. Until now, all vehicles that had CarPlay required the phone to be hardwired into the vehicles’ USB port.

CarPlay allows  the driver to do web searches for directions, phone numbers, find gas stations, play music, send and receive text messages and use some apps hands-free. It also displays some of the phone’s features on the vehicle’s dashboard.

READ MORE

Ford SYNC 3 Update Brings Android Auto and Apple CarPlay Software Support to 2016 Vehicles

Ford

Ford is making Android Auto and Apple CarPlay software support available to model-year 2016 vehicles equipped with SYNC 3. 

Customers with model-year 2016 Ford vehicles can update to the new SYNC 3 version 2.2 by downloading to a USB drive, visiting a dealership or automatically through a Wi-Fi connection.

“Our SYNC 3 software platform was designed to be easy to update so we can get our customers the latest and greatest features, functionally and security enhancements,” said Don Butler, executive director, Ford Connected Vehicle and Services.

READ MORE

Robots on the Road

McKinsey & Company

The most recent people targeted for replacement by robots?

Car drivers—one of the most common occupations around the world. Automotive players face a self-driving-car disruption driven largely by the tech industry, and the associated buzz has many consumers expecting their next cars to be fully autonomous.

But a close examination of the technologies required to achieve advanced levels of autonomous driving suggests a significantly longer timeline; such vehicles are perhaps five to ten years away.

READ MORE

 
Detroit Struggles to Adapt

The Detroit Bureau

Management shake-up at Ford not likely to be the last big announcement from the Motor City this year.

The unexpected ouster of Ford Motor Co. CEO Mark Fields comes as one of the biggest shake-ups Detroit’s Big Three have experienced since they emerged from the Great Recession – and it highlights the challenges they face trying to adapt to a global transformation in what automakers build and how they market those products.

The appointment of Jim Hackett to replace Fields is, however, just the latest in a series of big announcements from Detroit that last week saw Ford announce plans to cut 1,400 salaried workers in North America and Europe, while General Motors said it would stop selling cars in the huge Indian market and sell off operations in South Africa.

READ MORE

 
Emissions Cheating Accusations

New York Times

Fiat Chrysler said on Friday that it would modify around 100,000 diesel vehicles to try to reach a settlement with United States regulators, as separate academic studies provided mounting evidence that the carmaker had installed software meant to evade emissions standards.

The move came a day after the company said it was in talks to resolve a Justice Department investigation.

The case bears striking similarities to a Volkswagen scandal in which several executives have been investigated or charged, with the German carmaker paying tens of billions of dollars in fines, penalties and settlements.

READ MORE








Fleet Management Resources
 
AFLA – Automotive Fleet & Leasing Association
Providing the advanced forum for corporate fleet professionals to network with industry leaders.
The CEI Group Inc.
CEI is North America’s largest provider of fully integrated fleet accident management, driver safety and risk management services.
NAFA Fleet Management Association
NAFA is the association for the diverse vehicle fleet management profession regardless of organizational type, geographic location, or fleet composition.
AmeriFleet
Offering a nationwide vehicle delivery and relocation service; serving the corporate and commercial fleet industry.
Donlen
Since 1965, Donlen has been the fleet management industry’s leading provider of comprehensive, integrated financing and asset management solutions — and that spirit of innovation continues today.
PARS
PARS' mission is to provide you with high-quality service at competitive prices for all of your transportation needs.
ARI
Driven fleet professionals. Driving results.
Driving Dynamics
Driving Dynamics was established to help corporate fleet drivers develop expert, safe driving skills using proven, advanced driving techniques.
Wheels, Inc.
First in fleet for 76 years. Wheels helps you build tomorrow’s fleet today.



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