By Ed Pierce, Fleet Industry Marketer

I have often been asked to extend effective marketing communications techniques to other business audiences – industry influentials, employees, strategic partners and others. After many years, one soon realizes that, although strategies vary by audience and other situational factors, the goal remains the same.

In every case, we strive to invoke a “call to action.” As it turns out, the same objective applies to education, too. Imparting information is only the first step in a process that hopefully leads to the betterment of a student who will become engaged.

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Women in Fleet — Supporting and Mentoring women in the fleet industry

By Janice Sutton

We recently met with Lori Rasmussen, president of PARS and chairperson of Women in Fleet, to talk about the Women in Fleet group that she and other fleet professional women created several years ago.

Lori says, ‘The purpose of Women in Fleet is not to separate women; women have worked so hard in this industry for equality with men, but to create a group where we can support other women, new women in the industry, and pair them with veteran women in the industry. It is a resource to help someone if she needs help with something or just needs coaching.”

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Weekly webinars and fleet management pro-tips culminate at the Washington Auto Show to celebrate January as Fleet Management Awareness Month

Mercury Associates, Inc., (Mercury) and the National Property Management Association (NPMA), observing January as Fleet Management Awareness Month, will produce four webinars and fleet management best practices leading up to the Washington Auto show at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, January 22-31, 2016.

As laws and regulations relating to inventory, cost, reporting and sustainability continue to evolve and change rapidly, Mercury and the NPMA have partnered together to produce content and training to help Federal Fleet Managers meet the changing demands of the industry.

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Forbes

General Motors recently reported that its rental car sales are down by 11% in 2015 on a year-to-date basis. Sales to car rental businesses are part of GM’s fleet business, which also includes sales to commercial and Government buyers. The demand from this market is steady and can be an important source of profit to auto companies. However, the Detroit based auto maker is trying to phase out its sales to rental buyers in a planned manner. There are two main reasons behind this. The first is that these sales are less profitable than sales to commercial or Government buyers. But the second is more interesting and needs to be discussed in detail, as follows.

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Kelly Wallace/CNN

My heart went out to Barb Dunn the moment her 16-year-old son, Daniel, answered my question.

Once he gets his license in June, would he text and drive? That’s what I asked during a kitchen table conversation in their Roxbury, New Jersey, home.

His answer was not the one his mom expected.

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Detroit Free Press

Fully autonomous vehicles that drive themselves from point A to B are still in the future, but braking systems that step in to slow or stop a vehicle without the driver’s intervention are here today, and about to become more common.

Automatic braking will eventually make cars safer, reduce injuries and the cost of accidents, but there will be hiccups along the way. They will not prevent all collisions, and they will generate a new category of quality complaints for automakers and vehicle owners.

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 2016 NCSFA State Fleet Manager’s Workshop

September 13-15th

Portland, Maine

Free registration for NCSFA Member Fleet Managers!

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Not since GM’s diesel catastrophe of the ’70s has the outlook for the venerable diesel engine in U.S. passenger cars looked so glum.

By Michael Sheldrick, Senior Editor

Memories of those earlier diesels, plus other drawbacks like noise, starting delay, smoke, and smell, along with the fact that our gasoline prices, whatever they may be, are cheap compared to those in Europe.

VW may have hammered in the final nail by its egregious emission cheating scheme last year.

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The Detroit News

A new report predicts that by 2030, 15 percent of global automotive sales will be of fully autonomous cars, and the industry will continue to undergo massive technological changes.

The report by McKinsey & Company — a consulting firm that studies automotive trends — touches on a number of trends, including the increased adoption of shared mobility companies like Uber and Lyft, the expected proliferation of electric vehicles thanks to government regulation, the continued rise in auto sales and the advancements in driverless car technology.

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The Detroit Bureau

Despite a slow start, the Ford F-Series pickup line is set to close the books on 2015 on a high note. When final figures are reported tomorrow, the full-size line-up is expected to mark its 39th consecutive year as the nation’s best-selling truck and its 34th year in a row as the top-selling vehicle overall.

The F-Series is expected to maintain a solid lead over its two key rivals, General Motors’ Chevrolet Silverado and the Ram pickup from Fiat Chrysler.

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