During our most recent interview with Bill Powell, Director of Enterprise Architecture at ARI, we asked him to brief us on how the company’s considerable investment in technology, including a five year partnership with SAP to develop solutions on their HANA platform, has led to some groundbreaking technological developments in fleet management.

Powell cited an example: “HANA recently enabled us to create the ARI Fleet Health Card^TM. HANA allows us to take disparate information from across the organization, whether it’s maintenance information, resale information, fuel information, and stitch it all together for our customers so they are able to truly see what is happening with their fleet in real time and be empowered to ask the right questions that have an impact on operations and, hopefully, on the bottom line.

“We’ve also integrated statistical analysis into it. So now it’s not just a matter of taking a look at what happened – truthfully, anyone can do that. Anyone can collect information and tell you where your money went. The really impactful questions are why did something happen and what can you do about it? And what levers can we pull, what recommendations can we make, what changes need to occur so this doesn’t happen again, or conversely, if it’s something good, how do we do more of that?”

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By: Bob Glose – Senior Vice President, Operations & Enterprise Resources

Fleet managers are constantly pressed for ways to control costs, and saving money on collision repairs is one legitimate way to do it.

But repairs are more than simply putting the vehicle back into service. The key objective is to make the vehicle safe to drive. That’s why the prudent fleet manager shouldn’t compromise on repair costs when it comes to safety. The goal should always be to make the vehicle safe again, in the most cost-effective ways.

So, how can you cut repair costs without compromising safety?

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The Verge

UPS hopes that by 2022, one in four of its diesel-fueled delivery vehicles will be electric, hybrid or alternate-fuel and is collaborating with The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority towards that goal.

To help develop the technology, the NYSERDA will contribute $500,000 with the expectation of converting up to 1,500 trucks, or 66 percent of the fleet operating in the city.

“The company also says that it presently uses “more than 770 electric or hybrid electric vehicles,” as well as more than 8,500 alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles worldwide.”

Read more of the original article at The Verge.

The New York Times

Unlike self-driving cars, trucks spend a lot of time heading straight on desolate highways which makes the trucking industry a perfect target for autonomous driving.

Trucking is a $700 billion industry that touches every aspect of the economy, and logistics companies will upgrade their fleets the moment it makes financial sense. How soon, is the question.

“We are trying to get self-driving technology out on the road as fast as possible,” said Alex Rodrigues, Embark’s chief executive. “Trucking needs self-driving and self-driving needs trucking.”

Read more of the original article at The New York Times.

The Detroit Bureau

Getting quality right is expected to be a critical challenge for the California-based automaker despite intense efforts to resolve what CEO Elon Musk has referred to as “production hell.”

“Our inspection revealed widespread shortcomings in fit and finish ,” wrote Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi, after taking the Model 3 for a test drive out of Tesla’s showroom in Brooklyn. “Tesla representatives acknowledged some of the fit issues, but stated that they believed that Model 3 was much further ahead than where Model X and S had been at this point in production.”

Consumer Reports removed the Tesla Model 3 from its Recommended Buy list because of quality issues even though the basic features were enough to win rave reviews.

Read more of the original article at The Detroit Bureau.

Wired

The first day of service, the 8 passenger self-driving shuttle – which is a part of a 12-month pilot project in Las Vegas – sensed a semi-truck backing out of an alleyway, stopped and was hit.

“It’s a perfect example of the human error that we’re trying to avoid,” says John Moreno, a spokesperson for AAA.

The pilot project will test how the self-driving shuttle fares as part of the city’s transportation network while exposing the public to driverless technology.

Read more of the original article at Wired.

The Detroit News

As the world becomes more technologically dependent and complex, Ford Motor Company’s CEO Jim Hackett wants the company to build the iPhone of autonomous vehicles.

Hackett looks at Ford’s evolution much like Snapchat when compared to one of the earliest messaging mediums, the Pony Express.

“Ford’s future is not about giving up the car,” Hackett said. “But there’s no dumb cars in the future. There can’t be. We have to evolve these things to be ever smarter.”

Read more of the original article at The Detroit News.

“Having optics into everything that is going on is critical. We can’t ignore the future. We want to be a consistent force in a world of disruption.” — Carl Ortell, CEO

By Mike Sheldrick, Senior Editor

ARI — best known as the world’s largest privately held fleet management company — hosted its 2nd annual Best in Fleet Conference in Miami last week, with over 150 fleet executives in attendance.

One of the highlights of the meeting was an overview of the extensive business portfolio of Holman Enterprises, ARI’s parent, presented by Carl Ortell, the CEO of Holman Enterprises.

Holman’s realm, said Ortell, is the “car business itself, from retail to fleet and everything in between. There’s never been a time that it has been more interesting or fun to be involved in the industry than right now. We’re 6,300 people and we are juiced up.”

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By Ed Pierce, Fleet Industry Marketer

As a marketing manager for a provider of B2B products or services, you know that the first question your executives will ask is “Where’s the value?” of each of your marketing tactics. Even though we are in the digital age, you can’t justify marketing value based on Facebook “likes,” Twitter “follows,” and LinkedIn connections. As it was unlikely that management would appreciate the value of traditional print advertising measures like cost-per-thousand, impressions, awareness and perceptions, the digital metrics provided by internet services are lacking.

Still, digital marketing offers value, as evidenced by its growing share of the overall marketing budget. The key to showing value is to do the additional hard work to translate and extend superficial facts with meaningful business results.

Start with the undeniable ability to own the channel. In the digital world, you can have total control over direct interactions with your target audience. You can control both the timing and content of your messages.

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New York Times

Many questions arise when taking a look at the future when humans driving cars becomes a thing of the past –  what will that world look like? 

Intersection Managers could replace traffic lights with an estimated 20 to 50 percent less carbon dioxide filling the air with fewer idling cars at intersections.

For the human passenger, though, a robotized intersection could be mildly terrifying — like flying through a crowded asteroid belt, trusting the A.I. to find the right path. “At first I think it will be freaky,” Peter Stone, a computer scientist at the University of Texas at Austin admits. “Some people will need the window darkened so they don’t freak out.”

Read more of the original article at The New York Times.