By John Petrucelli, Vice President of R&D and Product Innovation, Motus

It may come as no surprise, but the number one question we hear from businesses with mobile employees is: How can we cut costs in our vehicle program?

The truth is, cost savings are easier than ever to achieve in today’s digital age. Not by paying mobile workers less or automating and diminishing your workforce, but by clearly understanding how you can transform processes with new technology. What’s really holding businesses back from cost savings is a lack of understanding around how seamless these changes can be.

For a long time, companies have thought about their vehicle programs in three main categories: company-provided vehicles, flat allowance programs and cents-per-mile programs.

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By Dr. Jan Ferri-Reed

Employers large and small are concerned about the question of employee engagement.

Increasingly, experts are finding that most American workers are not very “engaged” on the job. By definition, engaged employees are more productive, in tune with the organization’s goals, and enthusiastic about performing their jobs. However, surveys conducted by the Gallup Organization paint a very dark picture when it comes to the question “How engaged are American workers?” The answer is… Not very engaged.

According to Gallup, as many as 70 percent of American workers are actively disengaged. That translates to an estimated $300 billion lost annually by disengaged workers who are unmotivated, under-performing and mistake prone!

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By Mark Boada, Executive Editor

A “perfect storm” is forcing government fleets to outsource an activity that the overwhelming majority still complete in-house: routine vehicle maintenance.

That’s the outlook from Steve Saltzgiver, a 30-year-plus fleet management executive who’s spent the last six years as a consultant with Mercury Associates, in an hour-long interview with Fleet Management Weekly. Mr. Saltzgiver had previously been a journey technician, transit supervisor, and a fleet executive for a city, two states and two corporations, executive director of the National Conference of State Fleet Administrators and is currently a member of the NAFA Board of Directors.

In Part One, Mr. Saltzgiver said that in the face of an accelerating shortage of qualified auto technicians and increasingly complex vehicles, government fleets may need to begin considering the outsourcing of their routine maintenance. In Part Two, he talks about the economics of fleet routine maintenance in the public and private sectors, and explains why outsourcing is usually less expensive.

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SingularityHub

It will take a while for people to get fully comfortable with driverless, electric and shared vehicles. People are going to start thinking about rides as an experience, not just a way to get from A to B.

“There will be two and a half billion people moving into cities over the next 15 years,” Raj Kapoor, Lyft’s chief strategy officer and business head of autonomous driving, said. “There’s no way adding more roads is going to solve that problem. There’s no way selling more cars is going to solve that problem. We need to rethink how people get from A to B, and a lot of it is to share the transportation that’s there.”

Read the article at SingularityHub.

Mashable

Car-sharing, which involves renting someone else’s car or borrowing a car from a fleet, has some major roadblocks. It’s inherently difficult to get people who already have cars to take someone else’s vehicle. For car-less folks, renting a car means driving yourself — and parking, not drinking, staying focused, following traffic rules, and more.

With ride-hailing, even if you have a car, ordering a Lyft is a smaller, supplemental cost with fewer responsibilities. We’d rather a stranger drive us around than drive a stranger’s car. 35 percent of survey-takers said they replaced car rental services with Lyft and Uber rides — not a good sign for car-sharing.

Read the article at Mashable.

The Verge

For over a year in the suburban Phoenix area, Waymo’s fleet of upfitted self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans has been offering free trips to the 400-plus members of its Early Rider program. When the service is made available to the general public, the company plans on offering fully autonomous rides with a Waymo employee in the car only as a chaperone.

Fleet management is one of the hidden challenges that will determine whether autonomous technology succeeds or fails. Driverless vehicles in such fleets will have to be on the road almost around the clock to offset the cost of the sensors, computer chips, software, and other systems that allow them to drive safely and reach their destinations without human operators.

Read the article at The Verge.

The Detroit Bureau

A new study by the University of Memphis’ FedEx Institute of Technology found that losing control of the vehicle and the threat of computer virus are the two most important reservations or fears consumers have about autonomous vehicles.

Ford Motor Co. has issued a 44-page report saying the company’s goal is to make Ford the most trustworthy brand of autonomous vehicle on the road. The report, “A Matter of Trust,” outlines the technology and procedures Ford is using to deploy its fleet of autonomous test vehicles.

Read the article at The Detroit Bureau.

Forbes

You can either work from the office or from a fixed location outside of the office such as your home or a coffee shop. The advent of autonomous vehicles (AVs), however, creates a third option: working from car.

By relieving people of their driving responsibilities, AVs – specifically the Level 5 vehicles that will enable complete autonomy – will free up hundreds of hours per passenger per year. Many analysts are theorizing that the increased efficiency and connectivity offered by autonomous vehicles will foster a “post-urban” society in which a larger percentage of the population will live in the suburbs and exurbs.

Read the article at Forbes.

The Detroit News

On Aug. 7, Elon Musk tweeted he was considering taking the company private and that funding had been secured for the deal – Tesla’s stock shot up 11 percent that day. Six days later, he revealed that the money wasn’t locked down and later said the plan had been scrubbed. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly investigating Tesla for possible manipulation of the stock price.

“Prior to the go-private episode, his credibility was in question, although investors still had overall confidence in the guy,” Erik Gordon, a business and law professor at the University of Michigan, said Saturday. “This whole go-private episode has taken his credibility close to zero.”

Read the article at The Detroit News.

The New York Times

Some people might not be fazed when they leave behind a role they considered profound. Others might feel sadness or a sense of loss they don’t understand. Anger, frustration and anxiety can also crop up from time to time. Further still, you might feel a confusing mix of all of those emotions – or none of them at all.

There’s also the realization of who we’re leaving behind. Colleagues can serve as “pseudo-family.”

“While we work, our lives happen — births, deaths, breakups — and our colleagues are often there to mourn with us and to celebrate the new transitions in our personal lives,” Dr. Orbé-Austin a psychologist in New York said. “We share our lives in the workplace often in very intimate ways. All of these things provide deepening connections, support, and built-in social opportunities that we sometimes take for granted.”

Read the article at The New York Times.