It’s an exciting time to own a fleet. But it isn’t getting any easier to operate one, as connected vehicles, electrification, shared mobility, autonomous technology, and smart cities converge with traditional fleet processes. Chris Brown’s Auto Focus blog is designed to help fleet operators navigate the increasingly dizzying pace of change, improve fleet efficiencies today, and form their strategies for the future.
As the new technology hype machine works in overdrive, it’s time to take a deep breath and concentrate on product releases that we can experience for ourselves and drive. Remember those?
Lyft gets a ready supply of vehicles while Sixt gets an alternative outlet for its fleet — yet this partnership’s potential long-term evolution could be the true art in this deal.
Ford’s electric F-150 is due by mid-2022. Is this a realistic assessment of the electrification timeline, or is Ford late to the game?
Within three years, North American fleets will see a doubling of zero-emissions models, though the Fuso eCanter won’t be one of them.
CARB’s new targets may be unrealistic, but will they propel the electrification market? Also: Tesla releases Autopilot crash data; autonomous start up attacks the middle mile.
Vocational and business fleet drivers don’t get the attention that truckers do. Yet they too are on the front lines, and their jobs often bring them into uncontrolled environments every day.
Carsharing networks are providing wheels to essential workers. After the coronavirus pandemic subsides, this could usher in a new era of “shared mobility for fleets 2.0” for other business-to-business use cases.
Right now, a card on the dash saying “this vehicle has been hygienically cleaned” means a lot more than a five-star user rating. Looking past the pandemic, this brief cessation of non-essential travel might produce even greater change.
Of any manufacturer, Ford is best poised to electrify a global work van. But it’ll still need competitive products, supplier and upfitter partnerships, charging infrastructure and standardization, and federal incentives to create the ecosystem for electric commercial vehicles.
As proliferation of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) increases, skilled labor, equipment, and training costs will increase as well. Fleet operators can’t mitigate these financial burdens by cutting corners on ADAS recalibration and repairs.
We can finally see the horizon for electric trucks and vans, though it will take a range of stakeholders — from funding, infrastructure planning, tech training, and maintenance — to drive adoption.
Battery electric vehicles lose their top spots on a prestigious green car ranking; where EV charging will kill your budget; how to mitigate the Big Brother talk with in-cab cameras; where autonomy happens first; and more in this week’s roundup of mobility news for fleets.
With the idea that management can now literally look over the shoulder of drivers, this brings a new dimension to the Big Brother conversation.
If an automaker can make an electric truck like the one I’m laying out here, I’m all in.
Remember compliance cars? California Air Resources Board (CARB) proposed Advanced Clean Truck rule feels like its 2012 rule dictating zero-emission passenger cars. Only this time, fleets are involved.
