The Fleet Spot
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Pacific Gas and Electric Company and Efficient Drivetrains Incorporated (EDI) have unveiled two new utility trucks, including the industry’s first electric hybrid drivetrain Class 5 truck featuring 120 kilowatts of exportable power capable of providing power to homes and businesses during outages
The vehicles feature the “EDI Drive” plug-in electric hybrid (PHEV) system, which provides up to 30 miles of all-electric range and an additional 300 miles of range in PHEV mode and an 80% reduction in emissions when compared to conventional trucks. In addition, these vehicles are the industry’s first to also offer both parallel and series hybrid modes, allowing the vehicle to maximize fuel efficiency in both highway and in-city driving conditions.
READ MORE to learn about the capabilities
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Wheels, Inc. took home two American Business Awards (also known as “Stevies”) last week.
Wheels’ new public website won a Silver Stevie for Best Web Writing/Content, while the company’s Results + performance management methodology earned a Bronze Stevie in one of the Best New Product or Service categories.
“At Wheels, we are committed to providing our clients with the most advanced service capabilities, technology and performance management methodologies,” said Gail Wheeler, Senior Director of Marketing at Wheels. “Over the last year we have completed some very significant projects that have helped us continue that initiative, and we are extremely grateful to the Stevie judges for recognizing our hard work.”
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The scope of fleet connectivity is broadening. While fuel efficiency, etc. remain at the core – how can these be improved by new connectivity options such as V2X, autonomous vehicles or smart city initiatives?
Connected Fleets USA 2014 Conference & Exhibition (Nov 20 – 21, 2014, Westin Buckhead, Atlanta, GA) will not only discuss advances in traditional fleet management, but also assess these new opportunities.
READ MORE to check out the latest agenda and speaker line-up
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Verizon is deploying a fleet management solution for Caltrans, the California Department of Transportation, to enhance the department’s visibility into the operations of its fleet assets.
With deployment to nearly 7,500 state-owned vehicles, including sedans, trucks, snowplows and portable signage, slated for completion by the end of September, Caltrans intends to use the Verizon Networkfleet GPS-based units to assist in the dispatch of its statewide fleet and improve the department’s overall fleet asset management practices to boost responsiveness, drive efficiency and reduce costs. The fleet management solution will also enable Caltrans to automate its manual usage reports (called Cartags) currently used by department employees. Caltrans anticipates that the automation of employee usage reports alone will yield estimated annual savings of 28,000 salary hours, or nearly $500,000.
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Fleet Customer Experience
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Jeofrey Bean, Author
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Which companies are setting customer experience expectations for your business?
By Jeofrey Bean
Knowing which companies are setting experience expectations is more important than ever. It goes beyond customer satisfaction and onto innovating the next generation customer experience.
Whether on the job, at home or relaxing on vacation, your present and future customers are having experiences that impact their expectations of you and your business. According to J.D. Power and Associates Chief Research Officer Gina Pingitore, “When you have a company that sets the new bar on expectations, it sets the bar for every company.” For example, “Amazon fundamentally changed the way that people interact and expect to interact with all online providers.”
You are not in competition with Amazon, yet part of your business is online. Why should you care about the Amazon customer experience? Because when people have experiences, they do not sort and compare them in neatly organized industry, product or service categories. They will compare their online experience with your company to their experience with Amazon.
This is true for the entire customer experience continuum. People compare the interactions they have with your messages / promises, people, processes, products and services to those interactions they have already experienced. And chances are very good that you are being compared to the extremes, the worst and the very best experiences.
READ MORE to learn how many experience leaders build a detailed and meaningful understanding of customers from a day-in-the-life perspective.
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Global Fleet Management
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Kevin Moore, Telogis
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There are many aspects of global fleet management that can be daunting for the fleet professional. Perhaps the most difficult is also the most tangible: on an average day, the fleet manager could be thousands of miles away from the vehicles they oversee. Technology is bridging the gap. Opening NAFA’s International Fleet Academy (IFA), keynote speaker Kevin Moore, Vice President Automotive OEM Sales, Telogis, Inc. will discuss how telematics are changing the landscape for fleet.
Moore will detail how cloud-based location intelligence software platforms will have a transformative effect on the way that global businesses optimize their mobile assets and critical data, and will share his insights relating to innovation in developing actionable information for fleet tools including dashboards, managing trends for fuels, safety, driver behavior, and vehicle usage, disaster relief strategies, and more.
For a limited time, attendees who register before September 30 can take advantage of early-bird pricing. More information is available at: www.nafafleetacademy.org
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In conjunction with the typical Internet feeding frenzy that goes hand in hand with the announcement of each new iPhone, Apple has been cited in countless headlines recently after its debut of its new Apple Watch on September 9. The so-called “smartwatch” is far from an industry first – Samsung, Motorola and Pebble all have models on the market, and who can forget 2003’s Fossil Wrist PDA? – but as per usual, Apple’s entry is garnering more than its fair share of media attention.
The Apple Watch (“iWatch” to many) has also raised interest of a more ominous sort from certain regulatory bodies. Last week, multiple automotive outlets in the United Kingdom ran stories quoting officials from that country’s Department for Transport as saying that use of an iWatch while driving would carry the same penalty as use of a mobile phone. For the Brits, then, getting nabbed checking an alert on one’s wrist might mean the same 100-pound fine (about $160) that was instated last August.
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