By Ed Pierce, Fleet Industry Marketer

Marketing success in many fields still revolves around many indirect success measures – share of voice, cost per impression, share of impressions, and in the digital age, number of followers, website traffic, website interactions, and so on.

Yet, B2B marketing must measure success in more direct terms – revolving around sales success.

During my fleet B2B marketing career, I’ve worked hard to plan and implement marketing programs tied to sales and executive teams. Many times, they use the terms demand gen and lead gen interchangeably, but there are significant differences that marketing leaders should understand.

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Telematics can deliver immediate benefits to your fleet, but those benefits won’t be sustained if there are gaps in your fleet safety program.

Does this sound familiar? Your organization adopted telematics and you saw an immediate drop in your drivers’ at-risk behavior, but now the honeymoon period is over you’re seeing the collision rate inch back upward. This is probably due to gaps in your fleet safety program.

Download eDriving’s free “When the Telematics Honeymoon is Over” ebook to learn how to identify, prioritize and address those gaps to give your organization the best chance of sustaining risk reductions over time.

WLTP and IFRS 16 were key fleet issues of 2018, says Dr. Jörg Löffler, Fleet Logistics CEO

WLTP (Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicles Test Procedure) and IFRS 16 (International Financial Reporting Standards) were two of the biggest fleet issues of 2018 and this year fleet mobility and powertrain policy will be near the top of a list of fleet managers’ concerns. So says Dr. Jörg Löffler, Chief Executive Officer at Europe-based fleet management specialist, Fleet Logistics.

In a wide-reaching review of the state of the international fleet arena, Dr. Löffler said that one of the biggest issues in recent months had been the introduction of the new WLTP regime.

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Detroit Free Press

With frigid temperatures sweeping the country, many car owners are asking: How often should I start my car to warm it up?

Turns out, the answer doesn’t lie in frequency, says Mike Calkins, manager of technical services at AAA. If a driver were to start their engine in extremely cold weather, Calkins says they would need to get it up to full operating temperature, which is best accomplished through driving the car around.

Read the article at Detroit Free Press.

The Drive

In Denver, Uber is now trying to integrate its ride-hailing service with public transit by showing multiple trip options on its app.

Through a partnership with Denver’s Regional Transportation District (RTD), the Uber app can now show users how to get to their destinations on public transit. A “Transit” option now appears on the app, showing things like real-time departure and arrival times, and walking directions to nearby stations and said users will soon be able to buy digital RTD tickets through its app.

Read the article at The Drive.

Digital Trends

In a new study, transportation planner Professor Adam Millard-Ball of the University of California, Santa Cruz has been researching the way that autonomous vehicles would respond to parking situations.

He points out that autonomous vehicles don’t have the same incentive to park as do manually controlled vehicles and could cause gridlock.

When a driver arrives at their destination, they necessarily have to park their car. But an autonomous vehicle can keep cruising around once its passenger has disembarked, and it may be incentivized to do so by parking costs.

Read the article at Digital Trends.

Safety+Health

Safety professionals whose employers are reluctant to invest in occupational safety may face an additional challenge when building their case: multifaceted math.

Although calculating a return on investment in safety lacks a universal formula, many experts agree that the exercise is worth the effort to support an investment that yields positive results.

“When improving safety for the merit of just having a safer workplace is not enough, it’s often a very powerful argument with leadership to help explain the cost of safety by showing the economic benefits of safety,” said Ken Kolosh, manager of statistics at the National Safety Council.

Read the article at Safety+Health.

The New York Times

Nissan has cancelled plans to build its new X-Trail sport utility vehicle in Britain and will produce it solely in Japan.

Declining sales of diesel vehicles and the uncertainty over Britain’s departure from the European Union has made it harder to plan for the future.

“Nissan has increased its investments in new powertrains and technology for its future European vehicles,” Nissan’s Europe chairman, Gianluca de Ficchy, said in a letter to workers at the Sunderland plant. “Therefore, the company has decided to optimize its investments in Europe by consolidating X-Trail production in Kyushu.

Read the article at The New York Times.

Fortune

The next time a polar vortex rips through the U.S., electric vehicle owners should be prepared to be frustrated if they don’t take special care of their battery-powered rides.

Cold conditions are a drain on battery range, no matter the car brand. But other predicaments are particular to Tesla.

Tesla made a door design decision that is coming back to bite some buyers. The Model 3’s handles are flush with the exterior of the car and require customers to push on one side, then pull on the other to open them. Ice is making that maneuver difficult for drivers who’ve posted pictures online of their frozen handles.

Read the article at Fortune.

Harvard Business Review

Highly automated vehicles (HAVs) – vehicles that drive themselves some or all of the time – should help reduce the number of road crashes by shifting responsibility for driving from humans to machines.

The systems underlying HAVs, namely sensors, radar, and communication devices, are costly compared to older (less safe) vehicles. The inability to purchase HAVs outright may be circumvented by offering these vehicles for-hire.

It has been estimated that using a robotaxi will cost consumers nearly three times more – on a per mile basis – than owning an older vehicle.

Read the article at Harvard Business Review.