Successful enterprises create a culture where new ideas are encouraged from anywhere in the organization and from any level

By John Wysseier, CEO and President, The CEI Group

As I’ve said here before, to survive in an age of constant change driven by continuous advances in digital technology, companies need to adopt a culture of constant change, which is to say, a culture of positive disruption. Because business culture starts at the top, it’s the job of the CEO to create a disruptive culture.

As Jean-Pierre Clamadieu, CEO of chemical giant, Solvay SA, recently said, disruptive culture is not a solo act. The CEO “is not a transformational hero carrying the weight of transformation alone. A CEO needs to have a strong team to support change.”

While the same applies throughout an organization’s entire management structure, I want to focus now on the C-suite. After all, if the rest of the C-suite hasn’t bought into disruption as an organizational value and reinforced its importance, the vision isn’t going to happen.

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By Mark Boada, Executive Editor

Anthony Sasso, head of TD Equipment finance, said there’s a chance that lease finance rates will fall further by the end of this year, driven by concerns over a possible slowdown in the U.S. economy.

Sasso said for the most credit-worthy lease customers, equipment financing rates are generally linked to the ICE Swap Rate, a financial index that coincides with movements in interest rates on U.S. Treasurys.

As of June 6, the 5-year Swap Rate was 1.875%. The rates financial institutions charge equipment lease customers reflect an additional “spread” above that rate that varies according to an assessment of the lessee’s or borrower’s credit risk and collateral value.

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Releases Updated 2019 Open Enrollment Schedule

Driving Dynamics Inc. announced enhancements to its legacy advanced performance behind-the-wheel safety training program, DriveReady Advantage™ (DriveReady) and publication of the summer-fall open enrollment schedule for the course.

DriveReady, a foundational skills safety training course, has recently been updated to address critical factors affecting today’s fleet drivers, while continuing to reinforce the company’s cornerstone One Second Advantage™ fundamental safe driving principles.

Along with the enhancements, Driving Dynamics has published its latest open enrollment schedule. The company has been offering its DriveReady class through a year-round, open registration format at more than 200 locations in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. This gives fleet operators the option to send only one driver to a class, or many, at dates and locations that are the most convenient for each driver.

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PYMNTS

About a month after reports surfaced that commercial fleet payments technology firm FLEETCOR is facing a lawsuit over claims of anticompetitive behavior, a new report from Citron Research is accusing the company of clean energy fraud.

On Friday (June 7), MarketWatch said Citron’s report claims FLEETCOR is operating “the largest clean energy fraud in U.S. history,” arguing that the company’s Clean Advantage program, which enables customers to make their fleets carbon neutral or zero emission, uses less than 1 percent of the money customers pay into the program to actually offset carbon footprints.

Read the article at PYMNTS

The Detroit Bureau

General Motors President Mark Reuss said he said he sees the cost of a BEV and a comparable gas model will “reach parity a lot sooner than people think.”

The auto industry is planning to spend in excess of $100 billion over the next decade on the development of electrified vehicles, pure battery-electric models, in particular. Getting costs down to parity is clearly one of the auto industry’s mantras.

That’s one of the reasons so many automakers, even industry giants like Ford, Volkswagen and Toyota are opting to partner with traditional competitors to help spread development costs.

Read the article at The Detroit Bureau.

BBC News

Since the EU referendum in 2016, investment in the UK car industry has fallen in the last two years, slumping 46.5% in 2017 alone.

Ford, Honda, Jaguar Land Rover and Nissan are cutting production and jobs in the UK

Air quality concerns and taxation changes have led to a big drop-off in diesel sales, contributing to a 7% fall in new car registrations in the UK in 2018.

To get their emissions levels down, carmakers are going to need to sell a lot more electric vehicles, but without a charging infrastructure, the market isn’t quite ready for electric cars.

Read the article at BBC News.

The New York Times

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made Texas the latest state to ban red-light traffic cameras, joining at least seven other states that already have statutes prohibiting the cameras.

The Texas ban takes effect on Sept. 1

Opponents of the cameras say that the cameras contribute to rear-end collisions caused by sudden braking and that the enforcement is not transparent.

Supporters say the payments for the tickets contribute to government coffers, and use of the cameras reduces serious traffic accidents, such as front-into-side, or “T-bone,” collisions.

Read the article at The New York Times.

The Washington Post

Automakers appear unlikely to sway the Trump administration from abandoning President Barack Obama’s signature climate policy to improve mileage standards to nearly 51 miles per gallon for 2025 car and light truck models.

“The automakers’ efforts are too little and too late to stop the Trump administration from eviscerating the Obama clean car standards,” Bill Becker, president of Becker Environmental Consulting said. “The Trump proposal, if adopted, will contribute to tens of thousands of premature deaths and millions of incidences of serious illnesses, undermine states’ compliance with the Clean Air Act, and impose serious impacts on businesses.”

Read the article at The Washington Post.

Forbes

Jaguar Land Rover and BMW will work together on new electric drive units to share costs and accelerate development of future models.

Teams of JLR and BMW experts will engineer the electric-drive units. Each partner will be able to customize and manufacture its own.

“The transition to automated, connected, electric and shared transportation represents the greatest technological shift in the automotive industry in a generation,” said Nick Rogers, JLR engineering director

Read the article at Forbes.

CNET

Google has been busy updating Google Maps in the past month, first rolling out speed limit indicators and then speed camera alerts. The latest feature to join Google’s map navigation app is a speedometer.

If you’re already looking at the app to check on directions, you can see your speed in a glance and keep your eyes on the road rather than darting back and forth between the app and your dashboard.

With the speedometer feature, you can also report a speed camera trap or an incident, like a car crash or a traffic jam.

Read the article at CNET.