Reprogramming your vehicles’ engines may be the fastest and cheapest — and Derive can do it for you

By Mark Boada, Executive Editor

Getting better fuel efficiency is one of the fleet industry’s major goals, for two reasons: reducing its single greatest category of expense and cutting back on its carbon footprint.

There are many ways of achieving those objectives, but one of the simplest is to acquire higher-MPG vehicles as fleets retire their equipment. After all, OEMs are under a federal mandate to improve the fuel efficiency of the vehicles they sell, and every year they offer increasingly fuel-efficient powertrains of all kinds.

But there are two drawbacks to this approach: it’s expensive and slow.

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By Guillaume Bourst, Global Product Director, Wheels, Inc.

In Why Company Culture is the Key to a Synergistic Global Fleet, I examined six potential pillars for your fleet culture.

One pillar centers around innovation, disruption and mobility. Let’s take a deeper dive into this topic while keeping the hat of a global fleet manager.

“The rise of new mobility solutions will disrupt the fleet market…”
“People won’t be interested in a company vehicle…”
“Everything will change everywhere—tomorrow…”

Just about every day, we all hear some form of concern about the future of fleet.

Here’s the truth: Fleet is changing but at a different pace in every market. The solutions may widely differ between an urban and a rural environment and some people will embrace that innovation, while others will prefer their traditional company vehicle in the near future.

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Editor’s Note: This article was first published in FMW in April, 2018, but the message could not be more timely

By Jason S. Hicks, CAFM

It’s a Sunday afternoon and the snow starts falling. Then the wind starts howling, and then the power goes out. It’s a blizzard that’s going to paralyze your region for days.

As fleet managers, we know that someday we may be required to operate and manage our fleet during a blizzard, hurricane, earthquake or any of a number of different kinds of disasters. And while you may well have developed a plan to keep your fleet running, it’s important to ask yourself: just how well-prepared are you?

Have you fully thought through all that could go wrong to disrupt your fleet and how you would address each kind of challenge so you can help your government organization deliver the emergency services your citizenry will depend upon?

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Wards Auto

Distracted driving causes at least nine deaths in the U.S. and another 100 people are injured every day, according to the National Safety Council.

Thanks to the mechanics of deep learning and constant improvements in computer vision technology and algorithms, there are better ways being tested to monitor and alert drivers when they slip up on safety while driving, either intentionally or unintentionally.

If researchers and automakers produce positive results by attacking driver distraction with artificial intelligence and visual monitoring systems, there is a good chance the auto industry will become legally mandated to provide them.

Read the article at Wards Auto.

Hydrocarbon Processing

Japanese carmaker Honda has brought forward a goal to only sell electric and hybrid cars in Europe by three years to 2022, a leading company executive said on Wednesday.

Last month, Honda said it would phase out all diesel vehicle sales in Europe by 2021 in favour of electrified vehicles.

The carmaker had said in March it intended “to move 100% of its European sales to electrified powertrains by 2025.”

“By 2022 we are confident we can have the full range electrified and actually deliver something quite extraordinary,” Tom Gardner, senior vice president at Honda Motor Europe, said.

Read the article at Hydrocarbon Processing.

Newsweek

The futuristic door handles on Tesla’s Model S cars are being blamed for the death of a doctor who was unable to be rescued from his vehicle following a crash in February, according to a lawsuit.

Omar Awan, a 48-year-old anesthesiologist, died after losing control and crashing his high performance car into a tree in South Florida.

According to a wrongful death lawsuit, filed in Broward County, a police officer close to the accident immediately went to help. However the Model S’s door handles, which are designed to protrude out and “auto present”, malfunctioned and failed to do so.

Read the article at Newsweek.

The Detroit Bureau

A newly released study by Adobe Analytics’ shows that drivers, particularly millennials, are much more comfortable with advanced technology in vehicles and are more willing to buy electric vehicles or those with connectivity features.

People who are ready for the self-driving future now have big plans for the time they used to spend driving: nearly half of drivers (49%) intend to eat and drink while being driven, followed by talking on the phone (47%), holding face-to-face conversations (31%), writing emails (42%) or even working (36%). Thirty percent plan to nap.

A quarter of drivers with built-in voice control functionality are handling tasks they would otherwise take care of outside the car, such as texting (49%), shopping (9%) and searching sports scores (9%).

Read the article at The Detroit Bureau.

The Environmental Magazine

Electric vehicles (EVs) have been around about as long as cars themselves.

Analysts expect sales of passenger EVs to overtake conventional internal combustion-based vehicles by 2038 (with EV sales topping 50 million a year as compared to conventional vehicle sales of 47 million by then).

With about 15 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions emanating from the tailpipes of our internal combustion cars and light trucks, and gasoline becoming more and more expensive, the inevitable switchover to EVs—despite efforts by the Trump administration to reduce national fuel efficiency standards and bolster the ailing oil industry—is going to be a win-win for consumers and the planet. 2038 can’t come too soon!

Read the article at The Environmental Magazine.

The New York Times

Breaking with some of their biggest rivals, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler and Toyota said Monday they were intervening on the side of the Trump administration in an escalating battle with California over fuel economy standards for automobiles.

Their decision pits them and others against their peers, including Honda and Ford, who this year reached a deal to follow California’s stricter rules.

Nearly two dozen other states have filed suit against the Trump administration, alongside California, over the emissions rules. California and the other states maintain that its authority to set standards on tailpipe pollution was granted lawfully by Congress as part of the Clean Air Act, one of the country’s foundational environmental laws, and that its revocation would be unlawful.

Read the article at The New York Times.

Pocket

With all the demands on him every day, billionaire Warren Buffett learned a long time ago that the greatest commodity of all is time.

He simply mastered the art and practice of setting boundaries for himself. That’s why this Buffett quote remains a powerful life lesson. The mega-mogul said: “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”

We have to know what to shoot for to simplify our lives. It means saying no over and over again to the unimportant things flying in our direction every day and remaining focused on saying yes to the few things that truly matter.

Read the article at Pocket.