This year, Art Liggio president and CEO of Driving Dynamics, was inducted into the Automotive Fleet Hall of Fame. A life-long vocation spanning three decades, his passion for reducing driver injuries and saving lives has been at the center of his fleet safety career, but that’s not where his story began.

By Janice Sutton, Editor in Chief

If Art Liggio had told his younger self that someday he would head a highly respected fleet driver safety company and be honored for his decades of contributions to the fleet industry, he probably would have been amused and quickly rejected the notion.

Born into a devout Catholic family, in Yonkers, NY, Art was called to join the priesthood and entered the seminary. But over the years, his passion for music grew. He graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree in sacred music. At the time it looked like a career as a composer lay ahead. Again his life took an unexpected sharp turn.

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By Ed Smith, President, Agile Fleet

A global pandemic is resulting in thousands of dollars per day worth of vehicles sitting idle in parking lots yet many financial officers, business analysts and fleet managers haven’t started making substantive adjustments to their operations.

The pandemic won’t end tomorrow. When will your organization make the changes to save, and even enhance, your fleet? The time is now. The good news is that it may not be as difficult as you may think.

Understanding the bottom-line costs of idle vehicles during the COVID-19 pandemic is critical to saving, and perhaps even enhancing, your fleet and maybe even your enterprise.

Nearly every segment of the fleet market is experiencing low utilization rates. Idle vehicles are costing organizations hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars per month. Yet, many fleets have not started making changes to the quantity, composition, or use of the fleet. Why?

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Check Out AGILE’s FLEET WASTE CALCULATOR

Car and Driver

President-elect Joe Biden’s excitement over electric vehicles prove he’s bullish on the power of EVs to make a difference in the fight against climate change.

First, his Day One “unprecedented executive actions” include moving the federal government procurement system toward 100 percent “clean energy and zero-emissions vehicles” as well as making sure U.S. fuel-economy standards are set so they get “100 percent of new sales for light- and medium-duty vehicles [to] be electrified” alongside annual improvements for heavy-duty vehicles.

Second, Biden’s “Year One Legislative Agenda” is to include accelerating the deployment of electric vehicles by working with governors and mayors to deploy over 500,000 new public charging outlets by the end of 2030. The plan also calls for restoring the federal government’s electric-vehicle tax credit and targeting it toward middle-class consumers while prioritizing electric vehicles made in America when possible.

Read the article at Car and Driver.

MSN

Ford debuted its first all-electric E-Transit Van. The new van travels 126 miles between charges and has a generator to power your tools.

The E-Transit will come in three heights and three lengths, plus chassis and cutaway models, deliver 266 hp and 317 lb-ft of torque and have an estimated 126-mile range. Ford says it will cost less than $45,000 when it goes on sale late in 2021.

Ford says most Transits sold last year had upfitting in some form. The brand also notes that 13 such outfits are within 30 miles of the assembly plant in Missouri, meaning customers don’t have to take delivery before their E-Transit is customized; they go right to the upfitter.

Read the article at MSN.

Inside EVs

According to the new National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) report about the EV charging infrastructure in the U.S., the strong growth continued in Q1 2020.

The number of public charging points (AC and DC) increased during the first three months by 5,627 or 7.6% compared to the end of 2019, to 79,465. That’s actually more than 60 per day.

The expansion of public DC fast chargers is even quicker – by 10.6% to 13,591, although NREL notes that roughly half of those stalls are accessible only to Tesla vehicles (Tesla Supercharging network). Additionally, there are nearly 14,000 private EVSE (such as charging for transit fleets or employees only) – 3.2% more than as of the end of 2019. At the end of Q1, the total of public and private stations was close to 93,500.

Read the article at Inside EVs.

NHTSA

As you head out around the Thanksgiving holiday, you’ll likely see more law enforcement on the roads as part of Click It or Ticket. This campaign, from November 16-29, aims at enforcing seat belt use to help keep drivers and passengers safer on our roads.

In 2019, 9,466 unbuckled passenger vehicle occupants were killed in crashes in the United States. While that was a decrease from 2018, an early study for 2020 suggests that during the COVID-19 public health emergency, driving patterns and behaviors changed significantly. Of those drivers who remained on the roads, there was more risky behavior, including people not wearing seat belts.

Always place the shoulder belt across the middle of your chest and away from your neck, and place the lap belt across your hips, not your stomach. You should never put the shoulder belt behind your back or under your arm. And remember: always buckle up.

Read the article at NHTSA.

USA Today

Anthony Williams is a die-hard Las Vegas Raiders fan who will tell it to the world from the battery-operated “Rplate” digital license plate at the back end of his Tesla.

“I can put up my favorite sports team — mine is the Raiders — and I can change the background colors,” said Williams, who lives in Huntington Beach, California. “There are hundreds of messages to choose from on the app. It runs the gamut. There’s ‘Gone Fishing’ … or my neighbor is a huge Lakers fan, and when Kobe Bryant passed away, we both displayed ‘Kobe RIP.’”

The plate is functional, too. Running through an app on his phone, it relieves him of the hassle of going to California’s Department of Motor Vehicles for his registration, messing with plate stickers, and it can alert other drivers that his car is stolen. But his favorite feature is the message display on the plate, which he can change using the app to say whatever he fancies on any given day.

Read the article at USA Today.

Here’s how you can use the power of your fleet to inject more cash back into your business

ARI Fleet

It’s been quite a year with you and your business getting waffled by dozens of motivational, logistical, and financial challenges – one after another. With everything you’re facing, having capital at the ready is a must – to either fix a problem or invest in an unforeseen growth opportunity.

If you’re wondering where you could scrounge up cash at the moment, your liquidity sources may be parked right in front of you! And you don’t even have to sell them. Remarketing your fleet vehicles is always an option, but that isn’t necessarily the best choice if your volume decrease is temporary. Downsizing can hurt your performance and agility if you’ll need to quickly acquire replacement vehicles when your business is ready for them.

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By Anthony Sasso, President, TD Bank Equipment Finance Inc.

As we look down the road at 2021, there are some hopeful signs on the horizon.

While consumer spending is still down, the Cass Freight Index shows that shipping volumes are up from August and is now only 1.8% behind year over year—up 27.5% from April lows. FTR’s Trucking Conditions Index rose to 8.31, showing increased optimism for the industry thanks to the favorable rate environment. The sale of Class 8 trucks continues to recover, and spot rates are also going the right direction, which could be a sign of a rebounding economy.

Even with these hopeful signs, there are still more questions than answers for the year ahead. The biggest question—how the pandemic will play out in the months ahead—will impact everything else. Still, fleets can prepare for the uncertain environment to ensure they are set up for success. Here are a few ways they can make sure they are ready for the unknown.

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The Drive

Honda has received regulatory approval from the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism (MLIT) to begin selling vehicles equipped with Level 3 autonomous driving.

In a press release, Honda highlighted that it would begin the sale of the Honda Legend equipped with its all-new “Traffic Jam Pilot” feature by the end of the company’s fiscal year (March 31, 2021). The feature is reportedly similar to GM’s Super Cruise and Ford’s Active Drive Assist in the sense that all road conditions must be perfect before Traffic Jam Pilot can be activated.

While presently limited to vehicles sold in Japan, Honda’s Traffic Jam Pilot is slated to become the very first commercially available function demonstrating Level 3 autonomous driving. No automaker, Tesla included, has announced its ability to reach this milestone in such an advantageous timeline.

Read the article at The Drive.