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Detroit Free Press
As we learned during the Texas storms in February, a 2021 Ford F-150 Hybrid can even power a house during an electrical outage and provide heat, refrigeration and fresh coffee. Consumers are wondering about when electricity is lost and the all-electric car in the garage runs on a battery that requires a charge.
A Ford F-150 Hybrid can charge electric cars that have run out of juice. As long as you charge at 30 amps or less and have the correct charging adapter for the electric car, the 7.2 Kw Pro Power Onboard can recharge an electric car like it can power various tools and appliances.
If you have a home charging station, that would charge faster. “Instead of using a tow truck to haul an electric car to a charger, why not just bring the charger directly to the car?” Mike Levine, Ford North America product communications manager said.
Read the article at Detroit Free Press.
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MSN
Tesla updated its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software for some of its drivers – and warned them that the system “may do the wrong thing at the worst time.”
“Full Self-Driving is in early limited access Beta and must be used with additional caution. It may do the wrong thing at the worst time, so you must always keep your hands on the wheel and pay extra attention to the road. Do not become complacent,” the beta v9 release notes said, according to one driver’s screenshot.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk originally said that the beta v9 update would launch in 2018, before delaying its release. In an April tweet, Musk said that drivers would not have to wait past June, but pushed the timeline back again in a July 3 tweet where he admitted that he didn’t expect making self-driving cars to “be so hard.”
Read the article at MSN.
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Motor Trend
Stellantis is the new company formed by merging Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group, consisting of 14 brands The company is accelerating its plans and upping its spending on its electric vehicles, platforms, technology, batteries, and plants so that it can be a major player in the space around roughly the same timeline as competing automakers.
The automaker expects to have 55 electrified vehicles for sale in the United States and Europe by 2025. By 2030, battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles will account for more than 40 percent of sales in North America and 70 percent in Europe.
Engineers have developed four dedicated EV platforms: STLA Small, STLA Medium, STLA Large and STLA Frame to ensure the full gamut of vehicle types, sizes, and shapes, are offered as EVs, from subcompact Fiats to body-on-frame Ram trucks and commercial vans—a lucrative segment where Stellantis aims to beat Ford as the global leader.
Read the article at Motor Trend.
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Car and Driver
With more than 400 new cars, trucks, SUVs, and vans to choose from in 2021 shopping for a new set of wheels might feel like a daunting task. Each year, the Car and Driver Buyer’s Guide team leverages data from our strict regimen of instrumented tests, the expert subjective evaluations of our editors, and our knowledge of the market to select the top vehicles for a place on our Editors’ Choice list.
The vehicles named to our Editors’ Choice list are those that rank highly in their market segment; they comprise about one quarter of all the models currently for sale. The list includes those vehicles that were named to our 2021 10 Best list. But only vehicles that the C/D staff has had hands-on driving experience with are eligible for an Editors’ Choice award.
Read the article at Car and Driver.
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Credit/Halo/T-MOBILE
Fast Company
T-Mobile is announcing a collaboration with Halo, a 5G-powered driverless car service that doesn’t actually use autonomous vehicles or require 5G mobile broadband. The new service is coming to Las Vegas later this year with a fleet of remotely operated electric vehicles.
You use Halo’s app to summon a Kia Niroelectric vehicle. It arrives empty but under the control of a remote driver. You drive it to your destination. Then a remote driver takes over again and the car is no longer your problem. In Halo’s system, nine cameras feed video to a remote driver—whom Halo calls a pilot—with radar and ultrasonic sensors as a backup. The cars omit the expensive lidar sensors in most autonomous vehicles.
“You simply just hop off and go away, and the car disappears. You have better vision as a remote pilot than actually sitting inside the car,” says Halo founder and CEO Anand Nandakumar says. “It’s significantly cheaper than any other autonomous vehicle company.”
Read the article at Fast Company.
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By Ed Dubens, Founder/CEO of eDriving
Safety and sustainability are primary concerns for businesses today.
And, with driving for work being the most dangerous work activity many people do, and transportation being the main cause of air pollution in cities, the relationship between driver risk management and sustainability goals is one that should not be underestimated.
While the term ‘eco-driving’ is not new, it’s certainly been elevated to a buzzword right now. Why? Because companies are realizing the full impact they can have on the environment, and that sustainability is a business approach that can create long-term value.
Close to a quarter of energy-related global greenhouse gas emissions comes from transportation. So, it’s not surprising that companies are evaluating their transportation activities in relation to their sustainability goals.
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By Ed Pierce, President of ITA Communications. Fleet.
As mentioned in last month’s ‘A Call to Action,’ there are an average of 8.2 key stakeholders involved in business’ decision-making process, making it harder than ever for sales and marketing to contact and effectively communicate with all the key stakeholders.
Research has found that engaging prospects is the biggest problem facing B2B businesses, closely followed by finding sales-qualified leads. Solving these issues begins by determining the difference between a hot prospect and a cold lead.
Developing qualifying questions will allow your marketing team to ‘score’ a lead’s sales readiness based on factors such as the industry and size of the business, geographic location, and previous engagement with your brand.
A Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) who has indicated interest in what a brand has to offer is more likely to become a customer than other leads, and they’re more likely to be receptive to a sales pitch than a normal lead. Still, they have not made the step into a sales conversation yet.
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