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April 9, 2022 – Battery-powered cars and trucks tend to be far heavier than their gas-burning counterparts.
That extra bulk translates into a mixed bag of benefits and concerns, especially when it comes to safety.
The occupants of heavy vehicles tend to fare better in an accident. Despite the extra pounds, most of the current crop of electric vehicles decelerate at distances in line with – and sometimes better than – similarly sized gas vehicles.
via Autoblog
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April 10, 2022 – The improved efficiency requirements announced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) are looking to result in a fleetwide average for new cars and light trucks of 49 miles per gallon by model year 2026.
NHTSA estimates that its updated rules will mean the average 2029-model-year vehicle would cost $960 more than the average car today but the lifetime gains through fuel savings would be $1280, which means that buyers will save an average of $320 thanks to these more efficient vehicles.
Another way to think about it, as described by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, is that if you’re filling up four times a month today, you’d only have to stop at a gas station three times a month if you’re driving one of these more-efficient vehicles.
via Car and Driver
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April 7, 2022 – Extensive real-world testing by Kia reveals how your choice of music can directly affect electric car battery range. Using a leading authority in psychoacoustics and sound science, Kia discovered which genres of music make for maximum EV miles.
With a variety of categories ranging from up-tempo pop to classical, Kia has uncovered a genre of music that can make EV drivers four times more efficient. The study was overseen by Dr Duncan Williams, a lecturer at the University of Salford, and saw participants wearing a device to record biometric measurements.
The playlist included Kanye West, Adele and Beethoven’s ‘Symphony No. 9 in D Minor’. In fact, Beethoven produced the most efficient driving of all from the test participants. Despite accounting for 32.5 percent of the playlist, only 7.7 percent of the EV6’s battery range was used while listening to the choral symphony.
via Motoring Electric
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April 7, 2022 – For the 2022 model year, more automakers built their cars to better withstand and avoid crashes, according to the latest ratings announced Thursday by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
A total of 69 models earned a 2022 Top Safety Pick+ designation, which is considered the most rigorous independent safety rating in the automotive industry. Last year at this time, 49 models earned the accolade. Another 36 models in 2022 testing earned the next highest rating of Top Safety Pick, to bring the total to 105 models out of about 220 tested.
Every 2022 Volvo and Genesis model earned a TSP+, marking a rare sweep for the brands, though it’s easier to accomplish with lineups that consist of only five key models. Hyundai Motor Group, parent company of Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis, earned the most total safety picks, with 11 TSP+ and 10 TSP awards.
via The Car Connection
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April 11, 2022 – Average national gasoline prices dropped to $4.11 a gallon on Sunday, the lowest level since the average hit $4.33 on March 6, according to auto club AAA. The last time a losing streak endured for this long was in September 2020.
Lower fuel costs offer some relief to American consumers who have been grappling with higher prices from food to housing amid decades-high inflation. The Biden administration’s decision at the end of last month to order the largest oil release in history from its reserves, amounting to a million barrels of oil a day for six months, has helped cool prices.
Pump prices could pull back to the $3.50-$4 a gallon range by Memorial Day, said Bob Yawger, director of the futures division at Mizuho Securities. The decline would correlate to West Texas Intermediate crude futures trading in the $85-100 a barrel range, he said.
via Autoblog
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By Ed Pierce, Director of Stakeholder Relations, Inertia Marketing
“Digital selling is taking over…are you prepared?” “Identify the existing gaps in the desired sales experience.” “Dealing with scale in a digital-first future.”
As a fleet marketer, you have surely seen the steady stream of alarming online opinions from generalist research firms and one-dimensional product vendors. They start by fearmongering — “Change is coming!” …duh – and offer snake oil salesmen-like promises of technology that can remedy every symptom.
As any fleet marketer knows, the road to a future-proof marketing nirvana is littered with unknowns; unforeseen economic conditions; unavailable application-specific proof, untried integrations with existing technologies, unbudgeted expenses that won’t see the light of day in budget-constrained businesses, and many other reasons the journey can come all undone.
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Distracted driving isn’t just bad for people, it’s bad for business
By Paul Atchley, PhD, eDriving’s Brain Science Advisor
Distracted Driving Awareness Month (April) is a good time to take stock of the current status of road safety in the United States, think about progress toward zero fatalities on our roads, and examine how we are doing as we tackle threats to safety, old and new.
This March, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released its analysis of motor vehicle crash data from 2020, which provides us a good look at where we are. The results are not encouraging.
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