By Steve Bender, President. Fleet Street Remarketing

As I sit here writing this, basking in the afterglow of the recent AFLA conference in beautiful Marco Island, I have to admit it’s kind of hard to believe that we’re already nearing the end of the year.

This year truly has been a blur. A hot mix of ups and downs, highs and lows, and without question the toughest challenges my family has ever faced.

For those of you who remember, our lives were turned upside down a little more than a year ago when my son Sean was struck and nearly killed by a boat as we looked for lobsters in the Florida Keys.

From the moment Sean’s life was tragically changed, the fleet community banded together and stood by our side. From the bottom of our hearts – to everyone in Fleet’s big, beautiful family – Thank You. A million times, Thank You.

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By Fleet Management Weekly Staff

Intellishift is a unified platform built for fleet people, by fleet people. With their customized solution, IntelliShift brings together disparate data from multiple systems to empower fleet managers with actionable insights.

One major client of IntelliShift is Paraco Gas, a propane delivery company that operates a fleet of trucks to deliver propane directly to homes and businesses across the Northeast.

Paraco Gas relies on IntelliShift to improve safety, cut accidents, optimize fuel, coach drivers, and digitize inspections and reports, while monitoring its fleet in real time to maintain DVIR compliance and ensure safe, on-time deliveries.

Providing us with a firsthand view of the companies’ partnership, we spoke with both Scott Tucker, Senior Operations Process Manager at Paraco Gas and Ryan Wilkinson, Chief Operating Officer with IntelliShift.

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How can fleet managers ensure their assets are being protected? How can they be notified quickly and instantly about vehicle ‘occurrences’, including those that are stolen, impounded, sold or in repair?

A fleet manager’s best strategy is to recognize potential fraudulent situations as early as possible. Notifications by regular or even certified mail can often take a very long time to arrive – if they arrive at all.

Because fleet staff need to be made aware of a vehicle occurrence as soon as possible, a vehicle monitoring service is necessary – one that has access to specific vehicle occurrence information and sends daily electronic notification reports showing occurrences from the previous day.

A service that does this for instance, Locator Technologies, is being used by fleets such as Hertz, J.B. Hunt, FlexiVan, Knight-Swift Transportation, AVR Van Rental, and others, including 85% of the lenders with vehicles on the road.

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According to data from a September survey conducted by the market research company The Harris Poll, the Federal EV tax credit has had a significant effect in motivating potential EV buyers to actually purchase electric vehicles.

Per their results, nearly a third of car buyers who were likely to buy an electric vehicle as their next car would be much less likely to consider an EV or wouldn’t consider one at all, without the federal tax credit being a factor in their purchase decision.

An incentive of $5,000 or more would actually sway 60 percent towards the purchase of an electric vehicle, while about 30% would be swayed by an incentive between $2,500 and $4,999.

via Autoblog

The California Department of Insurance (CDI) announced on October 3 that it’s taking enforcement action against Tesla Insurance Services, Inc. and Tesla Insurance Company, alongside State National Insurance Company, which underwrites Tesla’s policies in the state.

Regulators say the three companies failed to comply with California’s claims-handling laws over and over again. Complaints soared from 21 in 2022 to nearly 2,000 through September 2025.

According to the department, Tesla’s alleged offenses include extensive delays in paying valid claims, unreasonable denials, and failures to conduct “thorough, fair, and objective investigations.”

via CarScoops

In order to determine the best and worst cities for drivers, WalletHub compared a sample of the 100 most populated U.S. cities across four key dimensions: 1) Cost of Ownership & Maintenance, 2) Traffic & Infrastructure, 3) Safety and 4) Access to Vehicles & Maintenance.

Corpus Christi, TX, is the best city to drive in, due in part to its low costs. It’s the third-cheapest city for gas and tied for seventh-cheapest for purchasing a new vehicle. It’s also the 11th-least expensive city when it comes to additional vehicle operating costs like lost time and fuel waste due to traffic congestion, or damage from poorly-maintained roads.

Greensboro, NC, is the second-best city to drive in, largely because it’s an inexpensive city.

via WalletHub

While they seldom saw things in the same light, one thing Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump agreed on was the need to block Chinese automakers from entering the U.S. market. In May 2024, Biden quadrupled tariffs on Chinese-made EVs, with Trump raising duties on all Chinese-made products a year later.

One only has to look to America’s southern border to see why Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford Motor Co., has described a potential assault by Chinese automakers on the U.S. market as an “existential threat.”

Brands like BYD and Geely now make up 20% of the Mexican new vehicle market – and 30% of the imports there, In Europe, meanwhile, Chinese vehicles – almost all of them EVs – posted a 91% increase in sales over the last year.

via Autoblog

By Gary Horton, COO, ACI Transport

The logistics sector has operated in silos for many years. Each shipper, broker, and carrier uses their own systems, technologies, and procedures, which are often disjointed and designed to meet only their specific needs and individual requirements.

CarriedAway by ACI Transport is one example of a proprietary software platform that is bridging the long-standing communication gap between shippers and carriers, changing the way these parties work together.

CarriedAway is a progressive web application developed entirely in-house to create a system that unifies every party in the supply chain by making connectivity, transparency, and operational efficiency the rule rather than the exception.

What makes platforms like CarriedAway valuable is that they challenge the assumption that technology in logistics must primarily serve shippers. Instead, the technology embraces a model that is mutually beneficial for all parties.

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By Tod Trousdell, Fleet Marketing Consultant

If you ask someone who has attended more than a dozen AFLA Conferences, the 2025 version of fleet’s de facto Family Reunion had many of the trappings of previous AFLA conferences.

Discussions included lots of uncertainty around the challenges of the moment – with increasing concerns over spiraling costs and how to contain them. Further discussions expanded on the best ways to keep drivers safe, as well as impending tariffs.

And, the 2025 AFLA Conference saw a record attendance of 648, including more than 200 new (and eager) first-time attendees.

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Photo: Carmen Robinson of Qmerit

By Fleet Management Weekly Staff

Companies like Qmerit facilitate the electrification process by collaborating with fleets to ensure they remain charged. From take-home to business-based fleets, Qmerit designs the optimal charging solution tailored to each fleet’s specific needs.

The company collaborates with Qmerit certified installers to implement charging stations both on-site and at drivers’ homes, providing fleets with a customized and affordable charging solution.

We interviewed Carmen Robinson, Senior Vice President for Residential Solutions at Qmerit, to discuss how Qmerit operates and how the current climate around electrification has affected fleets.

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