By Ted Roberts, Publisher, Fleet Management Weekly

As the fleet industry continues to evolve, the Automotive Fleet Leasing Association (AFLA) is focused on strengthening its role as a collaborative community and expanding its relevance to a broader range of mobility professionals.

According to AFLA President Suresh Rajapakse, the organization’s greatest strength remains its strong relationships and members’ willingness to openly share knowledge and best practices.

“AFLA is an organization where relationships genuinely matter,” said Rajapakse. “The level of candor, collaboration, and willingness to share ideas among competitors and partners is hard to replicate.”

Rajapakse adds that involvement with AFLA has been invaluable. It has given him access to an extensive network of industry leaders and exposed him to a wide range of perspectives and business models.

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By Ed Pierce, President, Vyral Fleet Marketing

Google’s recent announcements about AI-powered search and evolving search experiences have sparked anxiety across the marketing world.

For companies serving the fleet industry the outlook may actually be encouraging. These changes may create an advantage for organizations that possess something AI cannot easily replicate—years of hands-on fleet experience.

Fleet managers have always preferred information from people who understand their world. Increasingly, Google’s search systems appear to reward that same principle.

The companies that thrive in the next generation of digital marketing will likely be the same companies that have always succeeded in the fleet industry: those that build trust, demonstrate expertise, and consistently deliver value.

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RoadFlex, a leading solution provider of fuel risk management, announced it is expanding its fuel tax compliance capabilities for government and public works fleets.

The capabilities are built to help eligible public-sector agencies reduce the administrative burden of managing fuel tax exemptions, reimbursements, and reclamation, giving them a more automated and auditable way to manage fuel transactions.

Because the platform is open-loop, drivers can fuel wherever Visa is accepted rather than inside a limited fuel network.

RoadFlex discussed its public-sector fleet payment and compliance capabilities at the Government Fleet Expo & Conference (GFX), the largest annual conference for public fleets, held earlier this month in Long Beach, California.

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(image credit: NHTSA)

More than 1,010 children have died of heatstroke, because they were left or became trapped in a hot car over the past 25 years. These tragedies can happen to anyone — but are always preventable.

A child’s body temperature rises three to five times faster than an adult’s. When a child is left in a vehicle, that child’s temperature can rise quickly — and the situation can quickly become dangerous.

Never leave a child in a vehicle unattended for any length of time. Rolling windows down or parking in the shade does little to change the interior temperature of the vehicle.

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image credit NIO

American buyers are used to looking overseas for their luxury cars. And if they’re looking for a full-size executive sedan or a high-end SUV, they may well buy something with a German, Japanese, or sometimes British badge.

The Chinese market has become an aggressive proving ground for high-end vehicles, novel electrification, software-defined cabins, cutting-edge chassis technology, and luxury packaging.

Perhaps the epitome of Chinese luxury transportation today is the Nio ET9. The company calls this a smart electric executive flagship, and it went on sale in 2024 at a starting price of RMB 800,000 or approximately $112,000.

via CarBuzz

What happens to the thousands of battery packs used in these cars when they inevitably reach the end of their life?

Colorado Governor Jared Polis recently signed the “End-of-Life Management of Electric Vehicle Batteries” bill (SB 26-003) into law, making Colorado the first state in the nation to mandate exactly how EV batteries are handled at the end of their lifespan.

According to the “extended producer responsibility”, the logistical and financial burden of dealing with these batteries now lies with the vehicle manufacturers – rather than placing the burden on consumers, local municipalities, or independent junkyards and recyclers.

via Autoblog

Even in 2026, lots of people are still throwing shade at EVs, claiming they produce more emissions than combustion cars and are generally worse for the environment than anybody thinks.

A new MIT-led study, focused on the United States and published in Environmental Research Letters, confirms yet again that EVs reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared with combustion cars. But the savings vary depending on where you live and how power is produced locally. The range is pretty significant.

In most locations, EVs save between 40% and 60% of emissions as compared with combustion vehicles, but it can be as low as 0% and as high as 82%, the study’s authors found.

via InsideEVs

By Anthony Giagnacovo, Chief Revenue Officer, Nation Safe Drivers

The fleet vehicle services industry is in a period of real pressure. Fleet operators are contending with rising maintenance costs, tighter utilization targets, and heightened customer experience expectations simultaneously.

The companies that will still be standing in a decade are not the ones who wait for a contract renewal conversation to go badly before examining how their vendor relationships actually function.

Trust erosion in fleet service partnerships is predictable. That means it is also preventable. The industry has the tools. What it has lacked is the habit of looking for the warning signs.

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By Drake Bauer, CEO & Co-Founder, Proaction

The daily work of fleet operations encompasses managing maintenance, compliance, fuel, inspections, safety, EV readiness, and driver communication across a patchwork of systems.

The next chapter of fleet management will be defined by connecting what already works with tools that make it faster, clearer, and more adaptable.

That is Proaction’s biggest value proposition: an operating layer for fleet work that consolidates data, automates routine processes, and helps teams act before small issues become expensive ones.

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By Richard Mallek, Director of Business Development, FLD Remarketing

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a vehicle remarketing process that ended on the same day it started? At FLD, we’ve been pioneering exactly that kind of process for almost 50 years.

We make the remarketing process fast, easy, and super simple by taking an ownership stake in your vehicle before it goes through a traditional remarketing process.

At FLD, we know how important it is to help our customers reduce risk while taking control of their business operations.

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