Scotland Names its Snow Plows and Their Titles are Amazing
"Snowbegone Kenobi, reporting for duty." Imagine hearing that over a dispatch radio. Guess what? It's a real name, for a real snow plow, called a "gritter" in Scotland. That makes "Gritney Spears" make much more sense.
Who else do we have here? Ah, yes, "Gangsta Granny Gritter" was out for deployment, as was "Gritty Gritty Bang Bang." Let's not forget about "License to Chill" or "For Your Ice Only." The James Bond references are strong with the Scots. "Snowkemon Go" is another name worthy of our round of applause.
The BBC reports the practice of naming the plows goes back to 2006 when the Scottish Transport Ministry encouraged wee school children to come up with funny monikers for them. It launched its online tracker in 2016.
Read the article at Roadshow.
The Interface Between Humans and Machines
The relationship between humans and machines has been a rollercoaster-ride for centuries.
Between euphoria and outright spite, a healthy scepticism rears its head every time another evolutionary step is taken. With the impending rise of autonomous technologies in transportation, it’s time again to evaluate the relationship.
The implications are massive, so it makes sense to evaluate how the human-machine interface (HMI) has evolved, and more pertinently, what it means to our world of mobility – in particular, of the shared and autonomous kind.
Electric Vehicle Sales Expected to Grow 50% in 2021
Global electric-vehicle sales will grow 50% or more next year, while sales of internal combustion engine vehicles are expected to grow 2% to 5%. That’s the view of analysts at Morgan Stanley, who in a note to clients on Friday also predicted that global EV penetration would top 4%, rising to 31% by 2030.
The year 2021 “is shaping up to be a critical year for EV adoption and (internal combustion engine) de-adoption that will dictate the pace of multiple expansion, contraction, consolidation and proliferation” among the stocks, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said in the note.
Despite the momentary dips amid stock offerings, EV stocks are enjoying a 2020 stock surge that is more widespread than Nio’s jaw-dropping 2020 gains. Tesla is up 625% this year, while XPeng is up more than 111% and Li Auto around 100%.
Read the article at MarketWatch.
Why Pursuing the CAFM Has Been a Smart Career Move
By Holly Hill, Director of Sales, FLD Remarketing
Seated at a table with a group of seasoned fleet veterans at the 2018 NAFA Fleet Management Association convention, I was struck by how advanced the conversation was as my table pulled our chairs together for a spirited breakout discussion.
Despite striving to understand the “big picture” after 26-plus years in specialized fleet services, I suddenly felt oddly out of place among this small group of fleet pros from a variety of our industry’s different disciplines.
It wasn’t so much that they were discussing a topic - Total Cost of Ownership - that I knew nothing about. In truth, my entire career revolved around the biggest TCO factor – depreciation - so it was a familiar topic.
Leaning into the conversation to get a better handle on what our group was tossing back and forth, I began to realize I still had a lot to learn.
A Fitness App to Manage Driver Safety
Mentor by eDriving is essentially a fitness app to manage driver safety and risk, and it features in-app microtraining modules that are geared to improve specific driving behaviors.
