Most Owners Satisfied with New Vehicles; Some Truly Love Them Despite Their Flaws
The J.D. Power 2020 Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study, measures an owner’s emotional attachment to their new vehicle and in what areas that vehicle may not be delivering on all of the positive experiences that were hoped for.
Understanding this is valuable to automakers, as well as knowing about quality issues and owner acceptance of new technologies. The goal for automakers is to delight customers on all these dimensions. Some are better than others at doing this.
The study measures owners’ emotional attachment and level of excitement with their new vehicle across 37 attributes, ranging from the sense of comfort and luxury they feel when climbing into the driver’s seat to the feeling they get when they step on the accelerator. These attributes are aggregated to compute an overall APEAL index score measured on a 1,000-point scale.
Read the article at J.D. Power.
Hertz Gets Go Ahead to Sell 182K Vehicles from Fleet
Through a meeting with its lenders, Hertz Global Holdings struck a deal that will allow it to pay $650 million in cash in monthly installments for the rest of 2020. In return, it can sell off at least 182,521 leased vehicles between now and December.
Hertz is only allowed to keep $900 from each car sold, the Journal reported, noting the company is attempting arrange $2 billion in new financing to help get through the bankruptcy.
The number of vehicles it plans to sell has risen since a filing last month in which the company said it wanted to sell about 144,000 vehicles during the restructuring process.
Read the article at The Detroit Bureau.
70% of Buyers Want a Dash Cam in Their Next Car
Features that promote safety, whether through improved driver visibility or collision avoidance, have been trending upward in AutoPacific’s Future Attribute Demand (FADS) research for the past few years, but security-focused features like a dash camera, have not historically shown the same demand.
Very few cars come standard OR optional with any sort of dash camera today, but according to FADS, 70% of car buyers want this feature in their next car. Airbags came in at 66%, which is strange because they’ve been mandated for years—a head-up display in third, then over-the-air updates and a 360-degree or bird’s eye view camera.
“Consumers have experienced an influx of personal video in social and news media in recent years and are very familiar with the potential security benefits of camera footage from dash cameras, body cameras, cell phones and doorbell cameras. It’s really not surprising to see such high interest in an in-vehicle recording device,” says AutoPacific research analyst Deborah Grieb.
Read the article at MSN.
Alcohol-Detection Systems Could Prevent More Than A Fourth Of U.S. Road Fatalities
Alcohol-detection systems that stop people from drinking and driving could prevent more than a quarter of U.S. road fatalities and save upwards of 9,000 lives a year, a new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows.
Alcohol has been a factor in 30 percent of U.S. roadway deaths every year for the past decade, and police arrest about 1 million people a year for alcohol-impaired driving. Systems that can detect the percentage of alcohol in the driver’s blood and prevent the vehicle from moving if it is higher than a predetermined limit could slash those numbers.
If systems blocked drivers with any alcohol in their blood from driving, requiring them for those with alcohol-impaired driving convictions would save 986 lives. Requiring them for fleet vehicles would save 465 lives.
Read the article at IIHS.
Waymo, Fiat Chrysler Form Deep Partnership To Get Self-Driving Cars And Trucks To Market
Waymo is forming a broad partnership with Fiat Chrysler to get self-driving cars, pickups and SUVs to market and will focus on developing robotic Ram-brand light commercial vehicles.
FCA now says it’s working exclusively with Waymo on Level-4 self-driving tech for all its brands, including Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, Fiat and Ram, and will integrate its software, computers and sensors into Ram commercial vans for use by the new Waymo Via autonomous logistics service.
“Adding Waymo’s commitment to partner with us to deploy its L4 fully autonomous technology across our entire product portfolio, our partnership is setting the pace for the safe and sustainable mobility solutions that will help define the automotive world in the years and decades to come,” said FCA CEO Mike Manley.
Read the article at Forbes.
