There’s still a lot of confusion about the different types of electrified vehicles out there.
National newspapers regularly mix up hybrids such as the Toyota Prius with pure electric cars such as Teslas.
Government agencies and academics serve up an ever-growing alphabet soup of acronyms (HEVs, PEVs, BEVs, FCVs, ULEVs, PZEVs and many more). It’s no wonder consumers are clueless.
We are more connected now than ever, and data and technology are a huge part of that. But real connections go far beyond that. Real connections are about people, as Laura Jozwiak lays out so articulately in The Connections That Drive True Results.
Safety is important to all of us, and we all know that Speeding isn’t safe. Today’s Safety & Risk column draw a clear line between Speeding and Time Management. It’s a good and thoughtful read.
LeasePlan just launched its “What’s Next” global marketing campaign. It’s big and it’s clever, featuring Top Gear’s Richard Hammond, with a key message of “Any car, Anytime, Anywhere.” Learn more and watch the action film here.
Enjoy this issue, and check in at FleetManagementWeekly.com for daily updates.
Ted Roberts
President
The infotainment technology that automakers are cramming into the dashboard of new vehicles is making drivers take their eyes off the road and hands off the wheel for dangerously long periods of time, an AAA study says.
The study released Thursday is the latest by University of Utah professor David Strayer, who has been examining the impact of infotainment systems on safety for AAA’s Foundation for Traffic Safety since 2013.
Past studies also identified problems, but Strayer said the “explosion of technology” has made things worse.
There’s nothing new about electric trucks;they have labored on the streets of major cities across the world since the first decades of the 20th century.
Fleet managers prized these trucks for their strong pulling power and greater reliability than vehicles powered by early, fitful internal combustion engines (ICEs). And now, in a high-tech second act, both incumbent and nontraditional makers of commercial vehicles across most weight categories and a variety of segments are launching new “eTrucks.”
A century on, the question is, why now?
An oft-cited reason people don’t buy electric cars is “range anxiety” — if batteries struggle to take you as far as gas and charging stations are limited in number, the thinking goes, who would want one?
But there is another obstacle: charging time trauma.
Compared with a five-minute pit stop at your local gas station, charging an electric vehicle is a glacially slow experience.