Automatic Start-Stop Tech Saves More Fuel Than You Think
Most people think the amount of fuel saved using a start-stop system is negligible, but in reality, that fuel burned while idling at a stop adds up quickly.
A study by the Society of Automotive Engineers found that using start-stop can see a car's fuel economy improve by over eight percent in heavy traffic. That might not sound like a lot, but over time, it adds up to a whole lot of wasted gas.
Read the article at Road & Track.
A Call to Action: The Second Step Toward Successful Marketing Communication
By Ed Pierce, Fleet Industry Marketer
In the August ‘Call to Action’ column, I featured the first part of an article by Anna Kucirkova of Connex Direct Marketing entitled "Four Key Steps Toward Successful Marketing Communication." Here is the second step:
What type of ad platform is your demographic most likely to respond to? Where do they spend most of their time? Wherever your audience spends their time most is where you also need to be. (Ed. Note: Like all industries, the fleet industry demographic is changing!)
Apple Developing Headlights That Highlight Road Hazards
Apple has filed to patent another automotive system. This one involves headlights and provides drivers with more information to help keep them safe.
Called the "System and Method for Light and Image Projection," the system imagines a few ways to give drivers a better idea of the road ahead by marking road hazards and other important items. The United States Patent and Trademark Office published the patent on Thursday and Apple Insider reported the visual system could incorporate a car's windshield, too.
Read the article at Motor Authority.
Global Auto Startup Borgward Launches U.S. Headquarters in Silicon Valley & New AI Safety Platform for Autonomous Vehicles
Borgward Group, a global automotive startup announced the launch of its new U.S. headquarters and R&D center in Sunnyvale, California. Borgward will also unveil its unique new AI safety and reliability technology for autonomous vehicles tomorrow at the O'Reilly AI Conference in San Francisco.
The platform is currently in prototype, with three unique risk features -- automatic honking, advanced risky behavior identification and labeling, and marking of high-risk physical areas – to be incorporated into Borgward production cars within three years. Borgward will also make its platform available to other OEMs, in a long-term effort to create a global industry standard in safety testing for all autonomous cars.
Read the article at PRNewswire
Don’t Be Misled by the AAA Foundation’s Ride-Hailing Study
There’s no doubt in my mind that shared mobility is in the fleet industry’s future
By Mark Boada, Executive Editor
It’s a fact that headlines often have a greater effect on public attitudes than the details of the story itself. It’s bad enough when the headline makes people think things are better than they actually are, but it can be detrimental to the common good when it casts a negative light on a positive trend.
It’s because of the latter that I have concerns over the recent press release from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, which was about one of the new trends in the world of transportation: ride-hailing, which is a sub-trend in the broader development of the sharing economy.
