LeasePlan USA’s Focus on the Future
LeasePlan USA’s transformation continues to evolve, with some new high-tech partnerships and an unyielding focus on the future.
How to Create a More Fulfilled Life
By Walter Bond, Hall of Fame Business Speaker & Former Big Ten & NBA Basketball Player
As we enter another month and another season, I want to ask you some questions.
What is your WHY? Why do you do what you do? Why did you choose your career? Why did you choose your company? Why do you wake up each day and put your time into work?
Consider this: Do you go to work just to pay the bills or pay your mortgage or do you go to work because you want to make an impact?
Wireless Charging is the Next Frontier for Hybrid and Electric Vehicles
More than a century ago, Nikola Tesla used electromagnetic energy to transfer power over an "air gap" between two coils, known as wireless, or inductive charging.
Audi claims a charging efficiency of more than 90 percent, meaning that less than 10 percent of the power sent to the charger is lost in the process of topping off the battery. Fully charged, the car — which is not due in the United States until next year — is expected to be able to travel about 30 miles on electricity alone, Audi said.
“A car sits for between 90 to 95 percent of its life,” Jesse Schneider, who heads a wireless task force for the Society of Automotive Engineers said. “If you can take advantage of the time it doesn’t move with a wireless-equipped parking space at home, where the customer doesn’t have to plug in but just park, then it changes the whole dynamic of the electric vehicle.”
Read the article at The New York Times.
Waymo’s Ride-Hailing Services to Add 62,000 Chrysler Minivans
Waymo has agreed to purchase as many as 62,000 minivans from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles for use in a ride-hailing service to start later this year in Phoenix, then expand to the San Francisco area and to other cities across the country.
Both the Chrysler Pacifica minivans and the Jaguar cars will be equipped with the radars, cameras and sensors that Waymo has developed to enable the vehicles to drive themselves on public roads.
“F.C.A. is committed to bringing self-driving technology to our customers in a manner that is safe, efficient and realistic,” Sergio Marchionne, Fiat Chrysler’s chief executive, said in a statement. “Strategic partnerships, such as the one we have with Waymo, will help to drive innovative technology to the forefront.”
Read the article at The New York Times.
Trump’s Trade Policy: ‘Until No Mercedes Models Roll on Fifth Avenue in New York’
President Trump is hoping to ban the sales of Mercedes-Benz, Audi and other German cars by pushing for heavy tariffs - as much as 25% - on car imports.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross indicated that there is evidence suggesting that imports from abroad have eroded the U.S. auto industry.
“When you walk down Fifth Avenue, everybody has a Mercedes-Benz parked in front of his house,” Trump said, according to a Wall Street Journal translation of the comments. “You were very unfair to the U.S.A. It isn’t mutual. How many Chevrolets do you see in Germany? Not many, maybe none, you don’t see anything at all over there. It’s a one-way street.”
Read the article at Fortune.
