Automated Vehicles: Cure or Curse for Ride-Hailing Companies
The popularity of ride-hailing services has grown rapidly and had a huge effect on traditional transportation, but with substantial losses, can they be profitable?
It is estimated that 65-75% of ride-hailing revenues go to pay the drivers, promoting the idea of eliminating drivers all together with automated vehicles.
"Transitioning to automated vehicles would eliminate the need to pay drivers, but it could potentially create a slew of other logistical challenges and questions. Would ride-hailing companies be willing to buy, register and insure their own fleet of vehicles? Who would refuel, maintain and make sure the vehicles remain clean, especially if a passenger left trash in the vehicle?"
Read the article at J.D. Power.
Safety Needs to be in High Gear for Tesla’s Success
Moody’s downgraded Tesla’s debt from stable to negative after a Tesla Model X crashed into a concrete highway divider while Autopilot was in use, killing the driver last month.
Tesla says all its vehicles “have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver.” Investors seem to have reassessed the recent bad news as shares jumped more than 24 percent.
"Tesla will rise or fall based on the performance, safety, design and value of its cars. If it gets those things right, all the other issues will sort themselves out. Tesla has already defied skeptics and attracted legions of die-hard fans by surmounting seemingly impossible odds to build all-electric cars that have drawn lavish praise from automotive critics."
Read the article at The New York Times.
A Call to Action: A Final Look at Marketing Productivity Measures
By Ed Pierce, Fleet Industry Marketer
Over the past two months, we reviewed better measures for determining marketing productivity with the goal of quantifying its effectiveness to management’s satisfaction intent upon quantifiable results.
Here are two last steps we can take to develop better measures of marketing productivity.
The first method for measuring and enhancing marketing productivity is to see existing and potential marketing offerings as value propositions for your target market. Especially primarily for business-to-business markets, this method suggests using a mix of different value assessments to determine the potential of key market offerings.
U.S. Agencies Directed to Find Ways to Protect American Autoworkers
In an attempt to protect vehicles made by American autoworkers, the Trump Administration has directed various agencies to explore ways to use laws to require vehicles made overseas to undergo strict emissions testing and other reviews.
"The issue is complicated because auto manufacturing has become a global enterprise and many foreign companies already have factories in the U.S. including BMW, Daimler, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Toyota, and Volkswagen. Toyota’s biggest assembly plant globally is in Georgetown, KY., where the Avalon, Camry, and Lexus ES 350 are produced."
Read the article at Fortune.
How CEI’s Consultation Plans Will Help Meet Customers’ Changing Needs
By leveraging 35 years of experience and benchmarking against a large portfolio of industry data, The CEI Group offers a host of consultation services that help customers meet their changing needs.
