Are Fleet Fuel Costs Rising in 2017? Annual TCO Index Shows a Likely Increase is Coming
Each year, Element Fleet Management releases its Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Index, a study that looks at major cost categories affecting vehicle fleets.
The index is designed to help fleet managers and businesses understand fleet and vehicle expenses in the context of a changing economic landscape.
The TCO Index found that 2016 was a good year for fuel cost savings – with a 12 percent reduction in spend, driven by lower prices than in 2015. In addition, those savings enabled businesses to offset a 7 percent increase in net depreciation, almost entirely due to a softening resale market for vehicles other than pickups and cargo vans. In contrast, last year’s TCO Index only reported a 1 percent rise in depreciation costs.
Shortage of Auto Mechanics Has Dealerships Taking Action
If the sticker shock faced by car shoppers in the showroom isn’t enough to provoke a cardiac episode, a visit to the dealership’s service department might do the job.
That’s where a tire-kicking customer is likely to spot the sign announcing labor charges upward of $125 an hour, a rate typical in cities and at the low end for luxury brands.
Besides chest pains, the number might also elicit a gasp of realization: “That’s way more than I earn.”
Are Privately Owned Cars Set to Vanish?
When Waymo, the autonomous vehicle spin-off of Google began offering to let Phoenix-area families try out its vehicle service last month it touched off what a new study is calling “a historic revolution in transportation.”
While the number of Americans using all forms of ride-sharing – autonomous or otherwise – is currently quite small, RethinkX, an independent think tank that looks at the impact of new technology says it will grow rapidly.
By 2030, it predicts in its new report, 95% of the miles traveled in the U.S. will be in self-driving, shared electric vehicles.
Close Gaps in Fleet Safety to Avoid Negligent Entrustment Liability, Part One
Part one of a four-part series on negligent entrustment
By Kevin Reilly, Editorial Communications Manager, The CEI Group, Inc.
Negligent entrustment – two words that keep the experienced fleet manager up at night.
And yet, there are still fleets, large and small, that are not in a position to defend themselves from this form of liability.
Negligent entrustment occurs when an employer allows an employee to drive on company business when the employer should have known that that employee was unfit for the road. The key word in this definition is “should.” The onus is on the employer to execute their due diligence before allowing an employee behind the wheel for business, and a company cannot claim they “didn’t know” about the reckless history or habits a driver possessed when they gave that driver the keys.
No two fleets are the same, and the liability issues they face are just as unique as the rest of their operations. Some fleets don’t have a safety policy at all, or a weak one at best, and these fleets are one negligent claim away from a lawsuit.
The Real Auto Revolution Is Already Happening—Inside the Car
The car has long proved a cornerstone of American life, inextricably tied to almost everything people do in work, life, leisure, and business.
It is also a marker of our contemporary moment, distilling and reacting to cultural cues—think of the bombastic muscle cars of the Vietnam era, and the trepidatious econo-boxes that arrived in its wake. That won’t change anytime soon, but the car will undergo radical change—from the inside out.
“I look at the exterior as the love at first site, and the interior as the long-term relationship,” says says Derek Jenkins, chief of design for California electric vehicle startup Lucid Motors.
