Used Car Shoppers Must Be Aware of Flood Damaged Vehicles
Used car shoppers need to watch for unscrupulous salespeople or independent sellers who may lie about flood damage. According to Carfax, 325,510 flooded vehicles were put back in use in 2017, including 12,166 in Philadelphia, 10,037 in Chicago and 6,995 in Detroit—large cities not traditionally known for excessive flooding.
"People with bad intentions buy cars that have been totaled by floods and move them to other parts of the country," Richard Reina, the product training director for aftermarket auto retailer CARiD, explained. This process, meant to remove a salvage designation from a car's documentation, is called title washing. There's a good description of the scam on the Fraud Guides site.
Read the article at The Drive.
California, Maryland, Connecticut Ready to Fight US Fuel Economy Rollback
Top officials from California, Maryland and Connecticut have vowed to take whatever legal action necessary to preserve their tougher tailpipe rules if the Trump administration rolls back federal fuel economy standards. The US Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will hold hearings on the proposed rollback next week.
Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said, "It seems very clear from everything the EPA has done and everything the president has said that they've reached a conclusion that they are going to roll back these standards and they're just hell-bent on doing it. They're unwilling or uninterested in hearing other points of view, looking at the science, looking at the facts. If they continue to head down that path, we'll end up in court."
Read the article at S&P Global.
Weather is a Problem for Next Generation Vehicles, in Multiple Ways
After years of testing, with hundreds of cars and vans deployed on public streets and private facilities, even the best autonomous-driving efforts still struggle with inclement weather. The ultimate hurdle to the next phase of driverless technology might not come from algorithms and artificial intelligence—it might be fog and rain.
WaveSense has built a radar system to scan what’s below the road, down where there’s no snow at all, rather than parse wintry mix on top.
A winter full of snow, and even the occasional obstinate seagull, will help with product development. “Eventually, we expect this to be something that’s on every vehicle that drives autonomously,” Tarik Bolat, WaveSense’s chief executive officer says.
Read the article at Bloomberg.
The Car Business Isn’t Just About The Car Anymore
Legacy car rental companies are branching into ride-sharing -- often in the most unlikely places. Princeton set up its program, called Revise Your Ride, to encourage faculty and staff to leave their cars at home.
These are signs of a more sweeping change that's about to overtake a $30-billion-a-year business. It will result in what only a few years ago was unthinkable: a radical new transportation paradigm, where the lines between car ownership, rental, and lease are blurred beyond recognition. In that world, cars will drive themselves and Apple, General Motors, Hertz, and Google will be in the same business.
Read the article at Forbes.
Four Habits Of Highly Ineffective Companies
Most companies are sitting in their comfort zones, feeling pretty good about themselves. Meanwhile, new and forward-thinking companies are ramping up (or currently on the way) to pass them by. It’s just a matter of time before these companies will have to play catch-up if it’s not already too late for them.
At best they are sustaining; at worst, they will be found ineffective and are ripe for disruption.
Companies need to differentiate themselves from their competitors by doing something others can’t or aren’t willing to do. That “something” is customer experience.
Read the article at Forbes.
