CEI’s Wayne Smolda to Present Top Fleet Executive Award at AFLA Conference
Wayne Smolda, founder and chief executive officer of the CEI Group, Inc. (CEI) will present the winner of this year’s Fleet Executive of the Year award this week at the 2014 Conference of the Automotive Fleet & Leasing Association (AFLA) in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Mr. Smolda will present the award at a special breakfast meeting honoring the association’s award winners on Tuesday, September 9.
How Hackable are Cars Today?
Last year, when hackers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek showed they could hijack the steering and brakes of a Ford Escape and a Toyota Prius with nothing but laptops connected to the cars, they raised two questions: Could hackers perform the same tricks wirelessly, or even over the Internet? And even more pressing: Is your specific car vulnerable, too?
If you own a Cadillac Escalade, a Jeep Cherokee or an Infiniti Q50, you may not like the answer. READ MORE, and check out the chart of hackable cars.
Navdy’s Answer To Distracted Driving
Navdy, a San Francisco-based startup, announced a breakthrough Head-Up Display (HUD) aftermarket car console that allows drivers to access their smartphone’s apps while keeping their eyes on the road.
Drivers are three times more likely to get into an accident when they take their eyes off the road to look down at a touchscreen. Built-in consoles like Android Auto and Apple Carplay are just bigger touchscreens that do nothing to solve the problem.
“Smartphones were never designed to be used while driving.” said Navdy co-founder and CEO Doug Simpson. “Touch-based apps clearly force you to take your eyes off the road. So we started by completely rethinking what the experience of using apps behind the wheel should feel like. Navdy is built from the ground up to be the safest and most intuitive way to make calls, use navigation, listen to music or access notifications without ever looking away from the road.”
READ MORE to learn about Navdy's offerings
Cities With The Best — And Worst — Drivers
Statistics suggest some areas of the U.S. inherently breed more cautious drivers, while others tend to spawn some of the most accident-prone motor-vehicle operators on the road.
If auto safety is your number one vehicular priority, move to Ft. Collins, CO, which boasts the safest drivers in the nation according to the annual America’s Best Driver’s Report conducted by Allstate Insurance Co.
READ MORE to find out the 10 best and the 10 worst.
Voice Recognition is the #1 Problem for New Car Buyers
Virtually all new vehicles rely on voice recognition to help operate the increasing number of high-tech features. The problem is that voice recognition systems often fail. A command to change the radio channel is misinterpreted and the navigation screen is suddenly flooded with icons for gas stations and restaurants. After repeatedly struggling to find an address on the main street in a major city, a motorist gives up and plugs the information into their smartphone.
The new J.D. Power 2014 Multimedia Quality and Satisfaction Study reports that voice recognition has become the single largest source of complaints about new vehicles. Problems pairing smartphones to a vehicle’s Bluetooth system is the second most common problem
