Fleet Sales Rise in December, Trend Expected to Continue in 2023
Sales into large fleets, not including sales into dealer and manufacturer fleets, increased 3.0% month over month in December to 165,809 units, according to an early estimate from Cox Automotive.
Combined sales into large rental, commercial, and government fleets were up 47% year over year in December, the sixth consecutive month of double-digit, year-over-year increases. Sales into rental fleets were up 100%, while sales into commercial fleets were up 29% year over year and government fleets were up nearly 13%.
Fleet sales are expected to improve in 2023 and contribute to modest growth in new-vehicle sales.
New Crash Test Spotlights Lagging Protection for Rear Passengers
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is updating its longest-running crash test to address a growing gap in the protection provided for front and rear occupants.
In vehicles from model year 2007 onward, the risk of a fatal injury is 46 percent higher for belted occupants in the rear seat than in the front.
“The original moderate overlap test was our first evaluation and the lynchpin of the Institute’s crash testing program,” said IIHS President David Harkey. “Thanks to automakers’ improvements, drivers in most vehicles are nearly 50 percent less likely to be killed in a frontal crash today than they were 25 years ago. Our updated test is a challenge to manufacturers to bring those same benefits to the back seat."
ZF Heated Seatbelt Can Reportedly Boost EV Range In Cold Weather
Low temperatures eat away at an EVs range, but ZF says there’s a fix. Enter the heated seatbelt concept, which is supposed to enable a range gain of up to 15 percent when used correctly in an electric car.
The company says its heated belt warms up immediately after the car starts moving and that it offers an “all-around warming” effect on the driver and passengers, especially when it’s used in conjunction with the vehicle’s heated seats.
Martina Rausch, who is responsible for new seatbelt developments at ZF, added that “when the passengers take off their thick winter jackets, the seatbelt lies closer and directly against the body and the restraint remains at optimal function in the event of a crash.”
8 Trends Shaping the Future of Driver Risk Management in 2023
Fleet managers are facing more pressure than ever to adapt and modernize their fleet in all ways — from reducing emissions to upgrading vehicles, to optimizing routes and keeping their drivers and communities in which they work safe.
By Ed Dubens, CEO/Founder, eDriving
Driver risk management initiatives are more likely to produce sustainable results with a comprehensive program that identifies risk at the driver and fleet level and provides multi-faceted remediation measures to mitigate them.
Are you looking to implement a driver risk management program in 2023? Or upgrade an existing one? If so, keep these 8 trends in mind.
Qualcomm Develops One Automotive Chip to Rule Them All
Qualcomm introduced the Snapdragon Ride Flex system-on-a-chip (SoC) as a platform automakers will be able to use to power tasks across the digital cockpit, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and automated driving (AD) on the same hardware architecture.
Those tasks typically are run on separate chips. However, pulling them together into a single platform can mean lower costs and faster manufacturing times.
"We are making it easier and more cost-effective for automakers and Tier-1s to embrace the transition to an integrated, open, and scalable architecture across all vehicle tiers with our pre-integrated suite of hardware, software, and ADAS/AD stack solutions," Nakul Duggal, senior vice president and general manager of automotive for Qualcomm, said in a statement.
