February 20, 2022 - It takes nothing more than a glance at a busy parking lot or a quick scroll through a handful of online car configurators to see which colors are the most popular for new cars. For those who relish the full spectrum of the rainbow, it's dire.
White is still the most popular paint finish chosen by new-car buyers - more than blue, green, gold, beige and red tones combined. Grey, silver and black all slot in above any real colors, all but guaranteeing a dreary spread at just about any car dealer worldwide.
North Americans were more likely to opt for colorful finishes than shoppers in South America, Asia or Europe, where white has an even larger share of the market. While the popularity of black appears to have plateaued, gray and white continue to tick upward.
By Carol Fowler
As a fleet professional for more than two decades, one of the things that has always impressed me about the space is the universal recognition that nothing is more important than traffic safety.
It speaks to the nature of the people in our industry and has always been a true reminder to me that our profession is about a much higher calling than vehicles or transportation, something that was more than evident to me at the 2022 American Traffic Safety Services Association (ATSSA) conference in Tampa last week.
Themed a “Reunion for Roadway Safety,” this year’s conference was a surprisingly well-attended event with a robust crowd and conference floor that seemed to snap back to near pre-pandemic numbers.
Duke Energy Corp. has asked N.C. regulators to approve a $600,000 pilot to test a program that would enable its utilities to manage the charging of customer electric vehicles for a flat monthly fee.
Duke plans to work with BMW of North America, Ford Motor Co., General Motors and American Honda Motor Co. Inc. to recruit 200 electric vehicle owners for the pilot.
For 12 months, the participants would be able to charge their vehicles for a fixed monthly fee — $19.99 with Duke Energy Carolinas and $24.99 with Duke Energy Progress.
Advanced driver assistance features can only make driving safer if drivers trust them enough to use them, and that trust appears likely to wane as vehicles move into the secondhand market, a new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows.
“Used car buyers were substantially less likely than new car buyers to know about the advanced driver assistance features present on their vehicles,” says IIHS Senior Research Scientist Ian Reagan, the author of the study. “They were also less likely to be able to describe how those features work, and they had less trust in them. "
The results make it clear that buyers of both new and used vehicles need better information about the driver assistance technologies that they’re equipped with.
By Ken Robinson, Market Research Manager at Motus
Companies have plenty of incentive to reduce carbon emissions and boost sustainability initiatives.
Beyond embracing the evolving trend toward energy-efficient technologies and supporting the White House’s goal of halving the economy’s overall greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, sustainability has proven to be a significant indicator of a company’s financial performance and business success. It’s as essential to today’s business climate as it is beneficial to the environment.
Transportation currently produces 29% of all greenhouses gasses in the United States, which is more than any other sector. Reducing vehicle emissions can have the greatest impact on sustainability initiatives, since business and personal driving account for 57% of transportation sector emissions.