Safety and Savings Ride on Your Tires
As part of National Tire Safety Week (June 28 - July 4), NHTSA is reminding drivers that proper tire maintenance is essential for safety and for saving on the cost of vehicle ownership. Whether you’re getting ready for a road trip or just performing routine upkeep on your vehicle, don’t forget your tires are important for safety and savings.
On average, there are nearly 11,000 tire-related motor vehicle crashes each year and more than 600 people will die in those crashes. That’s reason enough to properly maintain your tires. NHTSA offers everything you need to know about tires and safety, like how to buy and maintain them, how age can affect their safety, and the important information contained on their labels.
Safety is obviously the number one concern when it comes to tire maintenance. But if your tires are underinflated you’re also costing yourself money. Underinflated tires reduce your vehicle's fuel economy and increase the amount of greenhouse gases and other pollutants that fossil-fuel-burning vehicles put into the air. Keeping your tires properly inflated can save you up to 11 cents per gallon. Your tires will also last longer, as proper tire inflation can extend a tire’s life by 4,700 miles.
Read the article at NHTSA.
Shell Fleet Solutions to Help with Carbon Reduction Strategies
Shell Fleet Solutions aims to be at the forefront as fleets continue to commit to carbon reduction, all while building efficiencies and lowering TCO.
Volvo Wants to Speed Autonomous Drive Development With Opt-In User Data Collection
Volvo is a brand obsessed with safety and it believes that one of the surest ways to guarantee it is with autonomous drive technology. But testing it is challenging. That’s why the automaker wants to collect data from its owners to speed up development.
The plan will allow owners to opt in to letting Volvo collect data from their vehicles in real-time. By receiving information from real roads in real-time at a large scale, Volvo figures it will be able to speed development up significantly.
“With help from real-life data we can speed up our development processes and go from years to days,” said Ödgärd Andersson, CEO at Zenseact, Volvo Cars’ autonomous driving software arm. “As real-time collection generates a lot more data, we can create better and higher-quality data sets that allow us to make better and quicker decisions on the next advancements in safety. We’re taking a giant leap to increase safety in and around our cars.”
Read the article at Carscoops.
Tired or Wired?
The future of fleet may be about applying groundbreaking tech solutions to an often-overlooked part of a vehicle
By Victor Darolfi, CEO of RoboTire
It’s not an understatement to say that fleet management is evolving almost daily, with industry decision makers tasked with evaluating, adopting and adapting to new trends and technologies.
The future of fleet has never been more intriguing, as the promise of new tech has industry players working hard to evaluate where and how to dedicate resources to deliver the most bang for the buck in terms of new operational efficiencies.
Understanding the contours of this shifting landscape begins with appreciating its most prominent features: the challenges fleet managers face, the opportunities that exist for impactful change, and the tech-driven solutions with the greatest potential to make that change a reality.
The single biggest operational priority for fleet-management professionals—and, not coincidentally, their single greatest challenge—is keeping their vehicles on the road. There is a direct connection between vehicle up-time and bottom-line financial results.
The ‘Existential Crisis of Our Times’
It's not a slam-dunk that President Biden’s infrastructure legislation is going to fully address the issue that Biden has called “the existential crisis of our times.” According to the Center for American Progress, “there are still 139 elected officials in the 117th Congress who refuse to acknowledge the scientific evidence of human-caused climate change.” We have no idea how much more evidence they need.
Given that Transportation is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, the fleet industry has a significant role to play. It is heartening to see that virtually every stakeholder in our industry is focusing on electric vehicles. Both NAFA and AFLA upcoming conferences feature multiple sessions on strategies surrounding EV adoption.
This week in FMW, eDriving founder Ed Dubens pens a perfectly-timed article Making the Business Link Between Driver Safety and Sustainability; Mike Sheldrick asks, Can Battery Swapping Beat EV Charging?; and Fleet Logistics asserts Timing is Right for UK Fleets to Transition to EVs. In his video, Tim Murray offers Shell Fleet Solutions with Carbon Reduction Strategies.
Our hearts are with our friends in the path of tropical storm Elsa.
Janice Sutton
Editor in Chief
