Chris Brown's perspective on fleets, mobility, and the business of cars.
With at least two dozen manufacturers ready to serve the commercial vehicle market with electric trucks and chassis, fleets will soon be making tough decisions they never had to with ICE vehicles.
On the show floor, in seminars, and with a beverage over a highboy, fleet managers shared solutions on sourcing vehicles, overcoming supply chain disruptions, and cost containment — while deciphering how to meet the coming wave of electrification.
This year’s show floor was electric — literally — with about 20 manufacturers exhibiting electric vehicles or electric chassis. Connected technologies, product enhancements for the final mile, lightweighting and aerodynamics improvements, and new fleet electrification services also grabbed the spotlight.
A recent visit by the alpha version of the electric pickup truck to Southern California points to a future of cleaner, efficient, and more affordable work truck fleets.
For the 2021-MY, Ford made ergonomic enhancements for drivers and added an available Parcel Delivery Package. This follows a major refresh in 2020, which added a Crew version, a new standard engine, standard active safety technologies, and embedded telematics to the Transit van family.
Vocational and business fleet drivers don’t get the attention that truckers do. Yet they too are on the front lines, and their jobs often bring them into uncontrolled environments every day.
As proliferation of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) increases, skilled labor, equipment, and training costs will increase as well. Fleet operators can’t mitigate these financial burdens by cutting corners on ADAS recalibration and repairs.
If an automaker can make an electric truck like the one I’m laying out here, I’m all in.
Remember compliance cars? California Air Resources Board (CARB) proposed Advanced Clean Truck rule feels like its 2012 rule dictating zero-emission passenger cars. Only this time, fleets are involved.
Amazon placed an order for a cargo van that doesn’t exist yet; you can now call your Tesla across the parking lot, and gas stations are becoming the filling stations of (back to) the future. Just another week in this new world of transportation.
In this new era of vehicles taking over human tasks, fleet operators need to adjust driver education, training, and policies to maximize the effectiveness of advanced driver assistance systems.
Yes, an all-electric pickup can tow 1.25 million pounds, but to deliver one with verifiable specs, at scale, and at a reasonable price point is a different equation entirely.
As we enter a new era that puts an increasing importance of the value of data and our ability to interpret it, some in fleet are asking if we’re losing sight of some basic skills to do the job.
A massive new market for fleet management will be created that doesn’t exist yet. Are you ready?
With an increasing emphasis on emissions reductions mandates, will fleet operators get caught between clean technologies on their way out and an electric future that hasn’t yet arrived?
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