115 03/2020
FOR INTERNATIONAL FLEET & MOBILITY LEADERS
FINANCIAL MODELS
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How to run your lease tender
Reducing the PHEV fuel bill
MaaS
SAFETY
Nexus communication - Fleet Europe #115 - Periodic magazine - MARCH 2020 - Deposit Office X
Oslo, smart and safe
Securing your global safety plan
HOW TO BENEFIT FROM A CONNECTED FLEET • The positive impact on your TCO • The legal context • Supporting driver behaviour, fuel efficiency, safety
GLOBAL FLEET CONFERENCE
ROME 25-27 MAY 2020 https://conference.globalfleet.com
Ready to move you further Technology makes all the difference Our integrated digital solutions make your mobility strategy smarter. Harness the power of data and technology for greater control and transparency, smoother operations, enhanced flexibility and broader connectivity wherever you are.
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Industry news News from the fleet and mobility industry. Including: Jaguar Land Rover adds What3words functionality, Sixt sells its leasing branch, new CEO at Arval.
How telematics can cut fuel bills
14 Connectivity, because savings potential exceeds cost Whilst the mobility hype is slowly turning into a more formalised offering, the next must-have and 2020 buzzword-of-the-year is connectivity.
16 Insource or outsource data analysis?
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The question as to whether to insource or outsource data collection and analysis of the connected fleet is an important one to ask but not a straight-forward one to answer.
How tracking data is transforming fleet safety and efficiency
22 My car, my virtual assistant AI and speech recognition allow for a natural and safer interaction with our car. Advanced connectivity benefits both the driver and the fleet manager.
24 A look at the connected future Connectivity is profoundly changing the way we operate fleets and optimise mobility. But what will all that change add up to? We asked industry experts to look ahead into the connected future of fleet management.
18 New European guidelines for data privacy: what is to know?
20 How to select the right Connected Fleet partners?
COLOPHON PROJECT COORDINATOR: Céline Gilson
SALES: David Baudeweyns, Elke Leën, Daniel Savigny, Aline Verpoorten, Estelle Remacle
EDITORS: Benjamin Uyttebroeck, Dieter Quartier, Yves Helven, Frank Jacobs, Fien Van den Steen
EVENTS: Vincent Degives, Virginie Emonts PUBLISHERS: Caroline Thonnon, Thierry Degives
CONTRIBUTORS: Daniel Bland, Shane Curran, Jonathan Manning, Alison Pittaway, Mark Sutcliffe
PICTURES: ©Shutterstock
FLEET EUROPE #115
CHIEF EDITOR: Steven Schoefs
LAYOUT: Cible - www.cible.be
MARKETING: Sven Van Rossum, Benoit Delisse
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NEW ENERGIES 32
Huge price variation threatens your EV’s TCO The price variation of electricity between one public charging station and another is mind-blowing. From just €0.10 per kWh in Norway to a whopping €10 per kWh in Germany: anything goes. Today, little seems regulated and pricing transparency is lacking.
LAST MILE
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Safety first! But how do you get global safety right?
Taking the handover out of parcel delivery He was the father of the tuning industry and invented the steering wheel with integrated controls. Now, Frank Rinderknecht came up with a mobile locker station which is set to revolutionise parcel deliveries.
SHARED MOBILITY 38
10 reasons shared LEVs rock In recent years, shared bikes, shared scooters and a wide variety of other light electric vehicles have been finding their way to the streets. Here are ten reasons why they should also find their way to your fleet.
MaaS 40
29 Plug-in hybrids: watch that fuel bill
Oslo: 100% Smart, 0 Fatalities Oslo is getting close to achieving its Vision Zero goal, with only 1 road fatality registered in 2019. Here are some key figures of the smart mobility vision of the Norwegian Capital, and how it achieves its Vision Zero.
AUTONOMOUS 42
“Autopilot is the next step in cruise control” In spite of a series of accidents involving a Tesla with Autopilot engaged, the feature does improve road safety. Using it correctly is essential.
Discover more news, features and analyses on the Fleet Europe ecosystem on our website
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How to run a lease tender in 2020
From generating data to driving business performance TomTom Telematics is now Webfleet Solutions Since our launch 20 years ago, we’ve grown to become a global leader in telematics, helping over 50,000 businesses manage vehicles and maximise productivity. Having recently been acquired by Bridgestone, we now change our name from TomTom Telematics to Webfleet Solutions. Our goal remains the same: to innovate fleet management and build the future of mobility solutions.
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INDUSTRY NEWS
Jaguar Land Rover adds What3words functionality to EV chauffeur service Users of Jaguar Land Rover’s newly launched electric chauffeur service Havn can now use What3words to locate dropoff locations precisely. What3words divides the world in a grid of squares of 3m2, each identified with three random words. This should improve passengers’ experience and enable more efficient route planning.
Volkswagen and Hermes team up for in car deliveries Volkswagen UK has partnered with delivery company Hermes to trial its We Deliver in-car delivery service. With this service, Volkswagen owners can have parcels delivered to their car boot. UK trials have begun in Milton Keynes. Customers piloting the scheme will receive a text or email when one of their parcels arrives at the Hermes depot, giving them the option to have it delivered to their car.
Shell TapUp partners with Moove Shell TapUp, Shell’s Dutch division that fills up vehicles for large fleets on location, has partnered up with Moove Connected Mobility to manage its own fleet. Moove, part of Dutch mobility group Autobinck Group, believes this partnership could lead to new services as both companies target the same customer base.
Sixt sells leasing branch to Hyundai Capital Bank Europe Sixt SE has announced that it will fully divest its shares in its subsidiary Sixt Leasing SE. The German-based international mobility service provider has entered into an agreement with Hyundai Capital Bank Europe (a joint venture between Santander Consumer Bank and Hyundai Capital Services) for the sale of its participation in Sixt Leasing SE (i.e. 41.9% of the total). The purchase price agreed is €155.6 million. Sixt SE will now focus even more on its activities in its Mobility business segment.
Management appointments at ALD and Arval Tim Albertsen has been appointed the new CEO of ALD. On 27 March, he succeeds Mike Masterson, who led the company since 2011. Mr Albertsen has over two decades’ experience in the rental and leasing industry and has been ALD’s Deputy CEO since 2011. Arval has decided to appoint Jean-Baptiste Faure as Chief Information Officer, reporting directly to CEO Alain Van Groenendael.
Tim Albertsen, CEO, ALD
Jean-Baptiste Faure, Chief Information Officer, Arval
William Ireson joins Connector
FLEET EUROPE #115
William Ireson is the new Global Director Mobility Services of fleet and mobility consultancy specialist Connector. Previously, he was Global Benefits Manager at Nike. In his new position, Mr Ireson will promote a new corporate MaaS product, CMaaS. It combines a digital fleet manager, a mobility integrator and transaction automation to help companies manage their vehicle fleet in the most cost and FTE efficient way and integrate alternative solutions like sharing your own vehicles, mobility and even flexible office space.
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KIA XCEED AND CEED SPORTSWAGON
PLUG-IN HYBRID VERSIONS REVEALED For the first time, Kia Motors is applying its low-emission plug-in power technology to the Ceed family. In all-electric mode, these vehicles have a range of around 60 kilometres.
Plug-in Hybrid variants, the systems incorporate new functionality to help owners locate available charging points in their vicinity, or en-route to their navigation destination.
7 year warranty The Kia XCeed and Ceed Sportswagon Plug-In Hybrid benefit from Kia’s unrivalled seven-year, 150,000-kilometre warranty as standard, extending to cover the new powertrain’s battery pack and motor. The new Kia XCeed and Ceed Sportswagon Plug-In Hybrids offer a compelling alternative to conventional petrol and diesel models. The new powertrain combines an 8.9kWh lithium-polymer battery pack, an 44.5kW electric motor, and an efficient 1.6-litre ‘Kappa’ four-cylinder GDI (petrol direct injection) engine. The powertrain’s total power and torque output is 141ps and 265Nm, enabling the Ceed Sportswagon to accelerate from 0-to100 kph in 10.8 seconds, and the Kia XCeed in 11.0 seconds. Kia is targeting an all-electric range of around 60 kilometres for both vehicles, enabling drivers to complete
the majority of daily drives and short commutes on electric power alone. Standard regenerative braking technology allows the new Plug-in Hybrid models to harvest kinetic energy and recharge their battery packs while coasting or braking, further enhancing the overall efficiency of the powertrain.
The screens can also show relevant information relating to the powertrain, displaying remaining charge levels in the battery and energy usage graphics. Furthermore, owners can use the touchscreen system to schedule when their vehicle should charge when plugged in at home, enabling owners to take advantage of cheaper off-peak energy tariffs. Both infotainment systems offer Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as standard, while the optional 10.25-inch touchscreen navigation system features Bluetooth multi-connection, enabling occupants to connect two mobile devices at once.
More info
UVO Connect Both cars offer Kia’s 8.0-inch touchscreen infotainment, or an optional 10.25-inch touchscreen infotainment and navigation system with Kia’s UVO Connect telematics. Unique to the new
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FLEET EUROPE #115
Both new models feature their own distinctive design features to differentiate them from other petrol and diesel models in the Kia XCeed and Ceed Sportswagon line-ups. Each car has a new closed ‘tiger-nose’ grille at the front of the car to aid aerodynamic efficiency, and Sportswagon models feature distinct ‘eco plug-in’ exterior badges.
CONNECTED
HOW TELEMATICS CAN CUT FUEL BILLS Jonathan manning
Tracking driver behaviour and routes provides the evidence for improving fuel economy and more efficient journeys.
Encouraging company car drivers to have a lighter right foot can save fuel.
The return on investment in telematics can start almost immediately thanks to improvements in fleet fuel economy. While lower collision rates and lower insurance costs typically provide the foundation for most business plans in favour of telematics, there are also major financial gains to be achieved by encouraging more fuel efficient driving styles. As one multinational fleet director told Fleet Europe: “When drivers don’t pay for fuel it’s easy to have aggressive driving behaviour.”
Cut harsh acceleration
FLEET EUROPE #115
Selçuk Gündoğdu, Group Fleet Manager, Vaillant Group and European Safety Fleet Manager of the Year 2015
Identifying and reducing incidents of harsh acceleration can significantly lower fuel consumption while improving the safety of the driver. Some fleets are using this data to create league tables of driver performance, with prizes or awards for the best performers, giving drivers an incentive to engage with company programmes. And there are other areas, too, where telematics data can help to cut fuel expenditure. Fleets with heavy goods vehicles, for example, can make significant gains by eliminating
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engine idling (when drivers keep their engines running even if their trucks are stationary). In the car and van arena, combining fuel card information with telematics data about routes and driving styles can help fleets to shrink their carbon footprints, which is a key target for many multinational organisations. Schindler, for example, which provides lifts, escalators, and moving walkways has set itself the ambitious goal of achieving a 25% reduction by 2022 in its vehicle fleet CO2 emissions, in relation to its revenue, compared to its levels in 2017. Guillaume de Subercasaux, Global Category Manager Indirect Spend, Schindler, said: “Telematics is not only about money, but also about improving the safety of our drivers and being a greener company. How do we do that? By driving fewer kilometres with better fuel economy.” Schindler drivers identified as having a driving style that leads to higher fuel consumption may be directed towards eco or defensive driver training to help the company achieve its environmental objectives.
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FIVE WAYS TO CUT FUEL BILLS WITH TELEMATICS
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Use vehicle tracking to identify drivers who exceed the speed limit, then introduce them to eco-driver training techniques.
Keeley Mayne, Area Service Manager for Lavazza Professional
Guillaume de Subercasaux, Global Category Manager Indirect Spend, Schindler
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Track incidents of excessive acceleration, which wastes fuel and increases risk, and coach drivers to behave less aggressively.
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Integrate live traffic information with route planning to avoid time and fuel lost in congestion.
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Use geolocation to deploy vehicles closest to customers, reducing total kilometres driven.
Sustainability also features high on the agenda of Vaillant Group, which can check its emissions performance in Turkey at the touch of a button thanks to a Shell telematics system, used for fuel control. “It makes sure each company car and van driver can go to a Shell station to fill up, and we get an electronic invoice, so there’s no paper,” said Selçuk Gündoğdu, Group Fleet Manager, Vaillant Group. “We can also monitor our fuel consumption and see how many litres of fuel we are buying. This is useful because then with the push of a button we can see our spend and our CO2 emissions.” Mr Gündoğdu added that Vaillant drivers had initially expressed concern that driving more slowly would mean later arrival times at clients, impacting negatively on the customer service they could offer, “so we showed them that a change in driving style does not mean you get there any later.”
Avoid unnecessary kilometres For logistics giant UPS, the greenest mile is the mile not driven. The company’s ORION (On-Road Integrated Optimisation and Navigation) system
uses algorithms, artificial intelligence and machine learning to route and re-route its couriers throughout the day, avoiding congestion and providing pinpoint accuracy in its directions not just to addresses, but to specific package drop-off and pickup locations that may not be visible from the street. This focus on maximum efficiency is saving UPS about 100 million miles (160m km) and 10 million gallons (38m litres) of fuel per year across Europe, the US and Canada.
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Give drivers an app that lets them itemise journeys as business or private, and then measure each journey precisely so fuel cost reimbursement is only made for actual business miles driven.
mileage on an app and then submit their data in seconds at the end of the month. Previously their individual fuel reports took about an hour to compile.
Productivity gains are achievable elsewhere, too, by combining fuel card spend with route tracking data. Lavazza Professional, which has 80 company cars for its technicians and sales team, has freed up employee time through its new Trakm8 telematics system.
“That is a massive productivity boost – it means each of our engineers can complete an additional service call per month, because they are not messing around with spreadsheets,” said Mayne. “From an efficiency point of view it is saving us a huge amount of time and the engineers can focus on the job we want them to do, rather than administrative work on mileage.”
Keeley Mayne, Area Service Manager for Lavazza Professional, said: “The reduced time it takes to do fuel reporting has made a major impact on our business.”
And in the back office it now takes Lavazza Professional just 15 minutes to produce a fuel report for the whole company, compared to a full day under its old system.
Make fuel reporting simpler
At the start of each trip, drivers now log the journey as either business or private
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FLEET EUROPE #115
Gain greater control of fuel spend
CONNECTED
HOW TRACKING DATA IS TRANSFORMING FLEET SAFETY AND EFFICIENCY Jonathan Manning
Mining the rich sources of information from vehicles with telematics devices is giving fleet operators the tools to improve safety records, enhance customer service and maximise vehicle uptime.
Major international companies are using data from telematics tracking systems in ingenious ways to improve the efficiency of both their fleets and their business operations. Telematics has traditionally been promoted as a way to enhance driver and vehicle safety by enabling employers to intervene with training when they identify higher risk behaviours.
FLEET EUROPE #115
Tool and plant hire company Brandon Hire Station, for example, combines footage from in-vehicle cameras with telematics data to generate 12-second video clips of risky events. These videos then provide the basis for personalised conversations between managers and drivers. The result has been a dramatic decline over a 12-month period in higher risk events, such as a 77% reduction in incidents of tailgating (drivers following the vehicle in front with a gap of less than one second) and a 46% reduction in collisions. The rich information generated by on-board sensors, GPS and the realtime transmission of data from vehicles to fleet management and business management software systems is also delivering benefits in a number of other areas. This is encouraging fleet decision makers to identify data sets that could deliver even greater returns on investment, boosting business efficiency, enhancing customer service and increasing vehicle uptime.
Businesses are using telematics data for dynamic route optimisation, directing vehicles away from congestion and deploying vehicles closest to clients.
Targeting risky behaviour Ecolab, the water, hygiene and energy technology service provider, has a strong safety focus to its telematics policy, using the system to identify incidents of harsh acceleration, braking and cornering, all of which can indicate higher risk driving behaviours. This data gives fleet supervisors the opportunity to discuss driving performance with employees and to develop training resources to help higher risk drivers to improve.
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The company is also looking to take advantage of the real data generated by the tracking technology to negotiate more accurate insurance premiums and enhanced policies, based on actual driving behaviour and risk, rather than a generic risk profile, said Almy Magalhaes, Senior Procurement Manager, Europe. The safety benefits of telematics, both in terms of encouraging less aggressive driving styles as well as instantly
locating vehicles in the event of a collision, provide a compelling argument for employers to persuade their drivers that telematics devices are not ‘spies in the cab’, but tools to protect and even defend drivers. Tracking data has been used to prove fleet drivers are the innocent parties in crashes.
the company is updating its group travel policy and while not mandating the fitment of telematics systems will ‘strongly recommend’ it for both passenger cars and vans across its 22,000 strong international fleet. Initial findings from the countries where Schindler has implemented a telematics strategy indicate the fuel savings are lower than those promised in sales pitches, “but we do still have better fuel consumption and less accidents,” said Mr de Subercasaux.
accident means to their own safety. You can always repair a vehicle with money, but you can’t repair yourself with money,” he said.
Interestingly, Schindler does not use GPS tracking for its vehicles, in deference to driver concerns over privacy, but can activate it in the event of a vehicle being stolen.
Selçuk Gündoğdu, Group Fleet Manager, Vaillant Group
Almy Magalhaes, Senior Procurement Manager, Ecolab Europe
Tracking parts inventory
Improving safety and saving fuel
In the UK, the company has installed the Ctrack Online system to track 357 vans, which now have a Driver Behaviour Indicator mounted on the dashboard. This uses a traffic light type display, reinforced by an audible warning, to alert drivers to incidents of harsh driving, speeding or excessive idling (leaving the engine running when the vehicle is not in use). Drivers can clear the lights by driving responsibly. The information is also transmitted to a league table of driver performance, allowing Schindler to offer training to higher risk drivers. “We don’t discipline them, but try to educate them to change their behaviours,” said Guillaume de Subercasaux, Global Category Manager Indirect Spend, Schindler. He added that
Guillaume de Subercasaux, Global Category Manager Indirect Spend, Schindler
Optimise route planning In contrast, Vaillant UK is using vehicle tracking to optimise the time of its technicians, deploying a smart routing system that cross-references vehicle location with traffic conditions to re-route drivers around congestion.
In a similar vein, logistics giant DHL is using telematics to direct its closest courier driver to a parcel pick-up, said Steven Van den Bosch, Fleet, Facilities and Purchase Manager, DHL Belgium.
Technicians are only productive and generating revenue when they are with customers, not when they are on the road, so the shorter their journey times the more efficient the business becomes. But the strategy is not all about cost savings and efficiency gains, with safety a high priority for the company, said Selçuk Gündoğdu, Group Fleet Manager, Vaillant Group. “When we are speaking to drivers we have to be sensitive about what an
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Steven Van den Bosch, Fleet, Facilities and Purchase Manager, DHL Belgium
FLEET EUROPE #115
Schindler, which provides lifts, escalators, and moving walkways, has introduced telematics systems to about 1,000 vehicles in the UK, Sweden and Turkey, and has pilot projects underway in Germany, Spain and the United States. The national fleets are free to select their own telematics provider, while the company focuses on its corporate objective to improve safety and save fuel.
Looking to the future, Mr Gündoğdu would like to extend the reach of telematics to monitor the parts inventory carried by the company’s vans. This would enable the company to dispatch a technician with the right parts to serve a customer, rather than send the nearest technician and then suffer a delay waiting for the appropriate parts to be delivered.
CONNECTED
Fellow courier specialist UPS last month added dynamic optimisation facilities to its own route planning, recalculating the individual delivery routes throughout the day for packages it is delivering, depending on traffic conditions, pick-up commitments and changes to delivery orders. With drivers completing an average of 135 stops each day, the opportunity to re-route enables the firm to achieve significant customer service advantages, said Juan Perez, UPS chief information and engineering officer, improving the accuracy of UPS delivery time estimates and giving customers better visibility into their shipments.
Telematics data is enabling fleets to adopt preventative maintenance strategies, such as replacing diesel particulate filters before they fail.
Matthew Hammond, Head of Fleet, Plant and Equipment at Altrad Services, said: “The data capture and reporting on the vehicle status has allowed us to identify potential costly issues with the fleet before they become costly repairs. In fact, we are able to identify many issues even before the vehicle flags them to the driver.”
Juan Perez, Chief Information and Engineering Officer, UPS
Preventative maintenance
FLEET EUROPE #115
This focus on minimising lost time is also leading fleets to explore the opportunities presented by on-board diagnostic data to identify when vehicle parts need replacing before they fail. By adopting preventative maintenance procedures, fleet managers can avoid the unnecessary vehicle downtime caused by cars and vans visiting garages for scheduled services and then having to make a follow-up visit within a few weeks for interim maintenance work. Altrad Services is already using preventative maintenance to keep 300 vehicles on the road in the UK, deploying the Trakm8 telematics device to read vehicle faults and communicate them back to the company’s fleet team.
The potential clogging of diesel particulate filters is a prime example. If a build-up of carbon blocks the filter it can lead to an expensive repair, said Mr Hammond. “Through the use of telematics, we can be alerted to potential early stage issues on these vehicles and can take preventative action to avoid garage time. This data alone has saved the business in excess of £20,000 (€24,000),” he said. In winter, Altrad uses data from the telematics system to identify vehicles whose batteries are low on charge. “This has allowed us to raise the issue with the vehicle provider and arrange for replacement batteries before the problem escalates to a vehicle non-start. This means we eliminate unnecessary downtime across the fleet,” said Hammond. As with Schindler and Vaillant, Altrad has also seen significant improvements
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Matthew Hammond, Head of Fleet, Plant and Equipment, Altrad Services in its safety record since installing telematics devices, using the driving feedback to profile each driver and identify higher risk employees. “As a result, we have seen our accident rate fall from 30% to 12.5%,” said Mr Hammond, adding that complaints from other road users about the firm’s drivers have almost completely stopped over the same period. He has even used the data to challenge parking fines and bus lane fines incurred by his drivers.
Turn off the emissions Electric driving shouldn’t be a hard choice. That’s why all Volvo models are now offered as plug-in hybrids with up to one year of compensated electricity*, making driving on zero emissions possible on a daily basis. In other words – your drivers can choose to go electric, simply by switching to pure mode.
EVERY PLUG-IN HYBRID COMES WITH UP TO ONE YEAR OF COMPENSATED ELECTRICIT Y * *Volvo covers charging costs for up to one year when purchasing a new plug-in hybrid. Offer applies to all drivers of Volvo plug-in hybrids valid for orders placed from the 16th of October 2019 and 6 months ahead. Only applicable if the car is kept for at least 12 months. Available on all Volvo on Call markets. Contact your Volvo dealer for local terms and conditions. Official figures for the Volvo Recharge range: WLTP 228-35g/km CO2. WLTP all-electric range combined 38-59 km. Figures shown are for comparability purposes; only compare CO2 and equivalent electric range figure with other cars tested to the same technical procedures. The Volvo Recharge range are plug-in vehicles requiring mains electricity for charging. These figures may not reflect real life driving results, which will depend on a number of factors including the accessories fitted, variations in weather, driving styles and vehicle load. Models may vary depending on market.
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CONNECTED
A connected vehicle can communicate digitally with other assets, systems, city grids, traffic and much more.
CONNECTIVITY, BECAUSE SAVINGS POTENTIAL EXCEEDS COST
FLEET EUROPE #115
Yves Helven
Whilst the mobility hype is slowly turning into a more formalised offering, the next must-have and 2020 buzzword-of-the-year is connectivity. Events such as the Connected Fleets Conference attract an increasing amount of attendees, triggered by the potential of new tech in the Fleet & Mobility industry.
Connectivity is not “telematics light”. It comes down to turning a vehicle into an asset that is able to communicate digitally with other assets, systems, city grids, traffic and much more. The vehicle sends and receives data packages that are translated by a variety of applications into practical improvements in the area of fleet management, safety, efficiency, fuel consumption… Connectivity is built into many modern vehicles but can be retrofitted in virtually any vehicle with an OBD device. Cost is minimal: an OBD plug-in can be purchased for less than €50 and applications are free or available at a low cost.
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The main difference with telematics is the fact that telematics add geolocating to the equation, in other words, it will add the exact location of the asset into the data packages.
Smart applications “Data is the new oil” is an expression that most of us have heard. The analogy between data and oil goes a bit further: money doesn’t come from the oil itself; it is generated by refinement and distribution. Same is true for data: raw data needs to be translated into information and this has become a new business line in the automotive industry; we have now data collecting, consolidating, hosting, processing and selling. The old supply chain (OEMs,
leasing industry…) is heavily invested in the data business and are joined by a group of new suppliers, often startups, trying to make money out of vehicle data. Some interesting application are Mercedes me connect and OviDrive. Mercedes hands out OBD devices that connect into the mobile phone. The car owner receives some benefits: the mobile app displays, for example, the fuel level, a find-my-car functionality and users can benefit from promotions. In the background, Mercedes collects user and vehicle data. Mercedes has found the right balance between privacy and benefit; everything has a price and users have agreed that the features of the app justify giving up part of their privacy.
The OviDrive Fleet Management tool uses a similar configuration: the app acts as the digital passport of the driver, connects directly into the vehicle and uses the exchange of information between car and driver to improve corporate fleet management. Any car covered by the OviDrive OS car is able to raise work orders (maintenance, tires…) by itself to register mileage and create logbooks and it can be used as a shared asset and much more. The benefits are spread between user and Fleet Manager, as the system is in its core a tool to enhance efficiencies and reduce cost.
It has a direct impact on the operating cost of a fleet, on driver behavior and on cost efficiencies. Moving forward, connectivity will become the standard and we can expect loads of applications that will make our lives easier. IoT is a reality – why not join early?
Beneficial for your TCO
The investment for connectivity is low and the return is impressive.
Indeed. The investment is very low, even for high-spec systems such as OviDrive, and the return is impressive.
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From generating data to driving business performance
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TomTom Telematics is now Webfleet Solutions
09:53, AP-7, Km 398 08088 Barcelona, ES
Since our launch 20 years ago, we’ve grown to become a global leader in telematics, helping over 50,000 businesses manage vehicles and maximise productivity. Having recently been acquired by Bridgestone, we now change our name from TomTom Telematics to Webfleet Solutions. Our goal remains the same: to innovate fleet management and build the future of mobility solutions.
FLEET EUROPE #115
Let’s drive business. Further.
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CONNECTED
OUTSOURCE IF TELEMATICS ISN’T YOUR CORE BUSINESS Alison Pittaway
FLEET EUROPE #115
The question as to whether to insource or outsource data collection and analysis of the connected fleet is an important one to ask but not a straightforward one to answer.
Insource vs outsource used to be a trade-off between cost, risk, customisation and potential lock-in (where the customer gets locked into the outsourcer’s system and cannot get out without considerable expense and disruption). These days, data infrastructure and processing technologies have moved on and continue to evolve at a blistering pace. The fleet industry has gone through development phases such as Big Data, data science and now AI and machine learning in just a few short years. Traditional vendors are being replaced by open source and cloudbased solutions. When it comes to data processing, the decision drivers are down to the skills available internally and lock-in risk.
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How to decide between insourcing or outsourcing? These days vehicle fleet managers need experts proficient in machine learning and artificial intelligence to design and run systems for predictive maintenance, customer segmentation, fraud detection and so on. These are skills outside the usual remit for FMs. Adam Gooch, commercial director at ITS - Telematics Solutions, says fleet managers must ask themselves: do we have the skillset inhouse to handle this and do we have the time? “Insourcing can be cheaper if you have the skillset, but if your core business isn’t telematics or data management, outsourcing is the answer.”
The case for insourcing Thea van de Gender, business fleet manager Europe, at Ericsson sees it differently and favours insourcing: Jon Smith, Autocab: “Outsourcing is best when there’s a need for a very specific system.”
Adam Gooch, ITS - Telematics Solutions: “Data and outsourcing are specialist projects.”
“As car fleet managers, we know how to collect data, process it and reduce waste. We have opportunities to analyse business and identify trends and correlations. We can do forecasts and make predictions. Having all data stored in one system enables us to unify reporting, ensuring data is comparable across regions and countries. Reports are delivered on-demand rather than periodically ensuring that management always has access to up-to-date information.” The important distinction to make here is that Ericsson is, first and foremost, a technology company that happens to own and run a fleet. In this case, technology is their core business and they have the skills in-house.
If there’s a system out there already, outsource For companies that are fleet operators, first and foremost, such as taxi companies, outsourcing is the better option. This is the opinion of Jon Smith, chief marketing officer at enterprise taxi management provider, Autocab: “Outsourcing is best when there’s a need for a very specific system, such as ours. Our customers wouldn’t be able to set this thing up. It wouldn’t make commercial sense to try and do it in-house.”
Thea van de Gender, Ericsson: “Car fleet managers know how to collect data, process it and reduce waste.”
The benefits of aggregated data
Focus only on core skills
Alongside the platform, companies such as Autocab are data providers. Jon Smith adds: “Customers benefit from this aggregated data, which they can learn from and that insight can be fed back into their system.”
He says that everyone in an organisation should be focusing on their core skillset. The cost of outsourcing is far less if this is the case as it will bolster core business, not detract from it like insourcing would.
Operating 21,000 vehicles across three countries (Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania) OptiTaxi had built their own booking and dispatch management platform from scratch but as the
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company grew it became obvious the system couldn’t cope. The company is now an Autocab customer. Jon Smith explains: “They needed a true enterprise solution. Their system could handle basic booking and dispatch but not data analytics. Handling that many vehicles was becoming a problem. They didn’t have an app they could give to customers, their system was still phone-based, which made it resource-hungry. They needed to be brought into the modern era in order to compete with the likes of Uber.”
Buying in expertise In terms of fleet data, rather than outsourcing data collection and analytics, what fleet managers are really doing is buying in expertise (including operational expertise), ready-made systems and solutions, often bespoke to their industry (such as the taxi company example above), for a fixed cost (normally per vehicle or driver). If there is a solution available (such as with taxi firms), it doesn’t make sense to employ the resources in-house and build from scratch. To do so would take too long, cost too much and pull needless resources away from core business. For all these reasons, a fleet company would not gain competitive advantage doing it this way. Outsourcing makes sense if your business is primarily fleetbased, such as corporate vehicle leasing, short-term hire, daily rental and so on. Where outsourcing doesn’t make sense is when a company is a technology enterprise that happens to have, run or operate a fleet. Such as Ericsson (mentioned above). In their case, they already have the technical skill, operational resources and data expertise in-house to make insourcing not only viable but essential. If your core business is fleet data collection and analysis, insource and build a system that delivers competitive advantage. If not, outsource data analysis and use the insight for decisions that set your business and services apart.
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Adam Gooch adds: “Data and outsourcing are specialist projects. Picking the right partner for the right project will always win out if you take a long-term view but don’t forget, someone internally will have to manage the relationship.”
CONNECTED
CONNECTED FLEET: COMPLYING WITH PRIVACY LAW Laurence Troussart
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Like many day-to-day objects, vehicles are increasingly being connected. Collecting data from vehicles leads to an increase in benefits and to new opportunities but also to a rise of personal data that are being collected and shared. Thus, respecting privacy law should be a point of focus for your fleet management business.
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The new generation of vehicle technology is gradually revolutionising the way business works by offering numerous integrated and connected services (e.g. monitoring systems to reduce costs, logistics optimisation, parking assistance, connected GPS, compliance with traffic rules analysis, etc). In this respect, specific technologies collect a large number of data which may concern a wide range of information including technical information (vehicle speed, tyre pressure, fuel consumption) but also private information or in other words personal data (localisation of the car, drivers’ biometric data, drivers’ driving behaviour, etc). This collection of data may lead to privacy-related issues since this information can reveal, for instance, criminal offences (vehicle speed, etc.) or everyday habits (geolocation).
Applicable privacy legislation There are two relevant sets of rules in the European Union with regard to personal data: the General personal Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (“GDPR”) on the one hand and the Directive on privacy and electronic communications 2002/58 (“e-Privacy Directive”) on the other hand. GDPR came into force on 25 May 2018 and regulates the use of and more precisely the protection of personal data. This is not the first European legislation regarding privacy, as the ‘new’ regulation replaces the former European directive (Directive 95/46/ EC) on the protection of personal data. The main difference between the two types of legislation is that a directive needs to be implemented in the national laws of the EU member states and leaves some room for differences in the implementation, whereas a regulation is directly applicable as law in all member states of the EU and guarantees an identical set of rules in all these countries. The e-Privacy Directive, for its part, concerns the protection of privacy within the context of electronic communications in particular, amongst which the collection and exchange of information performed by electronic means. This legislation is currently under review and may be replaced
by a new e-Privacy Regulation in the nearby future. Given the complex ecosystem and the interconnection of data obtained within the context of connected fleets, the European advisory board on privacy issues, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), has recently published a first version of specific guidelines on processing personal data in the context of connected vehicles and mobility-related applications in order to promote a uniform application of personal data protection in the European Economic Area. These guidelines aren’t final as they are still open for feedback and subject to public consultation until 20 March 2020.
What are the main obligations to take into consideration? It would take us too far to give an exhaustive list of the rules which must be respected in order to comply with the privacy legislation, however we will summarise some of the most important requirements with regard to the connected fleet business. GDPR has introduced new obligations and principles in order to enhance the protection of personal data. However, most GDPR obligations and principles have existed for over 25 years. One of the important requirements, which already existed prior to GDPR is the obligation to inform the drivers and other car users (the data subjects) that personal data will be processed. This also means that the data subjects need to be informed in advance of the kind of data which will be processed, why it will be processed, who will receive the data etc. Moreover, companies may only process personal data based on a limited number of legal bases, like the company’s legitimate interest. It is also possible if the person whose data will be processed gives his consent to such processing, after having been duly informed. An important introduction however is the accountability principle, which obliges any company that processes personal data to demonstrate it is GDPR compliant. In this regard, it is important to document and to be able to
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explain how their choices take GDPR into account. Moreover, a specific agreement with regard to data processing needs to be signed with all suppliers who process personal data. Another important novelty is the explicit obligation to include data security measures within the tools. Specifically, this means that data protection should be kept in mind at every processing step, in other words privacy must be built into the system and must cover the whole lifecycle of the system or process. In the past, however, features securing privacy were usually added at the very end (privacy by design). On the other hand, the strictest privacy settings need to be applied by default, without requiring any action by the end user for them to be applicable. This also implies that personal data should automatically be erased when it is no longer needed (privacy by default). The implementation of security measures is all the more important as a connected fleet, like most connected objects, is subject to important security threats since the number of functionalities and interfaces increases its vulnerability and potential number of attacks. In order to prompt companies to comply with privacy legislation, GDPR introduced administrative fines in case of non-compliance with the law, which may amount up to €20,000,000, or up to 4% of the total worldwide annual turnover, whichever amount is higher. This demonstrates the importance the European Union attaches to personal data protection.
Analysis by Laurence Troussart, Advisor Legal, BDO Belgium
Any company that processes personal data must demonstrate it is GDPR compliant.
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A wide range of data collection
CONNECTED
SELECTING THE RIGHT CONNECTIVITY PARTNER Benjamin Uyttebroeck
@uytteb
Like electricifcation, connectivity is a buzzword in present-day fleet management. But unlike electrification, it’s less obvious to know what provider you should go for. Should it be a leasing company, a carmaker, a dedicated telematics supplier?
Make sure your telematics partner has already worked with similar fleets.
“Telematics and connectivity are a survival tool,” said Rhys Harrhy, Connected Car Product Manager, ALD Automotive. “They help fleets manage their operational efficiency, reduce their risk, report on their carbon footprint and ensure the right vehicle is operating with the right powertrain, particularly as we enter into an era where emission controls in cities across Europe are pretty much at the top of everyone’s agenda.”
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So going for connectivity is a no-brainer, as the hip kids say. But who should a fleet manager looking to implement telematics talk to? What services should he focus on?
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Define your use case
“Usually, when a company decides to implement telematics, the huge positive impact such technology can have in the company is not fully clear,” said Alberto Falcione, Vice President Targa Telematics. “Helping the customer in developing
such potential on different use cases is key for a successful telematics implementation.”
through the platform of another source, but it does add operational complexity.
So a fleet manager should define what he’s after: improve his company’s mobility models so they can introduce sharing and pooling? Control cost? Improve vehicle maintenance?
“There are functionalities we would be happy to unlock and make available,” said Mark Howlett, Fleet Sales Manager, Kia. “So there will be collaborations. Inevitably, we are having discussions with the bigger leasing companies, much more than in the past.”
It is essential to get drivers on board with a telematics scheme. “The use case we really want to develop is about the capacity to deliver advantages to the driver,” said Patrice Nahmias, CEO, TraXall France, “that’s the only trigger to push them to accept having a telematics device in their car. Otherwise, resistance will be too strong.” A fleet’s use case is also defined by its makeup. Large fleets are often managed through more than one leasing company, and the vehicles have different badges on them. There is no technological reason why data streams from one source cannot be managed
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Look at local market conditions
Even at times of GDPR, privacy legislation depends on the market a fleet operates in. Data protection and privacy laws in the UK, for instance, differ substantially from those on mainland Europe, and there’s no telling how they will evolve post-Brexit. Germany’s traditionally strong works councils are a factor to keep in mind. In Belgium, company cars are often part of a salary scheme, making it harder to implement a full-blown telematics solution.
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Services are more important than data
“In my experience,” said Miguel Angel Prado, CEO, TraXall Iberia and LATAM, “almost all providers give you the same information. They collect the same information about driver behaviour, speed, etc. The difference has to do with how user-friendly a platform is.” Mr Falcione agreed. “There are no killer features that differentiate certain products. In our industry, technology is important but operations are even more important.”
“So make sure that the company you are selecting already did something similar to what you need. If you’re a fleet with 10,000 vehicles, make sure the supplier has already provided similar systems on a similar fleet size,” added Mr Falcione.
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Talk to the suppliers
Once you have determined your use case, taking into consideration local conditions, and once you have made a shortlist of providers you want to talk to, you go into talks with the suppliers on your shortlist. Leasing companies or fleet management companies have the expertise to assist fleets in this. “You have to choose a provider that is the right size and has the right footprint in terms of coverage,” said Mr Harrhy. “In my opinion,” said Mr Falcione, “sharing experiences with other fleet
managers is very useful.” This should help not only define the best use cases, but also find out how suppliers put promises into practice. With these points in mind, you are ready to make telematics more than a buzzword and to make it a reality in your fleet management. In the words of Mark Howlett: “The benefits are there to be leveraged so it’s very much a case of the sooner, the better.”
“The difference between telematics suppliers has to do with how user-friendly their platform is.”
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This doesn’t need to be a call for telematics solutions to be implemented strictly on a national level. In many cases, telematics platforms can be tailored to meet different local needs. “We can switch elements on or off, depending on what that country or that fleet wants in whichever region it is operating,” said Mr Harrhy.
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CONNECTED
MY CAR, MY VIRTUAL ASSISTANT @DieterQuartier
We have come to a point where AI and speech recognition allows for a natural and safer interaction with our car. Advanced connectivity also enables life-long updates and continuously improving skills, both to the benefit of the driver and the fleet manager. Mercedes-Benz in-car office: easy conf-calling With the “In-Car Office” service, Mercedes drivers can access certain Office functions and important data directly in the car. For example, “In-Car Office” uses the location data in the calendar and automatically records it in the vehicle’s navigation system. In addition, the user can participate in a conference call without having to search for dial-up details. The system automatically recognises the required PIN code and uses it immediately. Drivers of an MBUXequipped Merc don’t have to lift so much as a finger: they can use the “Hey Mercedes” voice command function.
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Mercedes-Benz in-car office: buttons are becoming obsolete now virtual assistants are smarter than ever – and keep on learning.
That means Android users can soon mirror their phone screens onto the central display of their Beemer and use messaging, navigation and music apps. Icing on the cake: the connection is wireless – no more fiddling with USB cables. Cherry on the icing: the phone’s BMW Android Auto: full smartphone integration data also appears in an means its content is adapted and projected on adapted form in the instruall available displays. ment cluster’s info display as well as in the head-up Android Auto comes to BMW – display. Android Auto will be available from July 2020 for all vehicles and its wireless People not belonging to the Apple with BMW Operating System 7.0. community, rejoice: BMW has finally struck a deal with Google.
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Audi networked traffic lights: first, we take Ingolstadt Then we take Berlin. Well, it could have been the German capital, but it’s actually Düsseldorf that is the second city to collaborate with Audi to create a better traffic flow. Since January, Audi drivers see information from around 150 traffic lights in their cockpit, thus increasing their chance of catching a “green wave”. By early summer most of the intersections in Düsseldorf will be networked. Vehicle-to-infrastructure services like Audi Traffic Light Information increase efficiency and safety. Further cities will surely follow. The feature operates in all Audi models produced since mid-July 2019, except for the A1, A3 and Q5.
Seat Léon: The VW Golf’s Spanish cousin is probably the most connected car in its class, setting the benchmark for its rivals.
Seat Léon: speaking your language After “Hey Mercedes” and “Hello, BMW”, you probably expected the Spanish OEM to inaugurate “Ola, Seat” as a wake-up call for the infotainment system, but in fact, you just press a button to activate the voice recognition. It should recognise natural rather than strictly structured commands, allowing you to operate your Léon safer and more conveniently. Moreover, the embedded SIM means that the new Leon can be updated and offer new digital services throughout its lifetime. Finally, plug-in hybrid drivers can manage the charging process remotely via the e-Manager, pre-climatise their car and manage departure times all from the smartphone app.
Land Rover Defender: Software-over-the-air capability means your car will be improved during its entire lifetime without having to visit a workshop.
Land Rover Defender: two eSIMs are better than one At CES 2020, JLR showcased a brand-new Defender featuring the world’s very first Twin LTE modem. What it actually means, is that this Land Rover can download Software-over-the-air (SOTA) updates on the move without interruption and while streaming music and apps, so without affecting the day-today connectivity. In addition, customers can connect two mobile devices to the infotainment at once using Bluetooth, so the driver and passenger can enjoy hands-free functionality concurrently without the need to swap connections. Finally, the dual eSIM allows the Defender to roam across multiple networks in different regions to optimise connectivity.
FCA UConnect: Alfas, Fiats and Jeeps will soon get a vast infotainment upgrade thanks to the integration of Android OS.
Next to Volvo and Polestar, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is also integrating Google’s Android Operating System in its infotainment unit, bringing access to a broad catalogue of applications. In planning for additional automated driving technology, the all-new Uconnect system comes with a Telematics Box Module (TBM) that assists in quickly moving large amounts of data. It’s 5G ready, too. Finally, with the available Uconnect app, you can use your smartphone to start your engine, lock or unlock your vehicle or receive a notification. As such, FCA cars will be ready for sharing.
Audi networked traffic lights: Virtually every new Audi can communicate with traffic lights in two German cities, with more places to follow.
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FCA: Uconnect 5 is future-proof with Android OS
CONNECTED
A LOOK AT THE CONNECTED FUTURE Frank Jacobs
Full connectivity will be with us much sooner than full electrification or full autonomy.
Connectivity is profoundly changing the way we operate fleets and optimise mobility. But what will all that change add up to? We asked five industry experts to look ahead into the connected future of fleet and mobility management. Full electrification is many years away, and full autonomy may take decades to arrive. Full connectivity will be with us much sooner. Global estimates range from 100 to more than 300 million connected vehicles today. Those numbers are rising fast. Why? Because turning vehicles into data fountains is relatively cheap and easy. And telematics, whether in-built by the OEM or installed as plug-andplay device on the aftermarket, has potentially huge cost and efficiency benefits.
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With the rush towards connectivity definitely on, telematics will bring not just optimisation, but also transformation. In four questions and multiple answers, here’s how to make that work for you.
What’s the most important change that connectivity is bringing to fleet and mobility management? Edwin Maria Colella (Chief Marketing Officer at Octo) sees a slew of
interconnected improvements: “More efficiency, new business models with additional revenue, greater safety and better driver relationship management.” For Israel Duanis (co-founder and CEO at Fleetonomy), it’s both efficiency and personalisation: “What we’ve learned from our customers is that a deep understanding of your demand and of your customers’ needs is key to establishing successful smart mobility services.” Data is the “new oxygen” of fleet and mobility management, says Edward Kulperger (SVP Europe at Geotab). “True mobility is not possible without connectivity. Data is the enabler in smart city initiatives and new forms of multi-modal mobility. Data and connectivity will continue to be the lifeline of fleets and business innovation.” Damian Penney (VP for Europe at video telematics specialist Lytx) opts for ”increased visibility” as the key
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change: “With enhanced connectivity, fleets can harness the power of video to see what happened in the past, manage their operations more efficiently in the present and improve driver behaviour in the future.” Nicola De Mattia (CEO at Targa Telematics), sees “connectivity facilitating a deeper integration between the various services supporting mobility. This will refocus fleet management from managing hardware to providing mobility services.”
Which opportunities does connectivity present to fleet and mobility managers? “The more data there is to leverage, and the more vehicles are connected, means operators can become more efficient in addressing repairs, charging, fuelling, etcetera,” says Mr Duanis. “Connectivity means efficiency, which means fleet and mobility managers will be better able to deliver safety, security and satisfaction,” says
Mr De Mattia. “It also means mobility will fit better with the company’s core business. And it will provide many cost-cutting opportunities.”
“This gives fleet managers a comprehensive and multi-dimensional view of mobility needs and the assets they are managing.”
focusing on identifying the right insights in real time,” agrees Mr Duanis. “this shift will require an entirely new set of tools and expertise.”
“Fleet managers want simplicity, but not at the expense of quality and performance,” adds Mr Penney. They depend on providers like his company to crunch the data and deliver the actionable intelligence.
How will connectivity change the job of fleet and mobility managers?
“Connectivity will allow the integration of various ways of mobility. Fleet managers will be the guarantee that their company offers the best possible multimodal combination,” Mr De Mattia concludes.
One specific area where connectivity will be useful, is electrification, says Mr Kulperger. “Organisations require evidence-based insights to help them acquire EVs where they make sense. We can leverage current fleet data to assess whether today’s EV offer meets a fleet’s requirements.” From a holistic point of view, “connectivity presents opportunities to assess the real utilisation of vehicles and the real needs and usage habits of individual drivers,” says Mr Colella.
“The role of fleet managers is changing well beyond the management of traditional metrics such as safety, productivity and compliance,” Mr Kulperger opines. “The fleet manager’s responsibilities will continue transitioning from reactive to proactive,” predicts Mr Penney.
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“With more opportunities to extract value from fleets, fleet managers will move from purely operational matters and manual processes to strategic decision making,” according to Mr Colella. “We can expect a shift from focusing on multitasking challenges to
#1
#2
>100
+20 countries
Global Insurance TSP Industry Partners
+6 mln
Connected Users
+473 K
Validated Crashes
Vehicle Sharing & Renting TSP in Europe Global Coverage
+267 Bn
Miles of Driving Data
+400 K
Rentals per Months
Smart analytics for a better connected world.
Today OCTO is the world largest telematics and data analytics service provider for the auto insurance industry and provides other innovative connected user services including vehicle diagnostics, fleet management, road tolling and real-time monitoring of traffic and environmental conditions, making OCTO one of the main player in offering smart technological solutions connecting the world of mobility through advanced analytics and IoT-driven services for the new era of Smart Telematics.
octotelematics.com
SAFETY
HOW TO GET GLOBAL SAFETY RIGHT Frank Jacobs
Safety first! But how do you get safety right? For multinational fleets, that can be especially challenging: fleet managers must align global safety standards with different local cultures. That’s hard work, but it helps to have the right vision.
When it comes to your global fleet safety policy, it’s useful to take stock of the difference between desirable outcomes and realistic expectations.
As any CEO will tell you, a company’s most precious asset is its human capital. Caring for your employees is not just a sign of corporate benevolence – it makes good business sense. So, safety is paramount. But is it absolute?
Driving culture
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Fleet managers with responsibilities across various markets are confronted with widely varying cultures, also when it comes to driving culture, not to mention very different regulations. Ideally, you level up: using best-inclass safety standards to lift the tide in all markets across the world. But even when it comes to safety, one size does not fit all. Safety can be a challenging topic in certain emerging markets. But even between mature fleet markets, there are notable differences.
To prevent your global safety policy from becoming an exercise in futility and frustration, it’s useful to take stock of the difference between desirable outcomes and realistic expectations. That will help you bring those two as close together as possible.
Direct Energy Also: don’t forget where you’re starting from. Case in point is Direct Energy. As one of North America’s largest retail providers of electricity, natural gas and energy-related services for the private and corporate sectors, Direct Energy is deeply embedded across the various states of the US and the provinces of Canada, serving its 4 million customers in North America. However, as a wholly-owned subsidiary of UK-based energy company Centrica, Direct Energy also has a presence in other parts of the world.
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From a safety policy point of view, that’s an interesting dichotomy, says Dina Kushaliyeva, Senior Health, Safety and Environment Manager for Direct Energy – and winner of the 2019 Fleet Safety award at the Fleet Safety Conference (held last October in Henderson, Nevada). On the one hand, there’s North America, where the situation is less homogenous than a European would presume. “Each US state sets its own rules and regulations,
Take stock of the difference between desirable outcomes and realistic expectations.
also when it comes to safety. From our perspective, it’s a challenge to match that with a central policy,” says Ms Kushaliyeva.
Dina Kushaliyeva Role
State regulations But there is a system to that challenge: “As a rule, we align ourselves to the most stringent set of state regulations. That obviously makes it easier to adapt to the rules of all the other states in which we are present. And as a rule, that state is California – they’re often the strictest one when it comes to environmental or safety standards.”
Sector
Electricity and gas
Responsible for around 900 vehicles
“In North America, we align ourselves with the state with the strictest rules – usually California.”
That ceiling consists of commonly-held principles – for example: companies must provide safe working environments for their employees. How that is enacted, varies greatly across countries: “The minimum requirement for corporate drivers could just be a licence in one country, an extra certificate in another one. That has to be codified and verified locally.”
Nikola Vuckovic Role
Global Fleet & Fleet Safety Manager Philip Morris International
Sector Tobacco
Responsible for
Regulatory climate How hard it is to implement a safety policy also depends on the regulatory climate of each country. “The Netherlands, for example, stands out as one of the most heavily regulated countries in Europe when it comes to driver safety,” says Ms Kushaliyeva. In that sense, the Dutch may be the Californians of Europe. But the various national regulations across the continent are too divergent for the Dutch example to be the standard across Europe. But what about the world beyond Europe and North America? With a fleet of 24,000 vehicles and a presence in around 90 markets, Philip Morris International (PMI) runs a truly global fleet. “Our fleets have three major safety challenges,” says Nikola Vuckovic, Global Market & Fleet Safety Manager. “Firstly, capillary distribution with direct
24,000 vehicles in around 90 markets
“You can’t just copy-paste the safety programmes from Switzerland to Brazil and expect the same result.”
“Driver training absolutely needs to be adapted to the local risks, driving environment and culture.” Nikola Vuckovic (PMI)
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That same principle also extends to Canada’s various provinces. But once beyond the shores of North America, it’s a different picture: “The regulatory environment is just too different. That makes it even more difficult to centralise a fleet safety policy. So we use a different approach: we have a minimal ceiling, and adapt this upward on a per-country basis.”
Senior Health, Safety and Environment Manager Direct Energy
SAFETY
store delivery, straight to the Point of Sales; secondly, we’re expanding in some high-risk markets in Africa and the Middle East; and thirdly, the typical profile of our sales personnel – agile, male, self-confident, 25 to 35 years old – matches with a demographic that spells risk when it comes to driver behaviour.”
A truly effective global fleet safety strategy requires some essential buy-ins, Mr Vuckovic knows: “Safety starts at the top. You need global top management to be on board. But local management also needs to commit. Then you can adapt the global standard to the local level.”
most unenviable market by far when it comes to fleet safety performances. No wonder then that telematics is one of the key elements to the multinational’s future safety policy: “Right now, about 40 % of our Working Tool Car fleet is equipped with telematics. Within the next few years, we want full coverage.”
That’s why fleet safety is key to PMI’s fleet policy: there is a set of strict global guidelines, but there is flexibility to adapt them locally. “You need to be flexible. You can’t just copy-paste the safety programmes from Switzerland to Brazil, South Africa or Indonesia and expect the same result,” says Mr Vuckovic.
Telematics is an increasingly relevant instrument for PMI’s global fleet safety policy: “It helps improve driver safety, overall cost-effectiveness and global CO2 impact. But it’s important to ensure the drivers don’t get the sense that telematics is Big Brother. That’s why we recognise and reward good behaviour and use elements of positive competition between drivers.”
When it comes to fleet safety, telematics may turn out to be the great global equaliser that legislation has failed to be.
Red lines
Global equaliser Using telematics to identify safety issues and offer tailored driver training has helped PMI reduce its accident rates by 40% in Ukraine and by 50% in South Africa – previously the
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There are some red lines, though: “The implementation of our management systems is absolutely the same across the globe; but the reverse applies to driver training, which absolutely needs to be adapted to the local risks, driving environment and culture.”
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Differences in regulatory environment can make it difficult to centralise a fleet safety policy.
NEW ENERGIES
PLUG-IN HYBRIDS: WATCH THAT FUEL BILL @DieterQuartier
Everybody knows the success story of the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV in the Netherlands. The model was a huge hit in Dutch fleets between 2013 and 2016 thanks to the substantial tax benefits granted to plug-in hybrids, more particularly in the shape of a very low benefit in kind and registration tax. In January 2017, the Dutch PHEV bubble burst when the authorities decided plug-in hybrids no longer deserved any fiscal privileges. The reason was that in practice, people were not using their plug-in hybrid the way it was intended to be used. Urban legend or not, it is said that auction houses and remarketing companies saw thousands of off-lease Outlanders arriving at their premises with the charging cable still wrapped in its factory plastic. Many corporate PHEV drivers just couldn’t be bothered to use the plug: the fuel was paid by the company anyway and there was no
carrot nor a stick to make them charge their car as much as possible.
Dutch lessons and supercredits The one thing we can learn from the Dutch PHEV story, is that plug-in hybrids can offer a compelling TCO on paper, but so long as the drivers are not motivated to charge, they can become a TCO nightmare in reality. That’s something to bear in mind when you open up your car policy to this type of powertrain. Chances are your account manager from VW Group, PSA Group, Volvo Cars, Mercedes-Benz Cars and BMW Group will try and convince you to go for PHEV this year. They have a lot of new plug-in hybrid models coming out – and they will sell them as if their very life depends on it. The European Union takes decarbonisation very seriously: on average, OEMs need to get the CO2 level of all vehicles sold down to 95g/km. The challenge is indeed monstrous in the case of manufacturers selling bigger and heavier cars, i.e. the German premium brands and Volvo Cars. That’s where the so-called supercredits come in. Every car sold that emits less than 50g/km counts double in the calculation of the weighted average of an OEM’s CO2 emissions. 2020 will be a year of close monitoring of sales for the OEMs – and steering them to make sure they don’t miss their target by 2021. This sales steering will take the shape of high-CO2 models no longer being 29
DIESEL HYBRIDS, THE BEST FLEET COMPROMISE? Call them stubborn, courageous, crazy or rational, but Mercedes-Benz sticks to diesel as a fuel for its bigger PHEV models, such as the C Class, E Class and GLE Class, while offering an electrified 1.33-litre petrol engine for the A and B Class. The choice for diesel is motivated by the fact that fleet vehicles in the D segment or above usually travel longer distances and that petrol doesn’t cope well with weight and air resistance. Modern diesels such as MercedesBenz’ 2-litre master vibrations, noise and emissions very reassuringly, while remaining a lot more fuel-efficient than petrol engines. On paper, it looks like diesel hybrids fit the fleet bill perfectly, but Fleet Europe wanted to find out in practice. Read our review of the Mercedes-Benz C300de
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A plug-in hybrid seems the perfect solution to reduce your carbon footprint without too much effort. If the battery is empty, there is still the combustion engine. However, its biggest asset is also its biggest pitfall.
NEW ENERGIES
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FUEL COST COMPARISON 15,000KM/YEAR
THINGS TO CONSIDER BEFORE GOING PHEV
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Look at your typical trips. If they can mostly be covered electrically and you can charge both at home and at work, a PHEV could work for you. If you do travel long distance once in a while, you could consider a diesel plug-in hybrid.
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Plug-in hybrids require a lot more charging than full-electric vehicles, which have batteries that are 4 to 6 times the size. Also, with the exception of the Mitsubishi Outlander and the latest Mercedes-Benz models, PHEVs do not offer DC fast charging.
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On the plus side, you don’t really need a wallbox at home so long as you can charge your PHEV overnight. On a domestic socket, most models will be fully charged in about 4 to 6 hours. Many cars come with an app that shows you how much kWh you have charged so you can be reimbursed accordingly. There are also smart, connected charging cables on the market.
available, or at very limited discounts so they are not attractive compared to the PHEV models, discounts on which are expected to be on levels high enough to sway large fleets and make the TCO add up – again, at least in theory.
FLEET EUROPE #115
Mastering the fuel bill Whether the TCO works out in practice depends on the actual fuel consumption – or rather: the lack of fuel being consumed. Based on the WLTP type approval cycle, below-50g/km PHEVs burn between 1.5 and 2 litres of petrol. This number can easily quadruple if the driver never charges the battery and even grow five- or six-fold if he or she mostly cruises at motorway speeds, inflating the fuel bill to more than the one associated with a regular car.
UTOPIC SCENARIO
BEST SCENARIO
CONSERVATIVE SCENARIO
EV
Δ
€900
€0
€900
€180
€900
€360
€900
€810
% of trips electric
100
€900
% of trips electric
80
€720
% of trips fuel
20
€360
Total
100
€1080
% of trips electric
60
€540
% of trips fuel
40
€720
Total
100
€1260
10
€90
% of trips fuel
90
€1620
Total
100
€1710
% of trips electric WORST SCENARIO
PHEV
Cost of power (€/kWh)
0.3
Power consumption (kWh/100)
20
Cost of fuel (€/l)
1.5
Fuel consumption (l/100km)
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Even in the best-case scenario, with the plug-in hybrid driving on electricity for up to 80% of the time, you mustn’t forget that electric power doesn’t come for free either, and that PHEVs are not the most efficient vehicles, neither when they run on fuel, nor when they run on electricity. Even if you disregard the latter aspect, a fully-electric car will always be cheaper to run, as the comparison shows. Of course, prices of electricity vary tremendously across Europe and between the different providers, something the article on page 32 puts the spotlight on.
telematics. Every vehicle can tell you exactly how much fuel it has burnt, how much kWh it has charged at which location and whether or not there are improvements to be made. Better still, telematics can help you with the single most cost-saver in the whole PHEV story: by profiling the driver, establishing if they can charge the car daily and cover their commute with the battery alone – and if not, if they had rather consider a different powertrain.
Telematics can help But how can you keep tabs on the way a PHEV is used and coach your drivers if need be? You could base your analysis on the reports provided by your fuel company and aggregate the data with those coming from the connected wallbox at the drivers’ home, from charging stations at your company’s premises and from the charging card they use at public charging providers. That sounds complicated, but it could be quite simple if you make use of
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“The Dutch PHEV story taught us that plug-in hybrids can become a TCO nightmare if drivers don’t plug it in.”
THE FLEET MANAGERS’ ADVICE Some fleets have built up valuable experience with plug-in hybrids. This is what 3 of them want you to know.
Bruno Kruijer, Fleet Manager Cronos Group: “PHEVs have a far more limited use case than battery-electric cars.” “We don’t tell people they can’t order a plug-in hybrid, but we recommend that the car must be able to drive electrically for most of the commute, and that the driver has to be able to charge it at home. Otherwise the fuel bill will explode, especially in the weekend, offsetting any tax benefits the company may enjoy and indeed resulting in a negative TCO story. Hence, in most situations, we believe PHEVs have a far more limited use case than battery-electric cars.”
Wojciech Regucki, EMEA Fleet Manager AbbVie Inc.: “Calculate the TCO in the proper way, taking into account the actual fuel consumption.” “The TCO is very much driven by tax. We have PHEVs driving in Finland and Norway, for instance, but it is absolutely essential to calculate the TCO in a proper way, taking into account the actual fuel consumption. To make sure it adds up, our PHEV drivers have to commit to commute 100% on electricity, to charge their car at home or at a nearby public charger every day and limit non-electric driving to 50%. We don’t have telematics to monitor this. In fact, we believe that today, regular hybrids make more sense in many cases, given their low effective fuel consumption.”
Michael Pohl, Sr Procurement Engagement Manager Fleet at Microsoft: “Make PHEV drivers accountable for the fuel cost.”
“The 95g target is expected to push OEMS to offer discounts on plug-in hybrid models that make the TCO story add up – at least in theory.”
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FLEET EUROPE #115
“In Germany, we monitor the consumption of PHEVs and if employees exceed certain limits, they are required to pay the difference to Microsoft. It is our experience that if you make the employee accountable for the fuel cost, it has a filtering effect: our PHEV drivers are mainly people who are in it for the environmental benefits and reducing emissions rather than for the extra power or the tax benefits. We started a PHEV pilot more than 2.5 years ago, when no tax benefits were in place. Today, tax regulations in Germany are very much in favour of PHEVs. However, the ‘risk’ of the requirement to pay a certain share in fuel cost reduced the group of interested people to a certain extent. Moving forward, we are currently discussing the monitoring of fuel and energy consumption for all powertrains.”
NEW ENERGIES
HUGE PRICE VARIATION THREATENS YOUR EV’S TCO @DieterQuartier
The price variation of electricity between one public charging station and another is mind-blowing. From just €0.10 per kWh in Norway to a whopping €10 per kWh in Germany: anything goes. Today, little seems regulated and pricing transparency is lacking. Imagine. You’re coming back from your summer holiday in Italy and committed to maximising the number of electric kilometres driven, you connect your plug-in hybrid to a public charger in a charming Bavarian town called Wiggensbach, where you spend the night before continuing onwards. A week later, Plugsurfing sends you the electronic invoice of all charging sessions performed, including the one in Bavaria. Surprisingly, the amount charged is €99,47 for a bit less than 10kWh – barely enough to travel 35km. Surely a mistake? Unfortunately not. The operator actually charges €1,10 per session plus €0.0196 per minute. Not per minute you charge, but per minute your car is connected to the station. It’s a true story, that demonstrates the huge variation in charging rates across Europe. If anything, this is a serious threat to the TCO of an EV.
Not a fuel pump
FLEET EUROPE #115
Charging prices are barely regulated and the information provided on the charging station is sometimes ambiguous, not to say deceiving – if there is any information at all. Contrary to a fuel pump, there is no indication of the price per kWh you will pay. It all starts with the fact that there are two parties involved in the public charging system: CPOs and EM(S)Ps. A company can take the role of either one of them, or both. EM(S)P stands for E-Mobility Service Provider, basically a network that offers access to a pool of charging points, which can usually be found through an app. Identifying the user, unlocking the station, registering the number of kWh charged and/or time spent at the station, payment: it is
With Mercedes me Charge, you get access to charging points from various providers through an integrated payment function.
all handled by the EM(S)P. EM(S)Ps can either serve only registered customers or open their system to others as well – something that is sometimes mandated by local law. On top of that, EM(S)Ps may provide access to other charging networks through roaming. A CPO is a Charge Point Operator, i.e. a company that operates (and sometimes owns) a group of chargers. It is the party that provides and maintains the infrastructure itself and sets the price the EM(S)P has to pay. Typical examples are Allego, NewMotion, Ionity, but also local public utilities. A CPO typically offers access to its chargers through its own EM(S)P but also to other EM(S)Ps. What you as a customer pay, depends not only on the CPO, but also on the EM(S)P you use. In other words, one and the same charging point comes with different rates, depending on the network and the payment option you use.
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Complexity all over As to the payment, there are actually four ways the use of a charging point can be billed to the consumer: • By the minute, whereby the charger dispenses however much energy the car can take during that time. • By the kilowatt-hour (kWh), much like taking fuel at a pump. • Per session, regardless of the time spent or the kWh charged. • With a monthly or annual subscription fee, which either gives you unlimited charging or a certain credit. A combination of billing methods is also possible – it all depends on the CPO and the EM(S)P. And let’s not forget a starting fee may be applicable, which can vary from 12 cents to more than 2 euros. Next to this, EM(S)Ps sometimes bill transaction and roaming costs when you use a charger that is outside their own network, which can be as
Unlike a fuel pump, a charging point does not always mention the price you will pay. It depends not only on the charging point owner but also on the provider you use.
high as 1 euro per kWh. Considering an EV easily consumes 18kWh/100km, that’s shocking. What can also make you bleed is the so-called idle fee. That is the case for Tesla’s Supercharger, for instance: if you don’t move your car within 5 minutes after it is fully charged, you pay €0.40 per minute you block the Supercharger – or even €0.80 per minute if the station is 100% occupied. Let’s say you are having lunch and you don’t pay attention to your phone. The app has warned you that your Tesla is fully charged, but you only notice it 60 minutes later. This ‘carelessness’ is penalised by an idle fee of €24 at best, or €48 if the station is fully occupied.
By the way, if you don’t have a payment method linked to your Tesla app, Tesla will bill the outstanding amount during your next workshop visit. What would normally have cost you roughly €17 for 60kWh suddenly becomes €41 or €65.
Lessor and OEM programmes Some leasing companies feel the pain of their EV customers and are working out solutions. Like Alphabet in the Netherlands. Together with Eneco eMobility, it offers a fixed rate for charging, regardless of the charging station – whether it’s a regular AC or a fast DC one – and the location. No additional hidden costs, but 100% transparency and fair pricing: the rate is always €0.275 per kWh.
OEMs, too, are aware of the EV charging jungle out there and offer their own programmes to make electric life easier. With Audi E-tron Charging Service, for instance, you get access to nearly 140,000 charging points in Europe, at a fixed rate per country. You pay a flat rate per session in Germany, per minute in France and per kWh in the Netherlands, for instance. The programme offers different subscriptions, depending on how much use you make of public chargers. The prices are fixed for 12 months – the minimum duration of the contract. Mercedes-Benz’ electric sub-brand EQ recently launched a programme called Mercedes me Charge, which gives access to charging points from various providers through an integrated payment function with simple monthly invoicing. The prices are also fixed per country and the first year you don’t pay a subscription fee.
If you don’t move your Tesla within 5 minutes after it is fully charged, you pay €0.40 per minute because you block the Supercharger.
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FLEET EUROPE #115
Other leasing companies and OEMs will surely be inspired by these examples, which make the TCO managing and administrative tasks of the fleet manager a whole lot easier.
LAST MILE
TAKING THE HANDOVER OUT OF PARCEL DELIVERY Benjamin Uyttebroeck
@uytteb
He was the father of the tuning industry, he invented the steering wheel with integrated controls and he added gullwing doors to normal looking cars before anyone had heard of Elon Musk. Now, Frank M. Rinderknecht came up with a mobile locker station which is set to revolutionise parcel deliveries. Speaking at the 2020 Connected Fleets Conference in Brussels on 29 January, Frank M. Rinderknecht explained how he wanted to take on the challenges faced by parcel delivery companies today. His company, Rinspeed, was one of the first to kickstart the tuning industry. He sold that part of the business twelve years ago, deciding to focus on sustainability and mobility henceforth.
40% driving, 60% handover “The problem for parcel delivery isn’t the last mile, it’s the handover,” he said, referring to how a representative of a London-based parcel delivery company explained earlier at the conference how his drivers only spent 40% of their time driving. The other 60% of their time was spent trying to get parcels to their destination.
handover? Instead, have the customer come to get his parcel at a locker station. Locker stations have been around for some time, but Rinspeed wants to make them mobile, so they can come much closer to the end customer, who won’t need to take their car to pick up their order. Rinspeed added another innovation: the cargo pod can easily be swapped with a passenger pod so the same “skateboard” can be used to transport both goods and people.
CitySnap According to Mr Rinderknecht, serious pilots with self-driving vehicles (whether to move people or goods) should happen in the next few years.
FLEET EUROPE #115
“If you replace delivery vehicles with self-driving ones, you don’t address that 60%. Delivery droids are no alternative: how are they going to open the three doors between the street level and my flat on the seventh floor? I also don’t believe in drones in urban areas – no one wants those things buzzing over their heads.”
He predicts a mass roll-out of self-driving vehicles in around 15 years. The aim may be to make his mobile locker stations autonomous, they will need a driver in the interim. “That’s where the CitySnap comes in. It still has a driver, who can drop off the mobile locker station at a location, park it there and return to the hub with an empty CitySnap, by bike or by whatever other means.” Rinderspeed’s idea is brand new but Mr Rinderknecht is already in talks with postal services from Canada, Germany and Switzerland and with big names like DHL Global, Yamato in Japan, Hermes in Germany. “We hope to have a proof of concept ready by CES 2021,” said a confident Mr Rinderknecht.
Mobile locker station Mr Rinderknecht’s solution is deceivingly simple. If you take the driver out of a delivery vehicle and don’t change anything else, the handover is still an issue. So why not make sure there is no
Frank M. Rinderknecht presented his mobile locker station at the 2020 Connected Fleets Conference in Brussels.
The CitySnap uses swappable pods to deliver goods or people.
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REMARKETING
SAVE BY SELF-INSPECTING YOUR CAR Frank Jacobs
Self-inspection is the most efficient way to defleet a vehicle, says ADESA. ADESA IVI, compatible with any smartphone, launches across Europe this spring.
IVI stands for ‘Intelligent Vehicle Inspection’. It’s a smartphone tool that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to assess damage to end-of-cycle vehicles. Drivers can use it via weblink – no download needed – follow the instructions and typically complete an inspection in 5 to 10 minutes.
Device-agnostic
Developed in the UK in a partnership with ENI, ADESA IVI resolves the pain point of vehicle inspections for many drivers: they have to take time to drive to an inspection station, and the inspection itself is a subjective process, sometimes with a punitive outcome – a sword of Damocles bothering almost 9 out of 10 corporate drivers, a pilot study by ADESA shows.
Objective process Of course, it’s impossible for ADESA IVI to capture all damage, but at least drivers can be sure the process is objective versus selective imaging. “Via AI and machine learning, ADESA IVI is constantly improving and already superior to humans when it comes to damage assessment,” says Mr Holland. Last March, ADESA launched IVI in the UK as a pilot project. The pilot’s first results are now in: • 74% of drivers found it easy to use • 70% completed the self-inspection within 5 to 10 minutes • 75% said they would prefer to do self-inspections from now on
Jonathan Holland: “ADESA IVI can reduce the TCD of an end-of-cycle vehicle by about €235.” But IVI does much more than enhance driver satisfaction. It’s also much faster than the traditional inspection process. That makes it possible to remarket a vehicle much faster than before, thus reducing the TCD – the Total Cost of Disposal.
Hidden cost “TCD is often a ‘hidden cost’, but it’s very real: not just in terms of the physical inspection, but also the logistics, storage, depreciation and book drop of the vehicle,” Mr Holland points out. All of which can be reduced or even eliminated by ADESA IVI. Shortly after the self-inspection by the driver, ADESA IVI sends a costing estimate of the damage to the fleet manager, who can then immediately take the appropriate action. It’s even possible to retrieve the used, freshly inspected vehicle straight from the driver, without the need to move the vehicle elsewhere first. “That’s another benefit from ADESA IVI: by eliminating the requirement to
35
move vehicles to and from inspection and/or storage sites, it helps reduce CO2 and NOx emissions – so it even has a positive impact on the environment.”
Reducing TCD The more powerful driver for IVI’s popularity will be the cost savings it generates. Which is significant, as the pilot has shown: “ADESA IVI can reduce the TCD of an end-of-cycle vehicle by more than £200 (about €235, ed.). And that’s a conservative estimate.” Following its pilot, ADESA IVI is about to be rolled out across Europe this spring – a process which will be swift and efficient, considering the nature of the product. Interest is strong, and potential applications are varied. “Some customers even want to use ADESA IVI as an ‘in-life’ tool. Because it’s so easy to use, they want to use it to get an idea of potential damages, say, halfway through the life-cycle of a vehicle instead of only at the end.”
FLEET EUROPE #115
“ADESA IVI is device-agnostic, meaning it works on both Android and iOS smartphones. That makes it a fully mobile solution, unlike other inspection tools, where you have to drive the vehicle to a static inspection station,” explains Jonathan Holland, Managing Director of ADESA UK.
FINANCIAL MODELS
RUNNING A LEASE TENDER IN
2020 Yves Helven
It’s that time of the year again: leasing tenders are back on the agenda as part of our good intentions for 2020. Not looking forward to it; no matter how often you’ve done lease tenders, it’s still a time consuming and difficult exercise. Also, what’s the benefit? Are we really saving money? Why tender? Sole supply clients tender because they no longer feel confident with their vendor – for reasons of pricing or service levels – whilst dual and multi supply clients typically tender to improve the service levels or disrupt a pricing balance that has organically been established between their suppliers. Fact is that, in both cases, no-one seems to like to go to market for a new leasing vendor, but it happens all the time, so what’s going wrong?
FLEET EUROPE #115
The disappointed client The results of the Global Fleet Survey 2019 demonstrate that very few clients (one out of eight clients only) are happy with their global leasing vendor. 44% of the interviewed fleet managers gave a score of “average or below” to their leasing vendor. Dissatisfaction is biggest in France, Germany, UK, Netherlands and Belgium, in other words: the countries with the highest leasing penetration
in the region. Unsurprisingly, alternatives to the company car, such as cash allowance and mobility, are also most popular in the same countries.
What fleet managers are looking for in their new vendor We reached out to some fleet managers and asked what they want to achieve by tendering. Some of the responses: • Leasing companies focus a lot on the scalability of their products and services, which means that it’s becoming more difficult to divert from standardised service levels. Corporate clients are looking for a supplier that truly understands their clients. Quoting one Fleet Manager: “Our leasing supplier has all the data and information to understand what our company needs in terms of innovation and alternative solutions; we expect them to innovate in function of the client.”
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• Corporate clients are increasingly digitising their operations. Some Fleet Managers mention that “the time of pdf invoices and spreadsheets is over. We would like to see our leasing providers provide integration into the tools we’re using.” • Most important requirements however are about pricing consistency and transparency. Keeping the pricing variations under control and limiting unforeseen costs is important.
Lease versus buy Operational or full service leasing customers tend not to switch to outright purchase; the latter has a reputation of being cost-efficient, but also of being an operational nightmare. Most Western European fleet managers haven’t done a real lease versus buy study in a long time. However, it might be time to have a look at purchase again.
Whom to invite to a lease tender? A first recommendation is to look at the funding of your potential lease partner. Bank owned leasing providers tend to be a bit more conservative in terms of residual values, but can, occasionally, benefit from cheap funding, which reflect on the pricing. OEM owned leasing vendors are eager to sell cars and promote the products of their owners…. At the end of the day, every leasing vendor needs to satisfy their shareholder. So, have a quick look at who this shareholder is and try to go for a mix of different types of funding. Check for regional coverage, but don’t focus too much on it. If you have cars across Europe, including countries such as Ireland, Russia, Greece, Turkey and Israel, you’ll always end up with more than one vendor or, at best, some kind of partnership between your preferred vendor and a third party. Even within the more mature EU region, your vendor might be working on different systems, have different reporting tools and operate differently. In a few words: you’ll always end up with some sort of complexity. Therefore: try to find a balance between a local and an international value matrix. Listen to your peers. If you’re reading this, you’re most probably a Fleet Europe subscriber, which means that there’s a few thousands of your peers in the same network who can share experiences and give you recommendations. They’ll be able to tell what the experience with this or that vendor is really like.
RFP, RFQ, RFS? 8 tips Personally, I believe in a service scope-oriented RFP, a multi-supply setup and a matrix contract. There are a couple of reasons for this.
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1
Tender pricing is hypothetical. For various reasons, leasing companies prefer not to guarantee pricing for longer than a few weeks. This means that the price submission is most probably invalid by the time you decide.
2 3
Competition is your best price guarantee. Go for 2 suppliers.
Services are much more important than pricing. Make sure that your lease contracts contain everything you need to avoid a crazy amount of unforeseen costs.
4 5
Multi-supply is more cost efficient than sole supply.
Sign-on bonuses make you look good but need to be paid by someone; that someone is you.
6
Leasing companies are not focused on the quote. You’ll most probably recalculate your contract anyway or return the vehicle on a different mileage than the contractual one. Most of your cars will also have damage. Each of these incidents contribute to the overall Return on Equity of the vehicle.
7
You will recalculate 70% of your fleet. Matrix contracts fix the initial parameters and allow you to budget for recalculations. There’s a small price for this peace of mind, but you should pay it.
8
Take the time to visit the OPS teams of your vendors. Have a chat with the operational teams, ask a lot of questions and try to figure out what the atmosphere is like. These are the people who will deliver the services – not your account manager.
Tenders are useful, but manage your expectations: as mentioned above, tender pricing is very, very relative and operational excellence depends on people rather than on contracts. Therefore, try to act as a partner rather than as a client and build relationships with your vendors. The return will be a lot better than trying to squeeze your vendor.
FLEET EUROPE #115
Firstly, the accounting rules have changed: the funding part of a lease contract is now on-balance, which means that there’s little difference between how operational lease and outright purchase are treated. Secondly, there’s great software available that allows fleet operators to manage up to 2,500 vehicles with just one FTE. Finally, EVs are becoming more popular. They don’t need much maintenance and the market is willing to pay a decent price for second hand EVs.
SHARED MOBILITY
10
REASONS SHARED LEVS ROCK Fien Van den Steen
In recent years, shared bikes, shared scooters and a wide variety of other light electric vehicles have been finding their way to the streets. Here are ten reasons why they should also find their way to your fleet.
1 Agile
Starting the day after having spent an hour in a traffic jam, or after a fifteen-minute active commute on an e-bike or an e-scooter – that makes a big difference. Shared LEVs are agile and they can easily navigate traffic when cars are stuck in traffic. Commuters in cars are left behind, active commuters go off like a shot. This advantage is particularly valid in congested urban areas where cities are increasingly giving space back to the active commuter. Examples include the superblocks in Barcelona or the proposed plan of mayor Anne Hidalgo for Paris.
2 Zero emission
FLEET EUROPE #115
This kind of urban replanning is not only being introduced to cope with congestion but also to take on environmental concerns. Whereas ICEs produce emissions locally, at breathing level, LEVs keep their emissions out of the city centre. Moreover, the emissions produced by the electricity they consume can be reduced to zero if it is generated from renewable energy sources. With this in mind, cities across the globe are taking action to introduce low-emission zones.
3 Zero pollution
In addition, greenhouse gases aren’t the only pollutants ICEs emit into our city centres which LEVs won’t. Elementary carbon or soot,
PM2.5 and PM10 are other pollutants released by burning fossil fuels in ICEs. Incidentally, a recent study of the National Academy of Sciences showed that 95% of the world’s population live in and breathe in unhealthy air.
4 Fast
Not only are LEVs cleaner, they can also be faster. A recent study by NACTO (the US-based National Association of City Transportation Officials) showed that vehicle speed in various cities around the world has dropped to an average of 15km/h, especially in cities with more than one million inhabitants – the home of more than one quarter of the global population. LEVs can provide a faster alternative.
5 Furious
While scooters and e-bikes are fast on the streets, they are also taking over the streets at a furious rate. In the US, for instance, the number of trips on shared e-scooters, e-bikes and bicycles doubled in only one year to 84 million trips in 2018. Moreover, shared LEVs are the driving force behind the rise as shared bicycles are mostly disappearing from the streets, being replaced by e-scooters and e-bikes. In theory, micromobility could take over all passenger trips below 8km, or 50 to 60% of all passenger miles travelled in the US, China, and the EU.
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6 Flexible
Not only are shared LEVs fast and furious, they are also highly flexible. Shared LEVs provide the perfect first and last mile, since they (1) are faster than walking, making it possible to cover slightly larger distances, (2) don’t occupy much parking space, meaning they can easily be deployed close to public transit hubs, (3) can easily be deployed according to realtime demand, in the case of docked services and (4) as a result, they can easily be used by cities to cover the gaps in public transit coverage, helping improve the overall mobility of their citizens. For instance, bike and scooter company Lime reported that
TIER The German scooter sharing start-up Tier offers a corporate service in which companies can meet the commuting needs of their corporate fleet with the scooter sharing service of Tier.
Traffic congestion in downtown Paris where cars are beaten in speed, comfort and agility by bikes.
LIME
8 Affordable
Bike and scooter sharing service provider Lime lets companies create their own corporate LEV commuting plan, including e-bikes and e-scooters. Lime’s motto? ‘Faster, healthier mobility for your employees.’ Indeed an advantage we hadn’t mentioned yet.
9 Corporate offers vs DIY
7 Fits all
Furthermore, shared LEVs are available in various forms adaptable to commuters’ needs. While a scooter is a light and one-person commuting mode, other bikes can transport more people and more cargo. In addition, depending on the distance to be covered and the comfort required, commuters can opt for a scooter over a bike or vice versa.
So, with these advantages in mind, how can you get started yourself? Various shared LEV providers also offer corporate services. Rather than having all your employees submitting invoices per scooter or bike trip, this kind of services allows you to integrate shared LEVs in your fleet with minimum hassle.
10 Future
for more liveable and walkable urban areas and concerns about congested streets encourage cities to convert streets into car-free zones for pedestrians, bikes and LEVs. Most importantly, the growing pains that initially provoked the so-called scooter wars could disappear over time as cities and scooter operators start implementing additional legislation and safety measures. At the same time, criticism of the newcomer appears to be subsiding.
CLEVR MOBILITY
Are you still hesitating if there really is a future for these shared LEVs? Regardless of the growth over the past few years, various indicators could provide the extra push shared LEVs need in the years to come. Increasing environmental and health concerns, for instance, are pushing traditional ICEs out of the city centres. The call
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Offers an intelligent LEV mobility platform. By providing a whitelabel app, the intelligent LEV platform allows operationally efficient fleet deployment, realtime control and management of e-scooters and e-bikes for employees.
FLEET EUROPE #115
in Oakland, almost 80% of all trips either originate or terminate at a BART public transit station.
This flexibility has an economic side as well. By and large, shared LEVs are more affordable than cars. Not only are prices per trip lower, the overall deployment, maintenance and use of electricity is also cheaper than that of (shared) cars.
MaaS
OSLO
100% SMART, 0 FATALITIES Fien van den Steen
Oslo is getting close to achieving its Vision Zero goal, with only 1 road fatality registered in 2019. Here are some key figures of the smart mobility vision of the Norwegian Capital, and how it achieves its Vision Zero.
VISION ZERO
ACHIEVEMENTS
European Green Capital Award 2019 •
• Introduced in 2002 • 2019: 1 road fatality • Road fatalities: 41 in 1975 – 8 in 2009 – 1 in 2019 – 0 in ? • How? - Lower speed limits - Increase the number of safety features in cars - Investment in bicycle strategy – including segregated cycle lanes - Reduced number of cars on the streets - Removal of 1,000 parking spaces => converted into cycle lanes, tiny parks, benches => result: 1.3 square kilometres transformed from car zone to cyclist and pedestrian zone since 2017 - Car ban in some central areas - More pedestrian infrastructure - Improved bike sharing - Improved public transit - More speed bumps - Car-free zones around schools
FLEET EUROPE #115
Global EV capital
• Target: zero road fatalities
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CO2 MODAL SHIFT
CLIMATE GOALS: EMISSION REDUCTIONS
(COMPARED WITH 1990 LEVELS)
-36%
by 2020
-50%
by 2022
• Public transit - 50 autonomous buses from 2020 - Data-driven approach to boost transit satisfaction - 90% of the population lives 300 metres from a public transport service that is served at least every hour (2013) - Metro: 6 lines, 189km (2015) - Tram: 72 trams, 90km (2015) - Bus: 1,204 buses (2015)
-95%
by 2030
• Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) - Right of way for buses and trams at nearly 300 intersections - Improved road safety - Traffic information to road users
HISTORY • 1970s: first pedestrianised streets • 1980s: heavy investment in public transport • 2015: remove parking spots, left-over parking spots converted into parking for disabled drivers or EV charging, or delivery trucks for a couple of hours in the morning, and emergency vehicles
• Walking 28% of all trips (2015) • Cycling - Bicycle hotels at transit stations, store hundreds of bikes at once - Grants for buying electric bikes for citizens - Snow-clearing prioritises cycle lanes
• New zoning plan: network of pedestrian zones that are fully car-free
E-MOBILITY • Oslo = global EV capital
SHARED MOBILITY
• 1,450 municipal charging stations (2019), resolution passed for 600 new EV charging stations
• Carsharing EV sharing – Your City Car – 250 city cars in Oslo, app Your City Car, NOK6 per minute, including parking, electricity and insurance
• 2023: world’s first wireless, induction-based charging stations for electric taxis
• 2023: all taxis will be zero emission
• Ridehailing Uber
• 2025: All new cars sold in Norway must be all-electric by 2025
• Taxi: - Lux Limo - Oslo Taxi - Nordic Car Service
• EV owners are exempt from certain taxes, and enjoy benefits like free tolls and parking • Norway has the highest EV ownership rate in the world (46,143 new EVs purchased in Norway in 2019 = 1 in every 3 new cars sold in Norway is an EV) => Oslo is the EV capital with 50% of all new sold cars being electric;
• Bikesharing - Oslo City Bike, local bikeshare: 250 stations in and around the city centre, Oslo Bysykkel app - Bikeshare system tripled to nearly 3 million trips a year between 2015 and 2018, including a pilot during the winter using bikes with spiked snow tyres, and cargo bikes
• Oslo is the EV capital of the world: in 2017 over 50% of new cars sold were either battery-electric EVs (37.5%), or plug-in hybrids (14.1%)
FLEET EUROPE #115
• Scooters VOI (free-floating scooters)
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AUTONOMOUS
“AUTOPILOT IS THE NEXT STEP IN CRUISE CONTROL” Benjamin Uyttebroeck
@uytteb
In spite of what the name Autopilot suggests, Tesla drivers need to stay in control of their vehicle at all times with this driver assist feature engaged.
FLEET EUROPE #115
In spite of a series of accidents involving a Tesla with Autopilot engaged, the feature does improve road safety. Using it correctly is essential, though, and drivers could do with more information or training on Tesla Autopilot.
Importantly and in spite of what the name suggests, Tesla Autopilot is not a true autopilot system, as drivers need to remain in control of their vehicle at all times.
justify dedicated action targeting drivers.
Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are designed to improve road safety but they can provoke new risks, reports the Dutch Safety Board (Fleet Europe 113). Tesla’s Autopilot has been particularly controversial, having been involved in a series of incidents with fatalities.
Optional equipment
On a fleet of 800,000 Autopilotequipped Teslas driving around across the globe (according to Fortune magazine), the number of incidents may not seem to be particularly worrying. Misconceptions about what the system is capable of, however, may
So are fleet managers taking measures to insure Teslas in their fleet are safe?
“We haven’t modified our policy,” said Arno Veenman, advisor HR expertise at the Dutch Volksbank and Dutch Mobility Manager of the Year 2019. Half his company’s car is electric (140 cars), 49 of which are adorned with the Tesla logo. Of those 49, 9 are equipped with Autopilot. “We see Autopilot as a new piece of equipment in the same way as air conditioning, cruise control, active cruise control. We have not chosen to add Autopilot to all Teslas as it is optional equipment that impacts the
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lease rate. There is no incentive for our drivers to do so but they can pick the option.” Pim De Weerd, Global Commodity Manager, Philips, said his company has not introduced a specific Autopilot policy either. “I’m also convinced it shouldn’t be blown out of proportion. As a whole, I think Autopilot reduces the number of accidents even though there are reports of accidents when people weren’t paying attention or when they hadn’t turned Autopilot on.”
Innovation The fleet Mr De Weerd manages worldwide includes 140 Teslas, some of which include Autopilot. He continued: “We have not had any incidents so far. I understand things can go wrong at some point but that’s inevitable when
ASSISTED DRIVING SYSTEMS IMPROVE SAFETY IF USED CORRECTLY
Pim De Weerd, Philips: “It’s the carmaker’s role to demonstrate the added value they can offer.”
After a Tesla Model S crashed in Florida in 2016, for instance, investigators found the driver had ignored safety warnings given by his car, keeping his hands on the wheel for just 25 seconds of a 37-minute trip. In the much-publicised case of the Uber car that struck a pedestrian, the safety driver had been using video streaming services on her smartphone. In this case, the vehicle was a Volvo retrofitted with Uber-specific systems.
Arno Veenman, de Volksbank: “Self-driving tech is the next step to cruise control.”
According to the World Health Organisation, road traffic injuries caused an estimated 1.35 million deaths worldwide in 2016. The share of those deaths that involved Autopilot or similar systems, is infinitesimal.
“There are risks associated with these systems because drivers put too much trust in them,” said Richard Schram, Technical Director, Euro NCAP in Fleet Europe 113. Mr Schram agreed drivers need to be better prepared on how to safely operate a vehicle with self-driving features. To this end, Euro NCAP is preparing new ratings for assisted driving in which it will focus on three elements:
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Engagement: how does the vehicle ensure the driver remains engaged? Teslas detect whether the driver has his hand on the steering wheel, for instance.
2 3
Assistance level: how good is the system at self-driving?
Safety Back-up: what happens if the driver doesn’t perform well or if the system fails? Ideally, said Mr Schram, the safety back-up system should be “uncomfortable”, so drivers learn not to rely on it.
you try to innovate. At the end of the day, I’m convinced this technology makes driving safer.”
additional information, they should be able to obtain that from the leasing company or the carmaker.”
they should be made aware that they remain in charge of the vehicle at all times.”
Mr Veenman has not experienced any Autopilot-related incidents either. “In any case, self-driving systems are still very limited and cannot be used to stop at traffic lights or to drive in urban areas. On motorways, however, I believe it is the next step to cruise control.”
Mr De Weerd believes Autopilot does indeed call for more information. “In the first place, that’s the carmaker’s role. It’s their product, it’s their car and it’s their name that’s at stake. And if you turn it around, it’s also up to them to demonstrate the added value they can offer. However, that’s not being done at all.”
By and large, Tesla drivers at Philips and de Volksbank are happy to be driving their electric cars. Nevertheless, Tesla, now a company with a valuation higher than Ford and GM’s combined, should provide drivers with more information and perhaps driver training on Autopilot.
Added value Some say the current state of self-driving systems like Autopilot require additional training to prepare drivers and to teach them what the car can do and what it cannot. However, Mr Veenman doesn’t believe that should be done by the employer. “If drivers require
Indeed, the experience Philips has had with Tesla reveal’s the company still has traits of a start-up. “Last year, the mass delivery of Teslas still had room for improvement. When a driver picks up a vehicle, they should be properly informed about the ADAS systems and
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FLEET EUROPE #115
To date, five people have been killed in accidents involving Tesla Autopilot. A number of other accidents are still being investigated. However, it bears repeating that most, if not all, of these incidents can be attributed to driver error.