During the Fleet Europe Technology & New Powertrains Event 2011, several speakers made it clear that the introduction of new automotive technologies will have an impact on different key elements in fleet management : the market, the TCO model, taxation, fleet services and telematics. More about these influences you can read in this news item. In the afternoon the 65 participants had the occasion to discuss the outcome of the presentations during interactive workshops. 

It is not surprising that the mix of participants – fleet owners, leasing companies, vehicle manufacturers and experts – had a wealth of experience, ideas and knowledge to share and debate. During the workshop ‘My Fleet’, chaired by Professor Peter Cooke, the participants looked at the best car models for fleets. There isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ solution, was one of the conclusions, even if a trend towards more compact cars with smaller (diesel) engines was apparent. And employee choice would continue to play an important role. The integration of electric vehicles will go slowly as long as the total cost of these vehicles is not as competitive as the cost of traditional cars with combustion engines. 

Business model
Bringing alternative-fuel vehicles into the fleet, a session chaired by car fleet specialist and consultant Bart Vanham, can lead to another business model for the stakeholders, although it was pointed out that the business model for cars with combustion engines is also relevant to hybrids and plug-in hybrids. When it comes to electric cars, there is a need to build demand for these vehicles so that the business model can become attractive, and this can only be achieved by improving the distances between recharges and the recharging process. There may also be a move away from employees having their ‘own’ company cars, to more flexible and overall mobility solutions in line with the so called 'cafeteria plan' where employees receive a mobility budget instead of a car fleet budget and can chose between a range of mobility solutions. 

Emergency
The topic of safety features was hosted by a previous winner of the Fleet Europe Awards in this area – Claus-Peter Krüger from CWS Consulting Group. ‘If a safety feature is really important, manufacturers should include it in their base model’ was one of the recommendations to emerge. Looking into the future the participants are ready to welcome the 'emergency call' feature in vehicles. A feature that Europe wants to make mandatory on new vehicles from 2015. But the most important conclusion was that everything has to be done to avoid incidents and accidents and in this field Driver Behaviour and Driver Management with a focus on communication and awareness play a key role.

During the fourth and last workshop of the afternoon on the impact of alternative fuels on the cost of the fleet - chaired by Jaap Groot of MiX Telematics - fuel cells, powered by hydrogen, made their appearance. Once again, infrastructure is an issue, and it was revealed that the next existing fuelling point after Stuttgart for the Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-cell vehicles currently driving around the world, was in Los Angeles… To make the step to new technologies such as e-Mobility or hydogen, hybrids represent an attractive intermediate stage because they are a mix of well known technology with new technology. Here the launch later this year of several hybrid diesel models may drive fuel efficient fleet management in another direction.

Interaction, ideas, top quality information, the success of the workshops at the first edition of the Fleet Europe Technology & New Powertrains Event was summed up by Paul Herremans of Philips: “The workshops were very useful and dependent on interaction between participants – this went very well.”