What 2024 Will Hold for Fleets? (Chris Brown)

Today we talk with Chris Brown, Associate Publisher at Bobit Media, about what we can expect to see with the fleet industry in 2024. Electrification, AI, shared, autonomous, sales… we cover it all. And stick around for the lighting round! 

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Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):

You are listening to the Mile Marker Podcast where we explore trends and innovations in fleet automation and shared mobility, helping fleet based businesses make better informed decisions and achieve full digital transformation.

Speaker 2 (00:21):

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Mile Marker podcast. My name is Angela Samos, and today we have Chris Brown, associate Publisher of Automotive Fleet Auto Rental News and Fleet Forward. He covers all aspects of fleet transportation and mobility. Chris produces and MCs, the annual International Car Rental show, the largest event serving the auto rental industry worldwide, and he also created and produces the Fleet Forward Conference along with the Fleet Safety Conference and Delivery Con for the last Mile Delivery Fleet Market. Welcome, Chris.

Speaker 3 (00:58):

Well thank you. It's great to be here on my own marker.

Speaker 2 (01:01):

Yeah, we're happy to have you and welcome to Mark Thomas, EVP of Strategic Alliances for Right Sell. Welcome, mark.

Speaker 3 (01:09):

Great. Great to be

Speaker 2 (01:10):

Here. Thanks. So as someone who has been covering the fleet industry for many, many years, it's looking like 2024 is going to be a pivotal year for fleets. What are we looking at here, Chris? What are fleets going to look like in 2024? You got three or four key areas you think we'll see the most movement in?

Speaker 3 (01:34):

Well, sure, I can say that in terms of sales and volume, it's going to look a lot like closer to 2019 than it ever has since the beginning of the pandemic with problematic pockets I guess in terms of availability. But I think we're looking at continued high initial costs with a little bit of a question mark on residual values on the backend, but nothing too earth shattering. I don't think everyone's kind of looking at the market as being a more closer to pre pandemic, which is just a welcome site in front of us that we're doing a lot better now than we have. Electrification is, I'm sure we'll talk about that in a second, how that market is kind of the disruptions there. And we will get into ai, I imagine how that's just kind of the big trend and pass to autonomy and stuff like that. But I'm hoping 2024 is a more placid market than 2023, and I think that's the case.

Speaker 2 (03:00):

Yeah, I think that's kind of what we're seeing. Mark, any thoughts before we dig into a particular topic?

Speaker 4 (03:06):

I'm just grateful that we'll get some predictability back. Like Chris was saying, if we've started to resolve some of the supply chain issues around just vehicle availability, we can then take 2024 and use it as a platform to really begin innovating. If you're just trying to meet basic demands, it's hard to create systems where customers can self-service where you can have a more dynamic fleet, you can start to reduce the inefficiencies in different kinds of vehicle usage patterns. So I think this is the year when we finally catch up and those initiatives for digital transformation that we're put on hold just so we could get back to baseline now, are all being rekindled as a way to grow the fleet industry, be more efficient, have better customer success.

Speaker 2 (04:05):

Yeah, it's definitely towards an upward trend, if you will, in a positive direction. So let's dig into electrification in past conversations. Mark, you've made the comment we're sort of in the trove disillusionment regarding electrification for a couple of reasons, a little bit of negative press. There's sales have kind of plateaued in certain ways. Do we think that specific sectors of the fleet industry will continue the transition to electric while others will slow down? Chris, what are you seeing there?

Speaker 3 (04:45):

Sure, I can take that one on. I mean, just in general, I love the phrase trough of disillusionment, right? It sounds like a punk band or something. We're really coming to from theory to reality and as new technology develops, isn't that when it gets really tricky and people get disillusioned when theory becomes reality and we really get into the operational challenges that exist as we do it. Implementation is hard, change is hard, but where I, there's some interesting in all this negativity, some positive stuff out there with challenges, passenger car availability of EVs is happening. And for fleets, the OEMs have availability and this is a good thing. It's sort of tempered with a residual value question mark, which is very real for fleets and they're holding costs. But just a few things. I mean, the price of batteries is actually coming down again, which is great.

(06:17):

Maybe a little further out. I mean, there's some real developments in getting rid of cobalt in batteries, which is going to be fantastic for the environment and a lot of reasons that's a positive. But it seems like there are fleets that are really doing it right now and they're digging in and I mean, we can talk about segments, but if you want to talk about automotive fleets, readership and sort of corporate commercial fleets, the corporate fleets that are particularly EV 100 fleets, they're really pressing themselves to electrify without all the pieces in place actually, but they're going for it. They're doing pretty big, big pilots and they're doing home charging and they're doing thoughtful route selection and it's happening, it's working, but we can go in a whole bunch of directions with so far away. I'm sure Mark has some thoughts too.

Speaker 2 (07:28):

Yeah, any thoughts? Mark on the electrification part,

Speaker 4 (07:31):

Just the availability of vehicles has finally really started to settle down for EVs, and at some point we've hit the limit of how many of these vehicles come in and experiment to experiment, and now it's how do we scale the infrastructure? So interestingly enough, it feels like this year's biggest fleet show will be the ACT expo with eight, 10,000 people showing up to really try to understand how do we scale electrification? How do I reimburse people for home charging? How do I ensure that there is enough charge? What is my charging pattern? How do I make vehicles more interchangeable so that we can intelligently match route and drivers to a vehicle with the current state of charge? It makes for a lot more complexity for a commercial fleet, but it also certainly has a high payoff in terms of cost per mile for vehicle miles traveled.

Speaker 2 (08:43):

Right. And then, go ahead,

Speaker 3 (08:45):

Please, Angela. Well, I was going to say we're divided by segments. When you look at the commercial segment, which is really just taken off really, so class two B and up or is really on the precipice of taking off, it's quote, a lot easier to really start electrifying sort of a corporate fleet. But I have been in conversations with government fleets, particularly in California, and they are knee deep in electrification, and they are really the ones that are testing these first commercial EVs that are coming out and they are gaining the knowledge there. It is still kind of a market that is really about to gain hold, but it hasn't quite yet.

Speaker 2 (09:43):

Yeah, we had a previous guest, Alexander Vz, who the company he works for makes electric trucks and he was sharing that for some types of jobs. There's no electric version of that truck, and so what do these companies do? Do you try to make an electric version of that truck or do you look at an alternate type of vehicle? So that's coming as well. But so yeah, the trucking industry is interesting, and then it was kind of funny in that conversation, do you really want an electric cement truck? I don't know. Do we do not? There's a lot to be discussed there. So yeah, so certainly when it comes to electrification with the available of passenger vehicles, so vehicles or fleets that use passenger vehicles, we'll definitely see a continuation there. But Mark, you touched on something that I think is a good lead into our next topic, which is ai, so intelligent charging, and do you have to charge to 80 or a hundred percent every time you go charge?

(10:52):

Maybe you only charge to 30% to get it to your next stop then. So that's one way that AI can help fleets in this regard. So let's dig into that because that's a very real example of how AI can help fleets and I think for a while, fleet companies thought that AI was just all hype and it really didn't pertain to them, but we're starting to see this holy cow moment emerge where people are realizing that no AI really can help. So let's talk about some of the best examples that you've seen in this regard. Chris, do you want to go first since you talk to different companies all the time?

Speaker 3 (11:35):

Yeah, and I'll just kind of say I'm really in investigative mode too, on where this all goes in generative ai, but I think that there's, whether it's car rental or fleet managers in closed loop sort of commercial and corporate fleet scenarios where internal customer service is going to be, they're going to figure it out where it can be handled by AI before it has to reach a fleet manager. I mean, I think that's really interesting. And I know in our conversations too, we talked about chat GPT and generative AI as it relates to talking to your car. I just think that the whole talking to your car to solve tasks is going to be huge in fleet and how quickly we can really get it to do ai. I know, mark, you even had made the point that you asked to do it a complex task, and what if it routes you a certain way and it's completely wrong? I mean, oh gosh. So there's some real caveats there, but we will be talking to our cars to solve most operational issues when it comes to our vehicles. I'm pretty sure of that.

Speaker 4 (12:59):

Yeah, look, I think we should be very clear to separate generative AI from ai.

(13:07):

Yeah, AI is currently all over people's fleets. If you put in a cabin monitoring system, it's AI that's looking at you and trying to determine was that a yawn? Are you distracted? Are you fiddling with your phone? So when you move from scheduled maintenance to predictive maintenance, that's all ai. We're going to use AI to interpret this particular vehicle's driving history and then make a recommendation that says these brakes are going to wear out ahead of time or what this battery based upon AMP cranking hours and the weather patterns is going to potentially fail in the next two weeks. So go ahead and get ahead of it. What we're seeing now is the realization is that we are using fleet management systems and fleet systems for people's fleets with other people's AI to make the fleet the FMCs business or the fleet owner's business better.

(14:12):

What we're not seeing yet is the opportunity for the fleet owners themselves to train their own AI models that use all the different variables, inputs and systems so that you're not using some generic chat GPT version to help solve your problems. You're actually building and training information that's based upon your specific fleet so that you can then start to harness the power of AI to make business decisions that are unique and relevant to your business without giving away your secret sauce by training somebody else's AI that can then help your competitors run their business more efficiently too. So I think we're definitely at a crossroads where it's aggregating the ais from different point systems to then train and create your own unique business specific ai.

Speaker 3 (15:15):

Yeah, it's kind like how we're using Google internally in various ways, but that takes it to the nth degree, I guess.

Speaker 2 (15:24):

And so let's talk about some specific ways that what you were describing, mark, workforce productivity or predictive maintenance and things like that. Someone may hear this conversation and say, using the AI to train models or create models specifically for my business, what does that actually mean and how do you go about that? My biggest issue is driver safety or driver distractedness. So how am I going to solve that problem with ai?

Speaker 4 (16:01):

I think the first pass is using AI to generate recommendations that humans then evaluate and decide. So AI, for instance, can do all the legwork for you if you need to decide whether or not to keep or sell a vehicle that's coming back from a customer, you can look at KBB, what Cox, what the current availability and inventory you're getting estimates from different sources on the value of that vehicle and how long it'll take to sell that vehicle and what the transaction costs are. And so in the end, it'll build up a recommendation that says, Hey, we think you should wholesale this a vehicle, or we think and this is the estimated value we think you'll get, which is higher than the cost of trying to retail it through a dealer. Now if you then take this and use it to train itself so that eventually the fleet manager says, look, fundamentally I think this is right, I'm going to go with wholesaling, it then learns to see what the actual price was and can start to then use your own information to train itself.

(17:14):

And I think when you get to the situation where their recommendation or the AI recommendation after having done all the legwork ends up being 98% accurate, that's the point at which you just click it and say, don't just advise me. I mean, don't just leave it to me to ratify, but just do it. This car comes back, you run it through the ai, they decide that it's better off being released to another company. Well then free it up, put it back in the available vehicle inventory and start to do whatever's necessary, look at to see which customer is looking for this kind of vehicle and automatically route it into their vehicle pool. So I think we're at an exciting point where people need to learn to trust it, but once they do, they'll find that their job gets more interesting and enjoyable because they're not doing all the grunt work that AI doesn't complain about. It just will automatically, what sources should I look at? Great, I'm going to look 'em up, I'm going to do the math, I'm going to make a recommendation, and you can then decide finally which result you should do.

Speaker 2 (18:25):

Well, in that example that you were talking about, mark, the evaluating the car, figuring out which customer needs it, then getting all of that manually done takes weeks if not months. Whereas if AI was doing, it happens much more quickly. And so it's actually generating more revenue for company. So companies can see it as a revenue generating opportunity and they're not losing money. And so it's a good way to think about it and

Speaker 4 (18:50):

You can continue to layer on. So for instance, rather than wait for somebody to inspect the vehicle for vehicle damage, somebody can just walk around the vehicle, take a video of the outside and the inside, and then AI can determine how much damage something

Speaker 2 (19:06):

Was damaged

Speaker 4 (19:06):

Is required to fix it. And if you wholesale it, you don't have to fix the damage, but if you're going to put it to another customer, you do. And having, so adding in more and more information without the extra cost of having to get an estimator out there to figure out how much it's going to take to replace the scuffs on the bumper or pound out some dents. And you can do the same thing for the maintenance history. If you have predictive maintenance, you know that in the next three months you're going to need $2,000 worth of work. And that also should go into the variables of whether I keep or sell. So being able to then take and make more and more sophisticated inputs, which don't require a huge amount of somebody's time and labor to do helps make more efficient, better information and business decisions,

Speaker 2 (19:57):

Chris, right?

Speaker 3 (19:58):

Yeah. I'm really in fact finding mission on ai, I guess as we all are. I also think that in fleet and in whatever vertical, whatever industry too, that there is going to be a human that I would almost tell one of my sons to go to college for ai. I mean because having that expertise on how to create trust and also put in the right inputs, that's going to be a really important expertise in general.

Speaker 2 (20:31):

And I think this is actually a good transition to our next topic of shared because one of those decisions that the AI can make is, yes, this vehicle would be good to this customer that owns a shared fleet is looking for vehicles. So let's give it to that shared fleet. So let's talk about shared mobility a little bit and how that's changing Chris perspectives on the market in general. Some may say that the shared market has stalled a bit what we thought would take off. And so what do you think has worked well and where do you think we're going to see the shared market go?

Speaker 3 (21:11):

Yeah, I remember the promise in let's say 2018 of shared mobility, and I think we're a little bit treading water, and I don't know if it's, I think the operational shifts were a bit of a heavier lift than we anticipated. I know in car rental that became an issue even though really the tech is in place to make it happen. I think it's a utilization game too in whatever type of fleet that you are studying. And I think that maybe hasn't been solved. And I think there used to be a sort of technology reliability issue. If you talk to fleet managers, I would say mostly, so government fleet pools is still very much in its sharing mode, and that's where it kind of worked to introduce technology. So you're not taking keys off of a board type thing, but you talked to them and there was some issues with the technology and reliability there.

(22:34):

And we were still also, we were looking steps ahead too. Where can we do for utilization? Can we do public a private? Can we solve for any sort of liability but rent to other people outside of the initial pool? And I think we're still kind of waiting on that, but we do have mechanisms to assign liability and that would drive utilization infinitely higher. I don't know. I mean that's sort of, there's models like fluid truck for instance. I mean that's a positive development. I see fluid trucks sitting around my neighborhood. So that sort of truck sharing, that sort of van sharing I think is happening too.

Speaker 2 (23:26):

What about some of these policies or mandates that are saying X amount or X percent of fleets need to be electric by 2030 or whatever year, whichever government has decided to stipulate. And we see the news of Hertz having just sold off a bunch of EVs. So how do you think that this will affect some of these mandates that are in place to encourage more of the fleets, shared fleets be electric?

Speaker 3 (24:05):

From my reach outs in that regard, it's more of a right sizing, let's right size, which would mean deflating getting frankly rid of some units. And I think that again, there would be some opportunities like let's say on the van sharing side very specifically, but first and foremost fleets that are electrifying are going through the task of and doing really well. Actually when they finally look at it that we don't need 200 of these units, we can do it with 180 and that's a substantial lessening those 20 vehicles. Then I think we're looking at next steps in terms of being able to share them, but there is opportunity there. I don't think it's realized just yet.

Speaker 2 (25:00):

And is that okay, we can do the job with 180 and we don't need 200. Do you attribute that because they're learning or using tools to maximize the vehicle usage, maximize their asset usage and not being wasteful? Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:16):

Yeah, I would say so. It's some operational changes to fit. If you're a package delivery company, you can kind of reroute or you buy spec a different size vehicle. And this is smart fleets going through the process of electrification. It is becoming part of the toolkit to look at right sizing as a step one. But yeah, I mean there's more tools to really understand utilization and how to improve that than we have. And of course, I mean AI I think will probably factor in there.

Speaker 4 (26:01):

I think the way I summarize it is B2C sharing definitely has hit a low point with some very famous shutdowns of a lot of the different kick scooter companies, some European companies scooter sharing, and even seeing Hertz offload, a lot of its Tesla fleet EVs may not be appropriate for people on business travel who don't have chargers in their garage and may need to go long distance and don't have an EV and have to learn it. What we're seeing though is that the principles and the lessons of shared mobility are dramatically reinventing the B2B fleet experience. And so as Chris mentioned, the goal for 2024 isn't necessarily to grow the fleet size, it's to increase the efficiency of the fleet. And so being able to get through some of these traditional barriers, which is, well, whoever has the key in the pocket is the person that gets to drive the car.

(27:17):

Being able to look at capacity planning and realize I'm not going to need these two delivery vans for two weeks. If I could put them back into the system and let my sister, whether it's division, business model or a different company completely who may have unanticipated need because one of their delivery vans is in for service and maintenance, having the ability to have a lot more fungibility between drivers, between business lines and between companies even means that we can get a lot more efficient utilization out of a vehicle, which is really I think where lots of the innovation is going to end up happening in the fleet industry.

Speaker 2 (28:06):

Yeah, well said. Well said. So a couple areas that we haven't touched on yet, autonomous connected and some internal discussions here at Righto. We've noticed that autonomy and connected when attending the fleet events that we've gone to, not such a high priority anymore. Chris, are you seeing that same thing or

Speaker 3 (28:38):

Yes. Yeah, I'm seeing a bit of a stall in the market shooting for this Valhalla of level four frankly. And obviously there's some very high profile reasons for that in legal and regulatory situations. I am really seeing and monitoring this paths from A DOS to autonomy, and Mercedes got their, was it c and E class, which can be for a monthly fee of course level, was it two plus or even the level three autonomy? And I think this is where the action is. I think it's a big trend now from a safety standpoint as well. I mean, I understand that Mercedes is taking liability. They have assumed a good chunk of that liability for the operation of the system, but they are actually advertising marketing games, Sudoku on the head unit that you can play when the car is operational. I mean, this is part of the whole value proposition. I think from a fleet manager standpoint, that scares the crap out of a lot of,

Speaker 2 (30:15):

I mean, I don't want my fleet driver playing Sudoku while they're en route, right?

Speaker 3 (30:21):

Frankly, the ongoing cost to make it prohibitive too if it's going to be X amount per month. But I think that's where the action is. I also think that it's continuing a pace in the over, over-the-road trucking environment. There's some very obvious cost savings there. And I mean, if you can have a dedicated lane and you're running three shifts, you don't have hours of safety, I mean hours of service, excuse me, rules. And so do instead of one, you're adding two more shifts, you've got a big advantage over your competitor and it is kind of removing a little bit of the edge cases that driving in San Francisco might fail. So yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:08):

Mark, what are your thoughts

Speaker 4 (31:09):

Here? I think on the other side, connectivity is essentially a foregone conclusion. There's enough understanding that having a connected vehicle enables a whole lot of other services that help the vehicles run more efficiently, run better. And the movement is now away from trying to sell consumer services to people in vehicles. And instead it's about providing B2B services. It's that connectivity lets you pre-order the part when the predictive maintenance system figures out that due to your particular driving, you're going to need that spark plug treatment at 28,000 miles rather than 40. So having a change around monetizing it to having a completely different set of solutions that take advantage of connectivity is one of the lessons that the industry should have learned from the mobile revolution. It wasn't the.com companies that succeeded with coming out with consumer services for mobile. It was companies that took advantage of the fact that phones had cameras.

(32:31):

And so rather than MySpace, Instagram sharing pictures rather than MapQuest, it became maps because it has a GPS built in. So understanding what are the things that your car knows about that your phone doesn't know about that is the greenfield opportunity. Nobody wants to buy a separate subscription to Audible or Netflix or anything that they already have on their phone for that matter, even a wifi plan, because I've already got that. So having the ability to then realize it's not about adding connectivity so consumers can buy more consumer products. It's about adding connectivity so that we can have our vehicles completely fit in to this new ecosystem of understanding the sensors software-defined vehicles, and all of those other things that go along with a unique connected environment for cars.

Speaker 2 (33:32):

I agree a hundred percent. And I will say I actually feel like people are experiencing subscription fatigue at this point because you end up paying so much more for all these little subscriptions because they're little, but then you add them all up and before you know it, you've spent thousands of dollars and now we're having to cut back. So I agree with you a hundred percent on that. So we are coming up on our time and we're going to introduce a new aspect of the Mile Marker podcast here called The Lightning Round. But before we get to that, anything else, Chris, that we haven't touched on that you think is important to mention?

Speaker 3 (34:16):

Well, let's just get to the lightning round and run through it. I mean,

Speaker 2 (34:20):

Get some fun going.

Speaker 3 (34:21):

Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 4 (34:23):

Do we need buzzers?

Speaker 2 (34:27):

Alright, you ready?

Speaker 3 (34:29):

Sure.

Speaker 2 (34:29):

Alright, so fully autonomous driving. Will it ever happen?

Speaker 3 (34:36):

Probably not in our lifetimes, but I'm keeping an eye on China because their state planning, they're well ahead on us in terms of passenger car in big cities. Whether we get that information or not, I'm not sure, but China is leading the way right now,

Speaker 2 (34:54):

Right? And

Speaker 4 (34:55):

Yes, I take Waymo's at least once a week in San Francisco and it's already offering a superior level of service to my typical distracted Uber driver.

Speaker 2 (35:09):

All right. Keyless technology. Will OEMs ever eventually fully adopt?

Speaker 3 (35:16):

Well, I'll weigh in here, but I know this is Mark's bailiwick for sure. I mean, I think it's standardization of the technology is going to be a big issue. I I'm looking for will there be an ability where you're not using an app, but can you use like a CES? We saw eye authenticators and certainly thumbprints where that is the ability to get the car going and you don't have to fumble with a phone might be something to look at.

Speaker 4 (35:49):

So look, I think the CCC consortium is an amazing start to getting the OEMs and a number of interested third parties to agree upon the requirements. C. CC means you don't need a key in your pocket as a fail safe, it's robust enough. So having a standard that a number of key companies have bought into is a huge step forward. So I absolutely believe that the physical key fob that we're required to carry around will be about as popular in five to 10 years as an actual room key for your hotel instead of a small individually made key card that we keep in our wallet.

Speaker 2 (36:30):

Right. Biggest safety win in 2023?

Speaker 3 (36:36):

I'm just going to go on trends. I guess I'd say I want to see what the weight of electric vehicles is going to do in terms of safety or be a detriment for safety because we've heard about these new trucks are 9,000 pounds with the battery. Really what's that going to do in crashes? I don't think we know quite yet. I do want to see too is there's a lot of EV safety stuff with battery fires and whatnot and what's the real percentages there? I think it's a lot of sensationalism and we will see it only takes one big battery fire to ignite certain people there against EVs. But that's, and then in terms of a trend too, I am kind of following how autonomy is progressing and how we're able to still keep our eyes on the road and be safe while allowing our car to do certain tasks even though it's not fully autonomous. So those are two pretty big trends I'm following as it relates to safety.

Speaker 4 (37:53):

So to me, what gets measured gets done. So the fact that in 2023, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety revamped the entire safety regulations that require now better side impact protection, improve crash prevention tech, and even better headlights and remove some of the stuff that was just table stakes. It meant that in 2023, only half the cars passed the test that passed it in the years prior. So the fact now that we're really upping the safety standards means that companies are going to be investing to make sure that those vehicles have all the latest safety gadgets and protections in them.

Speaker 2 (38:37):

Okay. Biggest safety fail in 2023? Chris?

Speaker 3 (38:44):

Again, I'm going to concentrate on the trends because I am really not, my mind is not where the fails are. Let's say

Speaker 2 (38:59):

Very diplomatic, maybe's political. Well done. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (39:03):

I'm just going to say stranded frozen EVs.

Speaker 2 (39:07):

Well, there you go. Exactly, exactly. There you go. All right, Chris, two words to describe fleet sales in 2024.

Speaker 3 (39:14):

Two words. What are you kidding me?

(39:19):

I will say segment challenges and just to follow up on that, I mean certainly overall we're really back where the faucet is being turned on again, which is fantastic. And fleets are getting the vehicles they want, even to the point where incentives are creeping up and we've all seen inventory creeping up in various segments, but cargo vans will be challenged. They're still going to be hard to come by. Hybrids, hard to come by. Heavy duty pickups, another segment that's going to be a little bit challenged on supply. So in general, we're looking a lot better than we have.

Speaker 4 (40:01):

My two words, increasing efficiency.

Speaker 2 (40:04):

Alright. Will all fleets be a hundred percent electric at some point in the future?

Speaker 3 (40:11):

Well, in our lifetimes I hope to live to be a hundred. I don't think so. And I am really a keen steward of the environment and I want to see everything done to protect our environment because I do honestly, I mean I feel very passionately that we're really not doing a service to our planet, but the realism of ev, I think we're going to have to see some technological advancement in battery technology to really see this take off for some of the larger applications.

Speaker 4 (40:45):

I don't think so, only because we continually are reinventing how we make cleaner vehicles. So I suppose that there potentially will be another disruptive technology revolution that may come in and start becoming the preferred method. So I don't think this is the end of the road for clean vehicles. I think it's a step along the way.

Speaker 2 (41:18):

Okay. And last question, what's your favorite EV model?

Speaker 3 (41:24):

Well, you put me on the spot, right? And again, I'm going to play political because I've driven quite a few and they each have their really, really good points and areas where they're lacking. And that's from EV pickup models to passenger car models, crossovers. I've even driven some of their commercial product and there is a wide gap between in commercial product as I'm really kind of understanding of what is going to make it and what might not. I will say that the charging experience, I am kind of cresting my own fears of the charging experience and I don't have a level two charger at home, but this is why I really appreciate Tesla's supercharger experience. They are far and away better than anyone else, and that is going to hold them in good stead. And obviously the other OEMs latching onto that. So roping that in. I would have to say Tesla's complete package is a winner

Speaker 2 (42:34):

Mark,

Speaker 4 (42:35):

And for me it's Porsche Tecan.

Speaker 2 (42:40):

What an incredible car. Well, just building off of what you were saying, Chris, about the charging infrastructure. I know I'm not the one answering these lightning round questions, but I will just say my next ev, if it's not a Tesla, it will be one of the cars that have said that they will be able to connect to Tesla's charging network because you're right, they're everywhere. And we just went on our first long road trip in our EV and it went smoother than anticipated, but there was still a little anxiety there for sure. Well, this has been an excellent conversation. Thank you so much for your time, Chris. I think we can all agree it's an exciting year for fleets and so we will have to have this conversation again maybe at the end of the year or after the new year in 2025 and see if some of our predictions came true.

Speaker 3 (43:35):

For sure. I look forward to it.

Speaker 2 (43:36):

Awesome. Well thank you both and until next time.

Speaker 5 (43:40):

Great. Thank you Chris. Thank you Angela.

Speaker 1 (43:42):

Thanks for listening to the Mile Marker podcast. If you liked what you heard today, give us a share this episode on social media and even take a minute to give us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe to our channel so you can join us for future episodes full of insights and ideas to keep the mobility industry moving forward.