Best of LinkedIn: Commercial Fleet Insights CW 08/ 09

00:00:00: brought to you by Thomas Allgaier and Frennus.

00:00:02: This edition highlights key LinkedIn posts on commercial fleets from weeks eight, nine.

00:00:07: Frenness supports automotive enterprises in consultancies with market customer and competitive intelligence In the commercial fleet sector With a strong focus on digital solutions and emerging technologies.

00:00:18: Glad to be here for this one.

00:00:19: Yeah, welcome back to the deep dive and Welcome To You our listener today.

00:00:24: Our mission is to filter through the noise and analyze The absolute top commercial fleet trends we saw across the industry during calendar weeks eight or nine of twenty-twenty six.

00:00:34: It Is genuinely great to Be diving into This batch Of insights when you sit Back And look at the curated post from these two Weeks.

00:00:41: in aggregate a very clear what an Almost unavoidable overarching narrative emerges, right?

00:00:47: We are watching the mobility industry rapidly and if I mean rapidly shift from a traditional focus on hardware And physical assets to something entirely different.

00:00:55: The physical trucks the vans that depots there increasingly just the vessels.

00:01:01: The real value being discussed by professionals Right now is all about data orchestration AI in strategic energy management.

00:01:09: Basically, the network is becoming the product.

00:01:11: Right?

00:01:12: The network itself.

00:01:13: and we're going to cover exactly how that's happening by moving through four main clusters.

00:01:17: today We've got data platforms safety in risk electrification And finally payments

00:01:23: sounds like a solid roadmap.

00:01:24: So let's jump right into that first theme fleet management telematics and data platforms.

00:01:30: When you look at the discussions happening right now on LinkedIn What does the fundamental change in how fleets are handling their data architecture?

00:01:38: What's fascinating here is the definitive end of the vertical sauce era.

00:01:42: Okay, there were some really sharp insights shared recently by Dennis Demyonikov and Adnan Wasini pointing this out.

00:01:48: for The better part of a decade if you are managing A fleet You essentially had to mold your entire operation around the limitations Of the software you purchased which

00:01:57: was always incredibly frustrating

00:01:59: Exactly.

00:02:00: You bought a routing platform and if you wanted to add maintenance tracking, three different monitors that just couldn't communicate with each other.

00:02:13: Right, the silo effect

00:02:14: Exactly!

00:02:15: Now fleets are moving toward flexible AI-ready infrastructures where data is completely decoupled from those rigid applications.

00:02:23: That makes so much sense.

00:02:24: It's an idea that software should finally work for the fleet rather than forcing the fleet manager to constantly adapt to the software, and that concept of liberated data ties directly into a huge theme we saw coming out of Geotab Connect.

00:02:39: We saw a lot of posts from folks like Karen McMinn and Stephen White about this.

00:02:42: Specifically, Geotabs CEO Neil Cause made his statement that really anchored the whole discussion.

00:02:48: Oh!

00:02:48: The food quote?

00:02:49: Yes he said Data is the Food for AI.

00:02:53: It's

00:02:53: so true though...

00:02:54: it IS!

00:02:55: Telematics has evolved so far beyond just putting a blinking dot on digital maps.

00:03:00: It's now about feeding enough high-quality data into a system to create near real time digital twin of your entire operation.

00:03:07: And that concept is critical, if you want artificial intelligence make complex operational decisions for even just highlight hidden risks.

00:03:17: it cannot work with fragmented spreadsheets Exactly, complete connected trusted data.

00:03:25: That was the driving force behind the launch of GeoTap ACE which is their new AI assistant built directly inside my geotab.

00:03:33: Oh right!

00:03:34: The upgrade here that fleet managers don't have to spend hours writing SQL queries anymore.

00:03:39: you just type a question in plain English and the AI synthesizes the answer because it already sees the full operational

00:03:45: picture.

00:03:46: but to get that full picture companies really have to stop operating in silos.

00:03:50: I actually saw a post from Chris Cabrera and Corey Coslin talking about lixone.

00:03:54: Yeah, that was interesting.

00:03:55: They are aggressively moving toward this all-in-one approach Physically combining video safety telematics an AI processing into a single platform And the skill is just hard to wrap your head around.

00:04:05: they're backing This with three hundred billion miles of driving data.

00:04:09: think about them machine learning implications of that for a second.

00:04:13: When your AI models are trained on three hundred billion miles of real-world context, their ability to accurately predict a collision is going be incredibly refined.

00:04:22: But having the smartest AI doesn't matter if you can get data out Reliably, which

00:04:27: is a huge physical challenge.

00:04:29: It really is.

00:04:31: Shaw and the Bahadur Alam shared an update from bongo IOT about their new E-SIM connectivity And it highlights these intense hardware realities.

00:04:40: We aren't talking about a smartphone sitting in an air conditioned office right

00:04:43: user out in the elements

00:04:44: automotive grade durability Functioning perfectly anywhere from minus forty degrees Celsius in a Canadian winter to plus seventy degrees In a desert summer

00:04:54: not to mention the logistical nightmare of trucks crossing borders.

00:04:58: The fact that these new eSIMs have remote profile switching means when a truck drives from Germany into Switzerland, this system just downloads local carrier profiles over-the air – no massive roaming charges and no swapping physical SIM cards….

00:05:12: But I imagine a fleet manager listening right now might be thinking well it's great!

00:05:20: Why is keeping everything actually hurting them?

00:05:23: That is the cost of clutter.

00:05:25: Vivek Pundt and Kandav pointed out what a massive hidden financial drain this has become, redundant telematics data is quietly eating away at IT budgets.

00:05:35: Well think about modern connected truck.

00:05:37: it comes with an OEM built in telematic system sending data.

00:05:41: then fleet installs aftermarket device for their specific software plus a dash cam recording GPS and speed.

00:05:47: Oh, so they're duplicating everything?

00:05:48: Triplicating

00:05:49: it in some cases!

00:05:50: The fleet is paying to collect transmit and store the exact same breaking signals three different times.

00:05:56: It drastically inflates cloud storage costs...the next true phase of maturity isn't about collecting more data.

00:06:02: its deciding what not keep.

00:06:04: Here's where gets really interesting though.

00:06:06: When you strip away that clutter And focus on highly specific data You see life-saving innovations.

00:06:12: CERN Hurts are posted about a new interface being deployed between Drager and Geotab.

00:06:18: They're actively linking alcohol interlock events directly into the telematics workflow.

00:06:23: That's huge integration.

00:06:24: It is!

00:06:25: If driver blows above legal limit, hardware physically prevents engine from starting as it always has.

00:06:31: But now that specific event is instantly transmitted to fleet managers dashboard in real time rather than just be logged locally for an audit six months later

00:06:41: The broader context behind that is incredibly sobering.

00:07:11: Safety, risk and compliance.

00:07:14: We're finally at a point where AI's impact on safety is highly measurable.

00:07:19: The data is undeniable now?

00:07:21: Chris Shank in Christopher Flood shared insights from Verizon Connects' twenty-twenty six fleet technology trends report.

00:07:27: Eighty percent of fleets now rely on GPS tracking as the baseline but for those that deployed AI video telematics they saw massive forty eight percent reduction in accident related costs.

00:07:38: If we connect this to the bigger picture though, there's a psychological trap that operators fall into here.

00:07:44: Steve Lockington and Crystal Zeil had great discussion highlighting the plateau problem.

00:07:48: The Plateau Problem?

00:07:49: Yeah!

00:07:49: A fleet invests in shiny new AI cameras...the drivers know they're being monitored.

00:07:54: so safety metrics improve drastically for first few months but then

00:07:57: it

00:07:58: hits a ceiling stops improving because issue at stage is no longer tech problems its behavior management.

00:08:05: Pinging drivers with an alert after they make a mistake doesn't actually build long-term habits.

00:08:10: Which means the way we measure success has to change.

00:08:14: Crystal Zeil argued that you have to pivot from lagging indicators, to leading indicators.

00:08:19: Staring at accident reports on Friday is a lagging indicator The damage done.

00:08:25: A leading indicator is checking your dashboard Monday To see how many preventable idling incidents occurred Or checking completion rates of driver coaching modules.

00:08:33: The focus has to be continuous engagement.

00:08:36: That's exactly what geotab vitality is attempting to solve.

00:08:39: Instead of just penalizing bad driving, they reward sustained safe behavior over time.

00:08:44: They're claiming a forty-one percent improvement in safe driving metrics In under sixty days.

00:08:49: through that continuous engagement

00:08:50: And when those habits stick the financial outcomes are transformative.

00:08:54: Jeffrey Berry shared A real world example about redway transport.

00:08:58: By fully committing to AI dash cams and coaching culture They achieved zero at fault accidents.

00:09:03: That

00:09:03: is incredible!

00:09:04: Zero, and having that indisputable video context completely insulated their drivers from those fraudulent crash for cash claims.

00:09:11: The commercial auto insurance industry is absolutely taking notice too.

00:09:15: Ron Arnold & Steve Hammondway shared actuarial insights showing a twenty-two percent lower claims frequency when these platforms are used consistently.

00:09:23: Wow.

00:09:24: And even more impactful A fifty percent drop in bodily injury claims.

00:09:28: Fifty percent is massive.

00:09:31: Speaking of moving quickly, the speed of compliance is also getting an upgrade.

00:09:35: Juro-Kate brought up a concept of digital permit book.

00:09:39: The standard now has been able to see full compliance status across all jurisdictions in under ten seconds.

00:09:46: And Jen Langen pointed out that Compliance in twenty twenty six goes way beyond hours.

00:09:52: She warned that connected fleets must prioritize cyber awareness and identity protection as foundational safety measures.

00:09:58: Well,

00:09:58: if we accept that modern trucks are essentially massive rolling computers then cybersecurity is non-negotiable.

00:10:04: And the fact these vehicles or essentially computers perfectly frames The mass of infrastructure challenge happening right now because they're increasingly running on massive battery packs

00:10:13: Which brings us to theme three electrification charging operations.

00:10:16: in energy management.

00:10:18: We were seeing deployments reach incredible scale.

00:10:21: Tyler Felipe used Amazon as the benchmark.

00:10:23: The Amazon scale is wild!

00:10:25: Thirty thousand electric vans, seventeen thousand chargers...the vehicles are clearly ready for a daily grind.

00:10:32: but the new constraint isn't range anxiety anymore it's grid capacity.

00:10:36: Grid

00:10:37: capacity is arguably the single largest bottleneck right now.

00:10:40: If a logistics company tries to plug hundred EV vans into local industrial park grid at six p.m... They'll

00:10:46: completely overload it!

00:10:47: Exactly, and upgrading transmission lines takes years.

00:10:51: But Tyler highlighted Optigrid's battery-integrated charging approach.

00:10:54: Instead of pulling massive power directly from the grid to charge trucks The depot installs a stationary battery.

00:11:00: So it acts as a buffer?

00:11:02: Exactly It slowly pulls low voltage power form the grid twenty four hours per day Stores it and then delivers high-power fast charging to the vehicles at night.

00:11:11: It bypasses.

00:11:22: Three years ago, five percent of their deliveries were electric.

00:11:26: Today it's eighty-five percent.

00:11:27: That is

00:11:27: a huge jump!

00:11:29: They supported with one megawatt stationary battery onsite plus rooftop solar covering up to seventy per cent the warehouse energy.

00:11:37: It' s phenomenal model but system like IKEA requires an enormous amount upfront capital.

00:11:42: What happens to midsize carrier who doesn't have millions in cash?

00:11:46: That's driving these asset-like business models.

00:11:49: Claudio Gaikin in a Bahia Eufort and Patrick Holm were discussing J&A technologies.

00:11:54: It is joint venture between Stedena & Sender using paper use model specifically for heavy electric trucks.

00:12:00: So it removes the upfront cost, residual value risk for small carriers?

00:12:04: Completely.

00:12:05: They have over fifty of those electric trucks on road already aiming for two hundred in Europe by twenty twenty six.

00:12:11: Mauricio Sardi echo this stating that future is zero capex data optimized electric capacity.

00:12:16: But if a company does own their private charging depot, Michael Andronikou highlighted a clever way to monetize it.

00:12:23: By opening those private underutilized depots to the shell card network during the day, fleets can generate new revenue.

00:12:30: Maximizing The Asset.

00:12:32: Nick Burke shared a similar concept from Kuro Charging Their Virtual Depot Model.

00:12:36: They connect fleets to idle chargers at commercial properties overnight boosting parking utilization by two hundred percent.

00:12:43: Morsepno really summarized this energy cluster perfectly.

00:12:47: He said, fleets must treat energy as a controllable strategy.

00:12:51: The winners won't just be the ones who electrify first but those that operate the smartest turning electric depots into grid assets

00:12:58: Which naturally leads in to our final theme for today Fleet commerce payments and fueling.

00:13:03: Yes Victor Lipsyke pointed out that while vehicles get the glory, payment reconciliation settlement and price transparency are massive bottlenecks for scaling EV fleets.

00:13:13: It's a severe friction point!

00:13:15: Asma Rachidi shared a projection that fleet cards are evolving from simple fuel payments into mobility orchestration.

00:13:20: The market is projected to reach one-point seven trillion dollars by twenty thirty.

00:13:25: Okay let's unpack this.

00:13:26: Florian Burm shared an update on his first day as CEO of RIDE.

00:13:31: They are building an in-vehicle payment OS for seamless fueling, charging and washing directly from the cockpit.

00:13:38: Zero physical cards

00:13:39: required.".

00:13:39: And when you tie transactions to vehicle hardware it unlocks data security.

00:13:44: Victor Gonzales updated us on Flevo integrating PetroCanada FuelCard Data directly with SEMSAR telematics.

00:13:50: So they match fuel transaction to real time vehicle movement.

00:13:53: Instantly

00:13:54: detecting fraud and unifying spend visibility...

00:13:57: ...and circles right back into power of date integration.

00:14:00: Well, if you enjoyed this episode new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:14:03: Also check out our other editions on electrification and battery technology future mobility in market evolution And next gen vehicle intelligence.

00:14:10: hit subscribe and share these insights with your colleagues

00:14:13: before You go.

00:14:13: This raises an important question.

00:14:15: We've seen that successful professionals aren't just managing trucks.

00:14:19: They manage roaming data centers mobile energy storage and payment hubs.

00:14:23: The physical movement of goods is becoming the commodity.

00:14:25: orchestration Of data and energy as a real product.

00:14:29: So are you running a logistics operation or building data and energy network?