[The Continuance from part one]
Driving Assist and Driving Assessment
The next fun vehicle innovation to consider are the new driving assistance programs. These combine a collection of cameras, sensors, and smart software that predict how you should be driving and offers recommendations. In some cases, it can even take mild control over the car to help you avoid a collision or a spin-out on ice or puddles. These features include backup-assistance, lane position correction, collision alert for forward and rear bumpers, breaking for pedestrians, and smart-headlights that decide how bright to be.
These are all amazing features that can help keep your drivers safe (and your liability unbesmirched) but they can also be used to collect information on your drivers as well. Lane position monitoring, for instance, might be able to give you an idea of the lane position consistency of a driver or the number of times there has been a nearly avoided bumper scrape detected.
Dash Cams and Liability
Dash cams are another important aspect of modern cars, though they are not part of most standard packages. Installing a dashboard camera is all about liability. While some people do it to 'stream' their drives, this is an important security tactic that was quickly picked up by sharing economy drivers and many other professionals who drive as part of their jobs.
The important thing about dash cams is that they catch what is going on the road before an incident. While they may not be able to prevent an accident, they are hard copy documented proof of what could be seen by the driver taking all the question of lying or confusion out of the picture.
Insurance companies don't yet check dash cams as standard assessment procedure, but they have been considered in insurance claims and are admissible in court should it come to a liability lawsuit. Your best bet are front and back dash cams to protect your drivers so that any collision caused by someone else's reckless driving is recorded and provable.
Smart Home Features for Cars
As we reach the end of our car technology article, let's start looking into the cutting-edge of the present and the near future. The smart home trend caught on like wildfire, and not just in homes.
It is undeniably true that smart homes became smart offices faster than the manufacturers and marketers of the technology could adapt and we're only likely to see more down this path in the future. Wifi-connected security cameras, voice-controlled lights, and energy efficiency sensors (among many other things) can be controlled on sleek mobile-friendly dashboards and this technology is quickly sneaking into the vehicle world as well.
We are seeing an increasing number of sensors, controls, and gadgets for cars that connect to a smart home hub. These include smart garage door openers, apps that make things happen when a vehicle returns 'home', and even remote car starting to get the cabin warmed up before the driver climbs in.
If you have a smart office already set up, these features can build on your current business tech infrastructure and bring your vehicles into the smart-office control suite.
We may eventually see 'smart cars' that are separate convenience hubs on their own but the IoT, smart home, and automotive industries have yet to make this happen.
Self Driving Cars
As our final discussion topic on car tech for businesses, we could hardly neglect to cover the looming imminent future of self-driving cars. There are some incredible implications to business and industries as we know them if they ever get this technology working reliably and many people have theorised persuasively as to how this will change the way we commute, travel, and do business.
Even disregarding what consumer self-driving cars will do to business, let's just look at what businesses could do with self-driving cars. You could, for instance, send a company car to the airport to pick up a returning executive without having to hire a driver.
Companies and venues that deliver items or meals to customers can use a self-driving car that can control its own sealed trunk to provide automated deliveries. Business trips that don't cross ocean or mountains could be booked more affordably as self-driven road trips and even carpooling could be actualized with a car that comes to pick an assigned group of employees up each morning.
Turning Vehicle Data into Optimization
While there may be many bright possibilities for business car tech in the future, what we have today is more than enough to make a business analyst's mouth water.
Think of all the road condition and driving data you could collect. It is now possible to analyze which drivers work best with specific routes, find the statistics on safe driving vs sedate driving, and provide customers with a live feed of where their service or delivery driver is right now.
You can turn all the data currently collected by OBDs and GPSs alone into some incredible improvements to your business vehicle and driver management.
Thanks for joining us on our long discussion of a vehicle's place in the cutting-edge of business tech. There are hundreds of different ways to use your company vehicle fleet to enhance your business whether the vehicles are part of your business plan or a key part of your internal logistics. It's true the modern vehicle technology is changing the business world and we hope we have given you some good insights on how.
If you'd like more cutting-edge thought leadership on fleet management, vehicle technology, and solutions for your business's vehicle needs, contact us today. Here at Wilmar Inc, business vehicles and fleets are what we do best.
