A Spanish Leasing/Renting company called LeasePlan (which actually manages company car fleets) has launched a program called GreenPlan which is an "efficient management program" based on vehicle CO2 emissions. The plan aims to balance green and "real driving" for its 8,000 customer companies and 97,000 drivers.
The Volkswagen Golf (or Rabbit, if you're a Yank like me and always prefer a car's name to reference a potential meal rather than a game for old people) has just been awarded Car of the Year by ACFO, an organization that produces a bi-monthly journal called "Fleet Operator." CotY was awarded to the Golf for "delivering operational performance, whole-life cost control and driver appeal as well as an environmental edge." In other words, it's one o
OK, this seems like a no-brainer. As GM and Ford have gradually pulled back from the low-margin fleet sales market, import fleet sales have surged. After all, somebody has to keep the rental car lots filled. It's mostly been the mainline Asian automakers that have stepped in to fill the void. Toyota, Nissan, Mazda and Kia have all increased their corporate sales of cars and trucks, but they still remain bit players overall. About 11 percent of U.S. import brand sales are to fleets so far this ye
Automakers often report their sales figures in whatever way makes them look most positive, and for a long time including fleet sales has been an effective way to make a slow selling vehicle look more popular with consumers on paper. Automakers don't distinguish between fleet and retail when reporting their sales, so we've been forced to believe them recently when we've been told that fleet sales are being reduced. General Motors, Ford and the Chrysler Group have all claimed that reducing fleet s
What did Chrysler do with its highly publicized production glut? Unloaded them onto fleets. Between September and February, 48.5-percent of Chrysler's sales were sold in quantities of ten or more. Even more troubling to dealers and consumers, close to 80-percent were bought up by rental car companies, versus GM and Ford whose rental sales are closer to half of their total fleet sales.
Dang, it looks like everyone will have to dream up a new way to insult the four-door Cobalt. GM's Bob Lutz has announced that sales to fleet companies will be curtailed to the tune of 100,000 vehicles this year. The reduction is part of an ongoing effort to boost the resale value of General Motors cars. Reducing sales to fleet customers opens the door for some other automaker to deal with the stigma and doesn't ding the bottom line as much as it would seem.
While you may be able to successfully argue that station wagons have made a comeback thanks to such hipster sleds as the Dodge Magnum and SUV-inspired Outbacks from Subaru, the love hasn't spread to the Ford Focus Wagon, which has always been the black sheep of the Focus lineup holding down around 8% of the small car's sales. Thus, Ford announced on its fleet website that it will be discontinuing the Focus Wagon in December. While Ford is actually increasing Focus production as a whole to meet t
The folks over at SmartMoney.com have compiled a common-sense list of the "Top 10 Things Your Retntal Company Won't Tell You." In point of fact, we'd reckon that most of the pointers are forehead-smackingly obvious, but that doesn't mean that it isn't worth a quick refresher, or a good opportunity to relay your own tips to fellow Autoblog readers in comments.
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