The beginning of the week marked the beginning of April, or April Fool’s Day as it is known in many countries.
If you are a fleet manager, don’t worry, we don’t want to play any nasty tricks on you—quite the opposite. As the week reaches its conclusion, have a look through this light-hearted article: relax and have a good chuckle at this collection of vehicle-related April’s Fool pranks and ‘wind-ups’.
#1 – Vauxhall’s... ‘Clockwork Adam’
In April 2016, Vauxhall surprised us all with the incredible new Adam C, where ‘C’ stands for Clockwork: A brand-new, environmentally friendly, wind-up car that could realise the age-old dream of transportation with zero running costs... absolutely no fuel needed. The ‘wind-up’ was in the *ahem* wind-up: a ginormous key positioned at the rear that required incredible upper body strength to twist it enough times to propel the vehicle for up to 125 miles in one go. It is perhaps the fantasy of every fleet—but it is pity that this technology will have to make huge strides if we want to achieve anything remotely resembling a full size clockwork powered vehicle!
#2 – A real classic: the invisible car
Now you see it, now you don’t. Imagine your fleet was the only one comprised of invisible vehicles... no risk of theft, increased security for your team and probably a huge bunch of other advantages, some of which might be tempting but illegal. For example, speeding without the risk of prosecution and avoiding parking tickets. This is an April Fool’s classic and probably another one of those fleet manager fantasies, not to mention a great idea for an April 1st prank. So good in fact that it has been exploited in a few different news stories of late: see the new invention of a Birmingham researcher in 2009 or the new high-tech MG model of 2016.
#3 – Click to Fly by Hyundai
In today’s fast-paced society where everything is done at your fingertips and all you have to do is click to get anything delivered to your door in a matter of seconds, Hyundai capitalised on this very idea for their April 1st special in 2017 and produced this video which shows drones delivering a new car model in a giant cardboard box. This hydrogen-powered airborne delivery service could supposedly carry up to 2,000kg and deliver your new vehicle to you in just two hours...
We hope you enjoyed reading this little collection of mostly harmless pranks. We certainly aren’t suggesting that the demands of managing a fleet are a barrel of laughs or a joke a minute. It would definitely be something if technology was so advanced that some of these fanciful ideas could be put to practical use. But there is still the opportunity available through technology to manage your fleet in an efficient way, make employees safe, vehicles secure and achieve your last mile delivery challenges—talk to us and we will show you how. And, no, this is definitely NOT a prank.
