Fleet Forward 2026: Seven Takeaways for the Fleet Manager Who Couldn’t be There

If there was one thing we heard in nearly every session, it’s this: fleet managers are stretched thin. Many run hundreds or even thousands of vehicles with little support and barely enough time to dig through data. The most useful ideas at the show were the ones that make a fleet easier to run.

Here are the key takeaways we heard:

1. Safety offers the clearest return on investment

If you’re looking for the one place where your effort pays off in dollars, it’s crash prevention. The Network of Employers for Traffic Safety (NETS) estimates crashes cost U.S. employers about $62 billion a year. The average on-the-job crash costs an employer about $55,000, and an injury crash about $180,000.

A couple of other NETS findings caught our attention. Distracted driving has overtaken impaired driving and now costs employers about $16 billion a year. Off-the-job crashes also cost employers through health insurance, sick leave, and disability when employees or their family members are hurt.

How one fleet cut losses by 80%

One presenter brought a memorable story of that week. After a deadly 2023 in which auto loss costs topped $10 million, the company rolled out dash cameras and changed its safety culture, cutting annual losses by 80%. And here’s the encouraging part: some of the most effective fixes were economical. Phone mounts and CarPlay screens helped cut phone use by 90%.

But the bigger lesson was about people. The company credits front-line managers, not the safety team or executives, for the results. It rewards improvement, not just top scores, and recognizes drivers in front of their teams.

Focus on the few, and coach in person

A small share of your drivers likely causes most of your risk. Data shared on a predictive safety panel showed the riskiest 10% of drivers account for about 47% of crashes. Newer tools can flag drivers trending riskier weeks before a crash, though AI-generated flags still need a person to verify them.

One panelist shared a playbook you can borrow. Start with your biggest problem; for his fleet, that was low-speed crashes and phone distraction. Before installing cameras, explain to drivers how they work, why you’re using them, and what they mean for them. His team met every driver in person over six months, and all coaching happens face to face with the video. His motto was, “What gets recognized gets repeated.”

New crash ratings for work trucks and vans

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) now rates Class 3 pickups and delivery vans. Occupant protection was mostly good, but only about half had seatbelt reminders that met the IIHS standard. Automatic emergency braking, though, was a weak spot: most vehicles rated poor in vehicle-to-vehicle tests, and only one rated good. Tall hoods also raise pedestrian risk, and some systems lose track of a child who drops below the camera’s view.

IIHS plans to test Class 4–6 chassis next, add headlight and blind-spot ratings, and publish an ROI calculator and insurance claim data by model.

2. AI is moving from dashboards to recommendations

You’ve probably noticed AI showing up everywhere. In the opening keynote, John Rossant of CoMotion explained where it’s headed: AI is becoming the fleet’s operating layer. Instead of just showing you charts, tools increasingly recommend what to do and, in some cases, do it.

Maintenance software is heading the same way. So don’t be surprised when vendors pitch you AI that turns vendor invoices into standardized data, audits repairs automatically, sets maintenance intervals based on actual use, forecasts parts needs and tracks warranty claims.

Fleet managers are building their own tools

In another panel, fleet managers with no coding background showed tools they had built with AI. Examples included title applications that fill themselves in seconds instead of minutes, a locator that matches vehicles to new hires, an asset audit app and a rewritten safety policy that saved about 80 hours.

That said, two honest cautions remain. First, reviewing takes longer than building: one 15-slide deck took about three minutes to generate and 35–45 minutes to check. Second, results are only as good as the data. Most failures came from data the tools couldn’t read.

Protect your data

Many companies now limit AI use to approved tools and enterprise accounts so company data isn’t used to train AI models. Rossant also urged fleets to write data access into OEM contracts, because whoever owns the data owns the decision. Camera footage cuts both ways, too, so set retention and coaching policies before a claim, not after.

Your next step: Start small. Pick one repetitive task to try with an approved AI tool, budget time to check the output, and keep your fleet data clean and consistent.

3. Hybrids are the mainstream choice; EVs are a vehicle-by-vehicle call

Wondering whether it’s time to go electric? Registration data from Mobility Global and Bobit offers some helpful perspective: the answer depends a lot on vehicle class. In 2025, Class 1 registrations among top fleets were about 41% hybrid and 5.3% battery-electric. Class 4–8 was 81% diesel.

At first glance, Class 2 looked like an EV success story at 24.9% battery-electric. Dig in, though, and that figure is mostly Amazon’s Rivian vans. Without them, EVs are about 2–3% of the class.

The bigger picture? Hybrids are winning. So far in 2026, hybrids appear in about 150 top fleets and EVs in about 55. Across the wider market, hybrid registrations rose about 19% in 2025 while EV registrations fell about 10%.

Their advice was practical: compare individual models, not fuel categories. Match the vehicle to its job, check how many fleets already run it, then pilot before you scale. They also flagged that a diesel technician shortage may push medium-duty trucks toward gasoline engines over the next two to three years.

The EV case is now about cost and risk

With federal EV credits and vehicle greenhouse gas standards gone, Rossant said the case for EVs now rests on cost and fuel risk. He noted diesel at about $6.40 a gallon last month, roughly $2.50 more than a year earlier—his advice: buy flexibility rather than make ten-year bets on two-year policies.

If EVs are on your radar, another fleet manager shared some hard-won lessons from her company’s rollout. Assess every driver before ordering, including charging access at home and work. Win drivers over with ride-and-drives rather than memos. Keep rechecking savings after the vehicles are on the road.

Your next step: For light-duty replacements, treat hybrids as the low-risk default. Run an analysis for one EV, one vehicle, and one driver at a time.

4. Your records are worth real money at resale

Chris Evans from our sister company, Express 4X4 Truck Rental, was amongst the panelists on the Turning Fleet Data Into Remarketing Value session. We heard that upfitted vehicles lose the most value when it’s time to sell. One panelist estimated that upfitted vehicles leave about 31% of their value on the table at remarketing, compared with 8–12% for vehicles without upfits. The analysis used auction listing prices rather than final sale prices, so treat it as directional, but the gap is hard to ignore.

The good news? The fix is surprisingly simple: keep records. Panelists said almost nobody keeps good upfit documentation. Clear configuration data and condition reports give buyers confidence, and confident buyers pay more.

Consistent inspections throughout a vehicle’s life also prevent surprises at sale time. They help you estimate reconditioning costs, choose the right sales channel, and maximize net proceeds, meaning the sale price minus fees, transport, and reconditioning.

Telematics can help with timing, too. Fault-code data can signal rising maintenance costs and inform whether to keep or sell a vehicle. Panelists were clear on one point: AI can recommend, but a person should decide.

5. Get more from your OEMs and the data your vehicles already collect

A panel with representatives from GM’s OnStar, Stellantis’s Mobilisights, Ford Pro and a working fleet manager tackled what fleets want from automakers. The number one request? Early, honest notice of changes, good or bad: discontinued models, dropped colors or cab configurations, gaps during model refreshes and shifting order times. Many fleets plan capital spending two to three years out, so late news is costly.

The OEMs advised working through your account team and scheduling quarterly reviews. They also admitted that account teams sometimes learn about changes only a week before customers do, so ask early and ask often.

Data is still scattered across brands

If you run more than one brand, you know the frustration of logging into multiple portals. One large fleet on the panel had 12 separate systems. Panelists disagreed on whether a single unified view is realistic.

Here’s the good news: built-in vehicle data is becoming standard. GM’s model year 2025 and newer vehicles include basic connectivity and access to a fleet platform aimed at small and mid-sized customers, with no extra hardware to install.

OEMs are also reframing fleet safety as risk management. Newer features include in-vehicle driver coaching, speed limiting, theft-prevention start disable and drowsiness detection.

6. Fleet managers are stretched, so the fleet has to run itself

If it feels like you’re doing it all yourself, you’re in good company. One panelist manages about 1,000 vehicles on her own. She said she has no time to analyze data, so the fleet has to run itself largely. Her leadership cares most about uptime, because a vehicle off the road means lost revenue.

Her advice is simple: talk to your drivers. When she did, she found that reporting an accident required three separate forms, one of which had to be printed in the field. Fleet managers on the panel also said they want their vendors to share data so they have one source of truth.

Another panelist tackled the people problem head-on. After 125% turnover among fleet administrators, he created a career path. He also gave mechanics promoted into management simple business plans and dashboards, since technical skill doesn’t automatically come with business skill.

7. Plan now for the day you leave

Here’s a question worth asking yourself: if you left tomorrow, what would walk out the door with you? When one person holds all the fleet knowledge, it can vanish overnight. One fleet manager gave six months’ notice before leaving. His successor still got only about three weeks of training. Another panelist said two of three managers his organization brought in from other departments didn’t work out.

The panel agreed on what a good handoff includes:

• Searchable email history
• Documented vehicle specs and policies
• Two to three months of overlap between the outgoing and incoming manager
• Personal introductions to key vendors and OEM contacts

Relationships matter most, and a poor transition can damage them for years. Panelists recommended reviewing your succession plan every year and using certifications as a career path to keep good people.

Our final takeaway

If we had to sum up Fleet Forward 2026 in one thought, it’s this: the fleets getting ahead aren’t the ones with the most technology. They’re the ones that get the basics right, keep good records, and take care of their people. If you need help and guidance on your fleet management program, contact us so we can help. We hope to see you there next year!