Ford Pro, Ford Motor Company‘s suite of commercial and government solutions, is seeing increased utilization in its telematic fleet management technology that allows fleet managers to better monitor how vehicles are being utilized.
Ford Pro provides fleet managers with a suite of software products to grow and manage fleets, including charging infrastructure, vehicle servicing, software services and financing. Its finance arm, Ford Pro FinSimple, provides commercial lines of credit to small businesses for fleet expansion, and fleet electrification with combined billing.
Fleet managers using the telematic software can reduce costs, Jim Drotman, executive vice president of Ford Pro FinSimple at Ford Credit, said Tuesday during a panel at the Auto Finance Summit 2023 in Las Vegas. Ford Pro’s software advances allow business owners and managers responsible for larger commercial fleets to better monitor fleets and drivers, he added.
“If it’s a one-person business owner, they know what they’re doing every day,” Drotman said. “When you get [multiple] vehicles, you’ve got different drivers, and you don’t know what they’re doing. You don’t know how long they’re idling. You don’t know if they’re speeding.
Fleet managers “can be proactive and say, ‘I see that something’s happening on vehicle No. 2. I’m going to get that one, pick it up for the day, take it to the shop, coordinate with the dealer, and we’ll get right back on the road because it cost me $1,000,’” he said.
Ford BlueCruise growth
Ford Pro has also seen increased use of its early-stage, software BlueCruise, Drotman said.
“We’re seeing a lot of utilization with this on the Pro side of the business,” he said. “That’s a software if you enable that, particularly as it moves to higher levels of autonomy, it will free people up to not only make a short trip just down the highway to get to work, but taking longer trips where it engages, can change lanes and do things for them.”
BlueCruise can be purchased with a bundle or as a subscription, Drotman said.
Ford Pro Chief Financial Officer Navin Kumar said in August at the JPMorgan Automotive Conference that Ford Pro is looking to double its software attachment rates in vehicles on the road by 2026.
