The annual IPWEA Australasian Fleet Conference kicked off in Brisbane last night with presentations from Katrina Ell, Senior Economist at Moody’s Analytics and Ben Selwyn, Director at ACA Research.
Selwyn shared some of their latest research which listed the priorities for Fleet Managers in 2023. The top three were:
- Reducing running costs
- Increasing business efficiency
- Improving the delivery of services to end customers
Other priorities in the list related to reducing the organisation’s environmental footprint and fleet electrification. It was interesting to see that these two objectives were viewed separately which indicates an understanding that fleet CO2 emissions can be reduced without the need to rush the purchase of electric vehicles.
Ell shared an update on the global economic situation which highlighted the countries that were already in recession, and the ones likely to follow. The good news was Australia was less likely to enter a recession and while the U.S. was tipped to slow down, it should be able to avoid a recession if several lead indicators continue in the right direction.
The other good news for the audience of fleet practitioners was that new car prices may have reached their peak in the current cycle of price rises, and used car prices won’t be returning to pre-pandemic levels for a long time.
