At this year’s Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) conference in Las Vegas, Enterprise Holdings stressed that collaboration, transparency, and technology-neutral standards across the automotive industry are essential ingredients for maximizing the potential benefits of connected vehicles.

Enterprise’s Assistant Vice President of Technology Innovation, Derik Reiser, spoke at the conference as one of four participants in a panel discussion sponsored by the Society of Collision Repair Specialists.

The panel discussion — on "The Future Impact of Telematics, Technology, Transportation and the Collision Industry" — also included CCC Information Services, Subaru of America and Verisk. TEDx Speaker and Author John Ellis, of Ellis & Associates, moderated.

The panel reviewed work currently being done to integrate point-of-impact data, telematics, and connectivity. The session also provided visibility into what connectivity means for repairers and work done on the shop floor, as well as how it impacts relationships with consumers and others in the process.

Enterprise Holdings — which owns the Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car brands — believes open, secure access to data not only is the best way to protect the rights of vehicle owners and consumers, but also to ensure third-party suppliers have every opportunity to collaborate and compete. 

Technology Leadership

Enterprise Holdings, which recently announced its fiscal year 2018 results and acquisition and investment strategy, remains an industry leader in mobility, innovation and technology.

In fact, since 2008, Enterprise has spent almost $2.4 billion making acquisitions and corporate-venture capital investments or commitments in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Ireland, Spain, Brazil, and China. Acquisitions include car rental companies, carshare operations, technology platforms, and franchises.

Enterprise Holdings’ other industry leading technology initiatives include:

• Participating in a New York City carsharing program that dedicates 309 parking spots in more than a dozen neighborhoods in four boroughs.

• Partnering with a company that is developing autonomous automotive options for communities across North America.

• Providing mobile tablet technology that digitizes rental transactions, eliminates administrative bottlenecks at rental counters and quickly delivers the kind of information and details that customers are looking for on-site.

Competitive Mobility

Enterprise Holdings not only is one of the world’s largest car rental provider, but also is one of the top global travel companies, ranking ahead of many airlines and most cruise lines, hotels, tour operators and online travel agencies. As a result, Enterprise Holdings plays a significant role in providing competitive mobility options all over the world.

The company’s goal is to draw attention to potential threats to competition that could negatively impact consumers as well as mobility-related industries, including but not limited to car rental. Enterprise Holdings’ focus remains on how the competitive landscape – for autonomous vehicles, their suppliers and the entire mobility ecosystem of service companies – could be impacted by policies deciding who has access to, and ultimately controls, the data. For example:

• The Canadian Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications published a report — "Driving Change: Technology and the Future of the Automated Vehicle" — at the request of the minister of transport. More than 78 witnesses, including Enterprise, provided testimony as the committee focused on regulatory and technical issues related to the deployment of automated and connected vehicles. Enterprise Holdings also submitted a brief. 

• The Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance (CATA), of which Enterprise is a member, published a blog: “Canadian Innovation Leadership or Not in the Automotive Sector: Should Just the Automakers Control Access To Data from Autonomous Vehicles?” CATA also developed, in partnership with Enterprise, a video outlining the importance of open access to autonomous vehicle data, including perspectives from the European Economic Community and U.S. markets.