Seeking a Blogger

I haven’t posted in awhile, primarily because I’m no longer in the auto industry. After Evenlevel met an unfortunate end, I left and joined another startup. However, my blog continues to generate traffic and comments. If someone is interested in taking it over and blogging, contact me through comments.

Thanks,

EJ

Free Cars & Cars As Service

I am a week late on this one, but found it to be pretty interesting. The Long Tail blog has a brief post about a new venture that will sell electric cars for free and instead charge for the electricity.

The new company would use existing battery technology and increase the number of charging stations to extend the range of the useful range of the car.

Lanelogic Update – Consumer Portal

As a reader pointed out, I misread a Lanelogic press release from the other day, so, instead, here is a link to their consumer portal. I know I’m a few months late on this, but…

Cool New Classified

vLane.com is a great new auto classified/vertical search engine. Currently vLane makes it easier for a consumer to find a car by integrating better search functionality, news and articles (with voting), and user reviews of a car into one site.

vFinder offers users a variety of ways to filter out cars and drill down to the right type of car. For example, some car shoppers I’ve worked with wanted a Japanese manufactured sedan with 6 cylinders, very easy to do. The search capability isn’t 100% perfect yet, but I have no doubt things will get better quickly. Also not sure about the business model, could be an adsense site (like it is now) or perhaps a traditional classified site later.

I’m a big fan right now, especially since they agree with me that car search needs to be improved.

Recent M&A Activity in the Car Industry

The Web 2.0 “bubble” has been driven by M&A activity, here are some of the recent acquisitions in the Auto Industry (not manufacturers & not in any order).

• ATCOnlane acquired Carsarrive.com an online marketplace for car transport
• DealerTrack bought Arkona
• Adesa was acquired/taken private by IAA
• OVE acquired Network Remarketing & Technologies
• A bunch of auctions have changed hand of the past year
• ATC and Onlane merged

I’m sure there are more, all that came to mind. We need more acquisitions in the auto industry to spur more startups.

Quick Post on Innovation

John Hagel has a great post on different forms of innovation, but specifically institutional innovation. One of the areas highlighted in his post is knowledge innovation, where different ideas coming together produce innovation. I think the auto industry struggles because it fails to attract innovators from other industries. Few people want to come to the auto industry with their new ideas and perspectives, which is a shame, since outside perspectives would create great new opportunities.

New Social Media Fun

A few months ago I opened up an account with Tumblr but had zero idea what to do with it. I’ve started using it. If you want to see my blog, Evenlevel’s blog, and my tweets all in one place, plus more, check out http://autoventures.tumblr.com.

**Updated with right link

New Auto Blogger

A new auto blog to check out CarsDiva.

Looking for Automotive Startups

If you have a startup in the Auto Industry and would like some additional coverage, send me an email. I know from this blog that there are quite a few interesting companies starting up that are not covered by the larger auto industry press.

ejlawless [at] gmail (.com)

Dealers & Cars Both Commodities

Used cars and the dealers that sell them are commodities to the customer. Buyers search through thousands of cars trying to narrow their choices down to just a few cars, essentially ignoring the car seller. This isn’t to say that some customers don’t automatically go to a franchised dealership for better service, but most shoppers narrow down on the cars and ignore the dealership.

Adding in a service component to a customer’s decision is difficult. I know that Edmund’s has a review site for dealers, but I have trouble seeing it catch on. Several review sites, like Yelp.com, have become successful, but they have an engaged audience that can constantly come back and write reviews. Most people buy cars once every 5-7 years, not frequently enough to drive serious engagement.

How would customer and dealer interactions change if customers could search for dealerships by service/feedback ratings instead of just cars? What if, and I know this is slightly crazy talk, any dealer could sell any car, and customers made purchase decisions based off service?

Cars would become even more commodity-like, and greater emphasis would be placed upon the dealership’s service and the dealership’s ability to put a deal together.