If you are old enough to have a driver’s license, you might remember that buying a used car meant a trek to a dealership or lot. It ain’t necessarily so now with online car-selling. As just one example Carvana is allowing consumers to shop and purchase a vehicle via the internet (http://www.carvana.com/how-it-works). It is also letting buyers pick up their vehicles at a fully automated, coin-operated car vending machine in Nashville. Yes, the Horn and Hardart’s automat has come to car buying.
This is just the latest blow to middle class jobs as “unattended buying” expands into many sectors across the U.S. – a key issue in the U.S. presidential election.
Ernie Garcia, founder and CEO of Carvana, says integrating the vending machine concept into vehicle buying makes for a “one-of-a-kind experience that mirrors just how simple and easy we’ve made it to buy a car online.”
On average, customers spend about 30 minutes purchasing a car through the online car-selling startup in Tennessee. Customers can complete all the necessary paperwork, submit down payment information, review contracts and sign for everything electronically.
When the time comes to pick up their vehicle, they visit a multi-story glass structure with 20 cars inside, select their name from a kiosk, enter the coin into the vending machine, and then the vehicle is instantly retrieved through the use of robotic platforms that can move a car thanks to automated parking technology.
About Ken Zino
Ken Zino, editor and publisher of AutoInformed, is a versatile auto industry participant with global experience spanning decades in print and broadcast journalism, as well as social media. He has automobile testing, marketing, public relations and communications experience. He is past president of The International Motor Press Assn, the Detroit Press Club, founding member and first President of the Automotive Press Assn. He is a member of APA, IMPA and the Midwest Automotive Press Assn.
He also brings an historical perspective while citing their contemporary relevance of the work of legendary auto writers such as Ken Purdy, Jim Dunne or Jerry Flint, or writers such as Red Smith, Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson – all to bring perspective to a chaotic automotive universe.
Above all, decades after he first drove a car, Zino still revels in the sound of the exhaust as the throttle is blipped during a downshift and the driver’s rush that occurs when the entry, apex and exit points of a turn are smoothly and swiftly crossed. It’s the beginning of a perfect lap.
AutoInformed has an editorial philosophy that loves transportation machines of all kinds while promoting critical thinking about the future use of cars and trucks.
Zino builds AutoInformed from his background in automotive journalism starting at Hearst Publishing in New York City on Motor and MotorTech Magazines and car testing where he reviewed hundreds of vehicles in his decade-long stint as the Detroit Bureau Chief of Road & Track magazine. Zino has also worked in Europe, and Asia – now the largest automotive market in the world with China at its center.
