Welcome to another edition of The Future of Automotive, with Steve Greenfield, Founder, and CEO of Automotive Ventures, where I put recent automotive and mobility news items into context, in terms of the broader thematic areas that will potentially impact the industry.

I’m glad that you could join us.

This week we have a special guest joining the show to help us understand how dealers can help their EV buyers install chargers at home. 

One of the big sticking points for first-time EV buyers is uncertainty about which EV charger is best for their home, and how best to get the charger installed.

Over the past year, I’ve heard horror stories of electrical contractors who miss-estimated the cost to install the charger and the poor consumer, as a result, being stuck with a bigger bill than they first expected and being unsure who to blame.

Our guest on today’s show is Eric Owski, the CEO of Treehouse.

Treehouse’s unique pricing technology allows EV buyers to receive an instant, guaranteed quote for home EV charging installation at the point of sale in auto retail locations or via API while applying for vehicle financing. 

Instant pricing allows home charging to be integrated directly into the vehicle loan, reducing barriers to affordability for home EV charging.

Treehouse also automates permit documentation and has a proprietary network of electricians, enabling the company to deliver an elevated experience by managing the customer journey from end to end.

Automotive Ventures just participated in Treehouse’s $10 million recent funding round, alongside CarMax, Assurant Ventures, and Holman.

Companies to Watch

Every week we highlight interesting companies in the automotive technology space to keep an eye on. If you read my weekly Intel Report, delivered to your email inbox at 7:00 AM on Mondays, I showcase a couple of companies to watch, and we take the opportunity here on this segment to share those companies with you.

Smart UQ

SmartUQ is a Machine Learning and AI tool optimized for engineering applications from ideation and design to manufacturing and sustainment.

By providing powerful tools and highly accurate models with user-friendly GUIs and APIs, SmartUQ makes it easy to perform predictive modeling, optimized sampling, uncertainty quantification, and model calibration.

From Fortune 500 manufacturers to startups and engineering consulting firms, SmartUQ’s best-in-class predictive modeling accuracy helps our customers go beyond analysis to bring uncertainty into the decision-making process. 

Why do companies choose SmartUQ? SmartUQ’s combination of unique sampling capabilities, powerful machine learning tools, and easy-to-use analytics helps its customers solve previously unsolvable problems.

SmartUQ serves a number of different industries, including aerospace and defense, turbomachinery, automotive, heavy equipment, medical devices, semiconductors, consumer electronics, energy, oil and gas, and HVAC. 

If you’re interested in learning more, you can check out SmartUQ at www.SmartUQ.com.

SkyCharge

SkyCharge is focused on providing automatic industrial drone charging with no human interaction. 

To keep drones operational, you need to keep them charged – something that requires a hefty investment of people and resources if you’re going to do it manually. 

Creating your own automated system can be a slow and frustrating process; you need to develop, integrate, and harmonize a slew of system components while satisfying rigorous reliability and safety standards. And on top of that comes autonomous charging, which is such a critical component to develop, iterate, and maintain, in order to keep your fleet operational. 

But is there another option? What if there were a proven turnkey solution that could provide autonomous battery charging?  

Since 2014, Skycharge has been dedicated to developing just such a product.

NASA, enterprises, government entities, and startups rely on the SkyCharge technology to automatically charge their drones and keep their fleet operational – without human interaction.

If you want to see more about SkyCharge, you can check them out at www.SkyCharge.de.

If you’re an AutoTech entrepreneur working on a solution that helps car dealerships, we want to hear from you. We are actively investing out of our new DealerFund.

If you’re a dealer who wants to invest in early-stage AutoTech companies that benefit your business, let me know. We are still accepting new investors into the DealerFund.

If you’re interested in joining our Investment Club to make direct investments into AutoTech and Mobility startups with small checks, join the Club. There is no obligation to start seeing our deal flow.

And don’t forget to check out my book, The Future of Automotive Retail, on Amazon.com. And keep an eye out for my new book, The Future of Mobility, which will be out at the end of the year.

Thanks as always for your ongoing support, and we look forward to working closely together with you to create the future of this industry.

Thank you for tuning into CBT News for this week’s Future of Automotive segment, and we’ll see you next week!

The post How this startup is reimagining home-based EV charging installations appeared first on CBT News.

Welcome to another edition of The Future of Automotive, with Steve Greenfield, Founder, and CEO of Automotive Ventures, where I put recent automotive and mobility news items into context, in terms of the broader thematic areas that will potentially impact the industry.

I’m glad that you could join us.

This week, I wanted to revisit the topic of vehicle subscriptions

Or more specifically the unbundling of vehicle features into a subscription as a service model, where the vehicle owner will pay monthly to activate certain features in the car.

Traditionally, automakers didn’t install anything on a vehicle that they couldn’t charge for. When you build hundreds of thousands of vehicles each year, every extra nickel or dime in parts matters. But in the electric vehicle/infotainment/subscription era, that strategy is changing.

With the average age of vehicles at a record high (of 12-plus years), average transaction prices increasing, and loans stretching to eight years and longer, automakers are thinking about how vehicles can generate revenue long after they leave a showroom.

GM is aiming for $20 billion to $25 billion in annual revenue from vehicle subscriptions by 2030. Both Stellantis and Ford have both said that they are aiming for subscription revenues in the same ballpark.

All of this isn’t theoretical.

Software-based vehicle subscriptions generated more than $1 billion in revenue for Mercedes-Benz last year. That’s only a fraction of the more than $150 billion in global revenues the automaker earned in 2022, but the business could explode after 2025 when Mercedes launches its own operating system that will open the door to more digital services in vehicles. That’s also when Mercedes will roll out a robust menu of on-demand services, including charging and automated driving features.

Dealer participation in these new, high-margin subscription revenues are sure to vary. For example, General Motors says they will include their franchised dealers (and compensate them in some form) as part of its strategy around future software sales after a vehicle purchase.

I ask myself often: if this future is inevitable, how can the Automotive Ventures DealerFund position itself to capitalize on the upcoming wave of software subscriptions? And more importantly, how do we help dealerships both participate in these revenue streams and benefit from these coming changes?

I believe there are a whole range of potential new businesses that need to be built to deal with the uncertainties around “features on demand”. For example:

In the future, how is a dealer going to handle the trade-in and sale of an off- brand used vehicle? For one, the appraised vehicle may look very different a week from now when the current owner cancels many of the vehicle features that they’re paying for on a monthly basis. A naive dealer may over-appraise a vehicle.

Then, how does the off-brand used car salesperson know how best to demo the off-brand vehicle? Are they going to have access to the possible features that can be activated and paid for on a monthly basis?

Will an automaker compensate a off-brand dealer if they re-activate a subscription and allow that OEM to resume collecting monthly subscription revenue?

And back to that current owner. Who is going to help them remember and cancel all of their current software subscriptions?

What does the window sticker of the future look like? Will some areas be “greyed out” to show options that have been installed in the vehicle but not activated at the time of purchase?

How are wholesale auctions going to deal with all of this? The vehicle they inspect may look (and perform) very different by the time it runs through the auction lanes.

How do you set a residual value on a vehicle that may have features added or subtracted over time at the whim of the consumer?

How is the service writer going to be made aware of additional features that the consumer has activated since their last visit to the service lane?

Who does the consumer call if they have issues or problems with the new vehicle feature that they’ve just tried to activate, but isn’t working as expected? Does the answer differ on new vs. used vehicles?

From our perspective, many new companies will need to be built to address these issues (and others we haven’t even thought of yet).

If you’re an entrepreneur that wants to work on these problems with us, please let me know.

Companies To Watch

Every week we highlight interesting companies in the automotive technology space to keep an eye on. If you read my weekly Intel Report, delivered to your email inbox at 7:00 AM on Mondays, I showcase a couple of companies to watch, and we take the opportunity here on this segment to share those companies with you.

Today, we have two new companies to watch: BirdStop and SATIM.

Birdstop

Our first company to watch this week is Birdstop, which is a startup operating in the aerial drone space.

Birdstop is a remote sensing platform using flying drones and AI, delivering a remote sensing platform using uncrewed aerial technology in low altitude airspace.

Their vision is to build a nationwide remote sensing platform using “Beyond Visual Line of Sight” (BVLOS) drones, like a constellation of satellites on the ground.

Birdstop collects detailed imagery on physical assets and locations without personnel present.

Birdstop can conduct “observations on demand”: their nodes sit at a location and can activate remote sensing on a moment’s notice. Each node deploys and commands a small drone to collect data in its local vicinity.

Birdstop allows you to operate from anywhere: Users securely operate networks of nodes and tap into data streams across the globe. Mission control can be at a central command location or in the palm of each user’s hand.

Birdstop allows you to unlock insights: Large amounts of imagery are analyzed in near real-time. Anomalies are detected to assist in expedient response to issues and threats observed.

If you’re interested in learning more, you can check out Birdstop at www.birdstop.io.

SATIM

SATIM is a Poland-based provider of an AI-based software for automatic object detection, identification, and classification capabilities using satellite synthetic aperture radar (or SAR) imagery.

SAR is a powerful remote sensing technology that bounces microwave signals off the Earth’s surface to detect physical properties of objects. It is used to create high-resolution two-dimensional representations of objects.

SAR imagery can be captured day and night, without the usual visibility limitations of optical data and is well suited to monitoring extensive areas.

Founded in 2012, Satim provides a software platform used for automatic object detection, identification and classification capabilities utilizing satellite SAR imagery. Today, Satim actively serves the military, government, and commercial sectors.

SATIM has built a highly accurate simulator for generating synthetic SAR signatures of any object and any SAR data system. Synthetic signatures are used to train AI models for object detection and classification.

The company claims 95% accuracy on vessel detection in port and on the open ocean using SAR imagery, and 90% accurate classification of civil and military vessels using SAR simulated training data, providing a comprehensive solution for strategic site monitoring and maritime situational awareness.

From a defense and national security standpoint, SATIM delivers accurate classification of military ships including ‘dark vessels’ with the ability to add new types to their catalogue within days.

From a commercial shipping standpoint, the are closing the intelligence gap for global maritime situational awareness. They provide accurate detection and classification of civil vessels in port or on the open ocean.

Maritime illegal activities are a serious problem, with piracy, hijacking and theft often by ship-to-ship transfer of goods. Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is also a huge issue causing supply, environmental issues and territorial battles.

SATIM can identify vessels participating in illegal activity with 90% accuracy.

SATIM provides fast and accurate vessel detection and classification of a large catalogue of civil vessels, day and night in all weather conditions.

If you want to see more on SATIM, you can check out their website at www.SATIM.co.

If you’re an AutoTech entrepreneur working on a solution that helps car dealerships, we want to hear from you. We are actively investing out of our new DealerFund.

If you’re a dealer who wants to invest in early-stage AutoTech companies that benefit your business, let me know. We are still accepting new investors into the DealerFund.

If you’re interested in joining our Investment Club to make direct investments into AutoTech and Mobility startups with small checks, join the Club. There is no obligation to start seeing our deal flow.

And don’t forget to check out my book, The Future of Automotive Retail, on Amazon.com. And keep an eye out for my new book, The Future of Mobility, which will be out at the end of the year.

Thanks as always for your ongoing support, and we look forward to working closely together with you to create the future of this industry.

Thank you for tuning into CBT News for this week’s Future of Automotive segment, and we’ll see you next week!

The post How the acceleration of vehicle subscription services will impact dealerships appeared first on CBT News.

Welcome to another edition of The Future of Automotive, with Steve Greenfield, Founder, and CEO of Automotive Ventures, where I put recent automotive and mobility news items into context, in terms of the broader thematic areas that will potentially impact the industry.

I’m glad that you could join us.

This week, I’m excited to announce another investment out of our new DealerFund.

It’s amazing to think that it’s been 13 years since I had the opportunity to oversee AutoTrader.com’s acquisition of vAuto. Boy, how time does fly. 

At that time, vAuto was just getting initial traction, and I had the honor to spend a ton of time with vAuto founder Dale Pollak, who helped educate me both on the importance of used vehicle inventory management, but also schooled me on how he was architecting an incredible company: focusing on generating demand through his industry thought leadership, coupled with a maniacal focus on customer success, and surrounding himself with an A+ team of operational executives.

Since that time, I’ve had the chance to dig into dealership expense structures and found it amazing that the average franchise store spends about $30k per month on software products. The largest of these are their DMS spend, but not too far behind are the CRM, the dealer website, and a dealer’s inventory management tool.

Stocking the correct inventory is the lifeblood of a dealership. Ensuring that you don’t overpay for that inventory, and can make dynamic price changes as local supply and demand changes in your market, can literally mean the difference between the top and bottom performers in a market. 

I mention all of this as a precursor to the announcement of the latest investment out of our new DealerFund.

This week it was announced that Automotive Ventures invested in VinCue’s Series B financing round, alongside Holman Growth Ventures and AutoTech Ventures. We’re very honored to have a chance to invest in this amazing, Kansas City-based company.

VinCue is a revolutionary end-to-end inventory lifecycle solution for retail automotive dealerships.

Through its unified platform, VinCue offers a comprehensive suite of solutions and capabilities to manage every step of the inventory lifecycle including buying plans, multi-channel acquisition sourcing, market pricing and appraisal, merchandising and syndication, and digital marketing.

The goal of VinCue’s unified platform is to help dealers unlock prevailing strategies that increase gross and turn – by providing real-time market and competitor data to make better buying and merchandising decisions – ultimately allowing them to outperform the market. 

VinCue provides the data intelligence and tools necessary to make impactful decisions, measure success, and ultimately, outperform the rest of the market in real time.

We created the Automotive Ventures DealerFund to enable car dealers to invest in technology solutions, like VinCue, that help improve their operations.

I honestly can’t think of a better company for the new fund than VinCue, which will deliver a dramatic impact on both driving incremental revenue for dealers, while also finding and realizing efficiencies in their cost structures. 

As you can tell, I’m simultaneously both honored and extremely excited to be an investor in VinCue.

You can check out the company at www.VinCue.com.

Companies To Watch

Every week we highlight interesting companies in the automotive technology space to keep an eye on. If you read my weekly Intel Report, delivered to your email inbox at 7:00 AM on Mondays, I showcase a couple of companies to watch, and we take the opportunity here on this segment to share those companies with you.

Today, we have two new companies to watch: Moonware & CivRobotics.

Moonware

Moonware uses technology to automate a number of processes at your local airport.

Moonware has built an integrated ecosystem of AI software and smart vehicles that optimally connect ground crew, aircraft, and ground support equipment to efficiently service flights.

Their long-term vision is to handle aircraft autonomously from touchdown to takeoff, providing seamless aircraft turnarounds for a streamlined airport experience.

Airports are still stuck with many old, manual processes. Aircraft get prepared for their next flight by ground handlers, and these operations have remained technologically stagnant. Ground handling services manage everything from baggage loading to aircraft fueling, cleaning the cabin, and filling it with snacks.

Despite their importance, ground operations have historically received very little attention. Aircraft turnarounds (or the process of servicing aircraft between flights) are still largely coordinated through walkie-talkies and paper, believe it or not. 

Ramp agents increasingly use the internet and open-source tools to track flights, where last-minute changes disorient teams and timesheets complicate real-time scheduling. 

Contrast this with Moonware’s approach: they are leveraging advances in software to depart from outdated turnaround procedures and dramatically improve the passenger experience. 

Automated ground handling workflows can reduce turnaround times and delays. Migrating time-sensitive decision-making (such as crew dispatching & vehicle allocation) over to digital infrastructures that can process large amounts of information in real-time will go a long way in addressing operations that frequently break down.

In the future, if your flight is on time and you’re finding your plane gets turned around faster than usual, you may very well have Moonware to thank.

If you’re interested in learning more, you can check out Moonware at www.moonware.com.

CivRobotics

There continue to be billions of dollars spent on the quest for fully autonomous robotaxis, and companies like GM’s Cruise and Google’s Waymo continue to burn gobs of money in the quest for that holy grail.

Yet, a lot of interesting autonomous use cases are being fulfilled in the areas of agriculture, mining, and construction.

With that, this week’s second Company to Watch is CivRobotics.

CivRobotics provides autonomous layout solutions for land surveying. Think about those guys in hard hats and vests that come down your street and mark underlying pipes or wires with spray paint. 

The CivRobotics robots, called CivDots, allow you to lay out a construction site eight times faster, with only one operator.

You really have to see these robots to believe them.

The nice thing is that no training is needed. Anyone can operate the company’s CivDot robot.

No prior surveying experience or special license is required to operate CivDot. CivPlan, their intuitive software, is super simple to use for data prep and field operations.

Their user interface is simple to navigate. The operator simply uploads a set of coordinates, chooses the route, and sends the CivDot on its marking mission.

Detailed reports of what was marked (including the ground elevation measurements) are generated in real time and sent to your email.

CivDots are an excellent addition to land surveying tools as they offer unparalleled accuracy, efficiency, and simplicity.

CivRobotics significantly increases productivity on heavy civil projects by completing tasks faster, with greater accuracy, and enabling teams to operate at peak performance levels.

I believe we’re going to continue to see more evidence of the convergence of robotics and autonomy in many applications across construction, mining, agriculture, and even on boats on the water. 

Automotive Ventures will continue to search for innovative companies in these areas as potential investment candidates. 

If you want to see more on CivRobotics, you can check out their website at www.civrobotics.com.

If you’re an AutoTech entrepreneur working on a solution that helps car dealerships, we want to hear from you. We are actively investing out of our new DealerFund.

If you’re a dealer who wants to invest in early-stage AutoTech companies that benefit your business, let me know. We are still accepting new investors into the DealerFund.

If you’re interested in joining our Investment Club to make direct investments into AutoTech and Mobility startups with small checks, join the Club. There is no obligation to start seeing our deal flow.

And don’t forget to check out my book, The Future of Automotive Retail, on Amazon.com. And keep an eye out for my new book, The Future of Mobility, which will be out at the end of the year.

Thanks as always for your ongoing support, and we look forward to working closely together with you to create the future of this industry.

Thank you for tuning into CBT News for this week’s Future of Automotive segment, and we’ll see you next week!

The post VinCue snags Series B funding round with participation from Holman, Automotive Ventures appeared first on CBT News.

Welcome to another edition of The Future of Automotive, with Steve Greenfield, Founder, and CEO of Automotive Ventures, where I put recent automotive and mobility news items into context, in terms of the broader thematic areas that will potentially impact the industry.

I’m glad that you could join us.

This week, I’m excited to announce another investment out of our new DealerFund.

We’ve been spending a lot of time evaluating how we might help dealerships facilitate EV charger installations in customers’ homes – at the time that they purchase an EV from the dealer.

As a result of a deep dive into this space, and after reviewing a number of companies, Automotive Ventures has invested in Treehouse, a startup that delivers turnkey installations for home EV charging. We had a chance to invest alongside CarMax, Assurant Ventures, and Holman Growth Ventures, among others.

One of the big challenges with dealers offering EV charging installs is the uncertainty about the cost of installation. I hear horror stories all the time about an installer quoting a customer a price, but then running into dramatic cost overruns once they get onsite and find out that they either need to run more electrical cable or install a brand-new fuse panel.

The consumer is left shocked and often blames the dealership that helped facilitate the installation.

In parallel, I’ve often wondered: How is our industry ever going to be able to roll the charger installation into the consumer’s monthly payment (or create charger-based F&I products) without a guaranteed upfront price on the charger installation, without any risk of cost overruns once the electrician is onsite?

This is where Treehouse really differentiates, and is the only installer to provide a guaranteed upfront price that they stand behind.

Treehouse provides a home charging solution that allows EV owners to get an estimate in under two minutes and bundle home charging installation with the purchase of the best charger for each individual’s budget and needs.

Treehouse’s unique and proprietary pricing technology allows EV buyers to receive an instant, guaranteed quote for home charging installation at the point of sale in auto retail locations or via API while applying for vehicle financing.

Instant pricing allows home charging to be integrated directly into the vehicle loan, reducing barriers to affordability for home charging.

Treehouse also automates permit documentation and has a proprietary network of electricians, enabling the company to deliver an elevated experience by managing the customer journey from end to end.

We believe that the power of transparent charger installation pricing is going to change how consumers shop for and buy EVs. Treehouse is removing a barrier to EV ownership and will make it easier for millions of consumers across the country to switch to EVs.

Beyond charger installation, Treehouse is helping EV owners maximize incentives and rate plans by compiling every federal, state, and local incentive for home EV charging. This ensures that Treehouse’s customers are able to claim available rebates and select the best utility plans for their needs.

Treehouse is partnering with dealerships across the country to offer turnkey EV charging solutions to vehicle buyers.

We’re very excited to be an investor, and you can check out Treehouse at www.Treehouse.pro.

Companies To Watch

Every week we highlight interesting companies in the automotive technology space to keep an eye on. If you read my weekly industry Intel Report, I showcase a few companies, and we take the opportunity here on this segment to share those companies with you.

Today, we have two new companies to watch: LeadVantage.ai & Skyline Robotics.

LeadVantage.ai

As our regular viewers know, I’ve been on the lookout for software vendors that are leveraging AI to benefit dealers.

LeadVantage’s software tools help car dealers convert more leads with less effort, powered by ChatGPT.

LeadVantage has two products that they offer dealers.

Their first product is called “LeadVantage Analyze”, and is a mystery shopping platform powered by AI, simulating a real customer persona to analyze a car dealership’s lead follow-up practices.

The company’s second product, which is even more exciting, is its “LeadVantage Connect” product: a fully automated AI solution, nurturing leads via phone and text message to drive more live calls and appointments. This solution is also powered by Chat GPT.

I think we’re just in the early innings of seeing innovative companies leveraging Generative AI engines like ChatGPT to automate processes at the dealership while creating superior consumer experiences.

If you’re interested in learning more, you can check out LeadVantage at www.LeadVantage.ai.

Skyline Robotics

I believe the world of robotics is about to change a lot of manual labor tasks, and Skyline Robotics is focused on automating the task of window washing on skyscrapers.

You really have to see this one to believe it.

Their “Ozmo” robot optimizes the exterior window washing process and reduces costs.

With buildings becoming taller, more complex, and more valuable, the demand for convenient and proper facade maintenance is increasing as well.

With Ozmo, Skyline Robotics has designed a robot that serves as an essential tool for building facade maintenance, ensuring that the whole process is more practical than traditional methods – and about three times faster.

As an additional boost, Ozmo uses tried-and-tested machine learning capabilities that enable the robot to adapt to new settings while working. Ozmo can go to new heights, without humans having to take any risks.

You can check out Skyline Robotics at www.skylinerobotics.com.

If you’re an AutoTech entrepreneur working on a solution that helps car dealerships, we want to hear from you. We are actively investing out of our new DealerFund.

If you’re a dealer who wants to invest in early-stage AutoTech companies that benefit your business, let me know. We are still accepting new investors into the DealerFund.

If you’re interested in joining our Investment Club to make direct investments into AutoTech and Mobility startups with small checks, join the Club. There is no obligation to start seeing our deal flow.

And don’t forget to check out my book, The Future of Automotive Retail, on Amazon.com.

Thank you for tuning into CBT News for this week’s Future of Automotive segment, and we’ll see you next week!

The post How this startup is taking the stress out of home EV charging installation appeared first on CBT News.

Welcome to another edition of The Future of Automotive, with Steve Greenfield, Founder, and CEO of Automotive Ventures, where I put recent automotive and mobility news items into context, in terms of the broader thematic areas that will potentially impact the industry.

I’m glad that you could join us.

Automotive Ventures portfolio company Recurrent, the company that provides battery reports for EVs, has published its latest Used EV Market Report, and it’s chock-full of valuable information.

Updated quarterly, the Recurrent Used EV Market Report tracks trends in used electric car pricing and inventories as a free resource for EV buyers and sellers.

There are a few themes in the latest publication that might be of particular interest. First up, used EV prices continue to fall, with nearly 40% of all inventory on dealership lots now priced under $30K. And an increasing percentage of used EVs are now priced under $25,000, the threshold to qualify for federal tax credits, which in turn makes those units even more affordable for consumers. This is a key pricing threshold for dealers to keep in mind for their used EV stock.

Second, the report points out that if you’re a consumer looking for a specific make or model of used EV, where you look matters. The report calls out those states that have the most inventory by brand.

And finally, the report points out that used Teslas, which make up around 30% of the total used EVs available for purchase, typically hold their value pretty well – but not last year’s models. As we’ve reported a number of times before on this segment, Tesla continues to drive down its own prices on new vehicles in a bid to capture market share, which then accelerates one-year depreciation on their used units.

You can get your free copy of the Recurrent Used EV Market Report at www.RecurrentAuto.com.

And it’s worth noting that Recurrent also has a “tax credit eligibility tool” for EV shoppers. Consumers or Dealers can access the tool by simply entering a VIN number. That page on the Recurrent website is an excellent resource for used EV tax credits and consumer eligibility.

Companies To Watch

Every week we highlight interesting companies in the automotive technology space to keep an eye on. If you read my weekly industry Intel Report, I showcase a few companies, and we take the opportunity here on this segment to share those companies with you.

 Today, we have two new companies to watch: Privacy4Cars & Peaxy.

Privacy4Cars

Our first company to watch this week is one of Automotive Ventures’ current portfolio companies, Privacy4Cars.

Privacy4Cars is the first and only technology company focused on identifying and resolving data privacy issues across the automotive ecosystem. Their mission is to offer a suite of services to expand protections for individuals and companies alike, by focusing on privacy, safety, security, and compliance.

Privacy4Cars created a robust and auditable process to quickly and efficiently delete personal information stored in vehicles as a result of users connecting their phones to vehicle infotainment systems, using the navigation system or universal garage door openers.

Dealerships should be aware that 4 out of 5 pre-owned vehicles are resold while containing Personal Information of previous drivers and passengers (including minors), and that the expanded FTC Safeguards Rule requires dealers to protect electronic Personal Information. 

As a dealership, you can ensure that every car you touch is wiped of consumer personal data, and Privacy4Cars backs it up with a Deletion Certificate that you can provide to your customer, and they stand behind their process with a $1 million warranty.

You can check out Privacy4Cars at www.Privacy4Cars.com.

Peaxy

Peaxy is a San Jose, CA-based cloud software company providing battery lifecycle analytics and digital twins.

The Peaxy Lifecycle Intelligence solution offers cloud-based lifecycle analytics and a unified data vision to streamline battery research and development, manufacturing, integration, and field operations.

I really like this company because of the challenges the industry faces with EV batteries.

Peaxy builds what they call a “battery passport” for each individual battery serial number, that helps track that battery’s analytics and performance across the entire lifecycle. 

You can check out Peaxy at www.Peaxy.net.

The post Pricing trends in the used EV market that dealers must consider appeared first on CBT News.

If you’re an AutoTech entrepreneur working on a solution that helps car dealerships, we want to hear from you. We are actively investing out of our new DealerFund.

If you’re a dealer who wants to invest in early-stage AutoTech companies that benefit your business, let me know. We are still accepting new investors into the DealerFund.

If you’re interested in joining our Investment Club to make direct investments into AutoTech and Mobility startups with small checks, join the Club. There is no obligation to start seeing our deal flow.

And don’t forget to check out my book, The Future of Automotive Retail, on Amazon.com.

Thank you for tuning into CBT News for this week’s Future of Automotive segment, and we’ll see you next week!

The post GM, Stellantis, and 5 other OEMs form JV to build nationwide EV charging network appeared first on CBT News.

Welcome to another edition of The Future of Automotive, with Steve Greenfield, Founder, and CEO of Automotive Ventures, where I put recent automotive and mobility news items into context, in terms of the broader thematic areas that will potentially impact the industry.

I’m glad that you could join us.

If you’ve been following the news cycle this past week, you wouldn’t have been able to avoid the news that EVs are backing up on dealership lots, and the discounts have begun.

Many of the automakers are just getting their EV production online.

As a result of this supply/demand imbalance, Ford, Tesla and other automakers are lowering prices to lure in buyers.

Let’s take a step back for a minute.

After struggling to find enough batteries and other parts for the past couple of years due to the COVID-induced supply chain bullwhip effect, automakers are finally beginning to churn out large numbers of electric cars and trucks to start meeting anticipated EV demand. More than 30 new EV models will arrive in showrooms just this year.

What automakers need now are more actual EV customers interested in buying this inventory.

Granted, sales of electric vehicles are actually increasing (they climbed about 48% in the second quarter from a year earlier), but they are NOT rising fast enough to keep pace with the number of vehicles rolling off assembly lines. And inventories of unsold vehicles are starting to pile up.

Cox Automotive reports that currently more than 90,000 battery-powered cars and trucks are sitting on dealer lots, which is four times as many as a year ago. That’s about 103 days of supply for EVs, compared with about 50 days for the industry as a whole.

So what choice do OEMs have, facing softening EV demand?

It seems that we’re quickly reverting back to the pre-COVID playbook of cutting prices and offering more and more incentives.

Early this week, Ford reduced prices of its F-150 Lightning by up to $10,000, or as much as 17%. Ford is also offering discounted interest rates of 1.9% to 3.9% financing on Lightnings to stimulate demand.

These moves follow several rounds of price cuts by Tesla this year. In response, when Ford dropped prices on their Mustang Mach-E electric SUV, it didn’t stimulate much consumer demand for that vehicle.

So, the jury’s out on whether discounts are going to be effective in moving some of this mounting oversupply of EVs. 

And Tesla isn’t going to take Ford’s move this week laying down, either.

As evidenced by multiple waves of price reductions this year, Tesla has fatter profit margins than almost any other automaker, giving them the luxury of dropping price to maintain (or even grow) market share, and still turn a profit.

This compares to Ford, who is forecasting a $3 billion dollar loss across their EV division this year, even without aggressive discounting. Thank goodness Ford still has their profitable internal combustion engine business, fueled by the popular F-150 and Mustang, to offset their massive loss in EVs.

Last but not least, it isn’t lost on me that Ford decides to drop prices dramatically on the F-150 Lighting the same week that the first Tesla Cybertruck rolls off the production line. Coincidence or not? I’ll let you decide.

As we’ve discussed before on this segment, with 150 new EV models hitting the market over the next two years, we’re about to test what actual consumer demand is for EVs. I suspect we’re going to see a bloodbath of oversupply, and then the incentives will really mount. 

If you have any friends or loved ones who want to buy an EV, a little bit of advice. Tell them to wait just a little bit longer – I am certain there are going to be some screaming deals out there as we dramatically oversupply the market.

Companies To Watch

Every week we highlight interesting companies in the automotive technology space to keep an eye on. If you read my weekly industry Intel Report, I showcase a few companies each week, and we take the opportunity here on this segment to share those companies with you.

Today, we have two new companies to watch: Biped & SKU Caster.

Biped

Biped represents why I really love working in the Mobility space, and highlights just how far we’ve come with technology to help those who may not be as mobile as others.

It sounds kind of space-aged, but Biped produces a smart harness, worn on the shoulders, bringing autonomous driving features to humans who have disabilities.

The device is an all-in-one mobility aid for people with visual impairment, spatial neglect or hearing loss and for wheelchair users. It’s a smart harness, worn on shoulders, that uses self-driving technology from Honda Research Institute to help avoid obstacles with short sound feedback, and get GPS instructions.

I love Biped, because it’s a clever use of automotive ADAS technology applied to a personal use case to help those with disabilities to avoid obstacles, anticipate collisions, understand your immediate surroundings, and get navigation instruction, all through 3D sounds.

You can check out Biped at www.Biped.ai.

SKU Caster

Across the automotive industry, we all realized just how fragile the supply chain has become. 

SKU Caster looks to alleviate this by focusing on AI-powered Inventory Forecasting.

Standard inventory forecasting software has a hard time transfering an organization’s inside knowledge of specific products, markets, trends and cycles into their inventory forecasts.

At SkuCaster, they’ve created a machine-learning model that incorporates an organizations’ knowledge, removing any bottlenecks to knowledge transfer on inventory demand forecasting.

Often, supply chains and existing systems are too slow to adapt to dynamic changes of customer demand.

Traditional forecast methods in ERP solutions cannot keep up with the rapid changes of demand down to the individual SKU level.

With SKU Caster, companies can gain visibility, accuracy & be proactive on their inventory forecasting.

You can check out SKU Caster at www.SKUCaster.com.

If you’re an AutoTech entrepreneur working on a solution that helps car dealerships, we want to hear from you. We are actively investing out of our new DealerFund.

If you’re a dealer who wants to invest in early-stage AutoTech companies that benefit your business, let me know. We are still accepting new investors into the DealerFund.

If you’re interested in joining our Investment Club to make direct investments into AutoTech and Mobility startups with small checks, join the Club. There is no obligation to start seeing our deal flow.

And don’t forget to check out my book, The Future of Automotive Retail, on Amazon.com.

Thank you for tuning into CBT News for this week’s Future of Automotive segment, and we’ll see you next week!

The post Tesla, Ford’s EV price cuts explained and why more OEMs are likely to follow appeared first on CBT News.

Welcome to another edition of The Future of Automotive, with Steve Greenfield, Founder, and CEO of Automotive Ventures, where I put recent automotive and mobility news items into context, in terms of the broader thematic areas that will potentially impact the industry.

I’m glad that you could join us.

If you’ve been following the news cycle, many automakers, including Ford, GM, Volvo and now Mercedes, are conforming to the Tesla-developed North American Charging Standard or NACS.

But where does this leave auto dealers who have already committed to making significant facilities upgrades that include chargers with the old CCS standard connectors?

In many cases, automakers have compelled dealers to install charging stations with the old CCS-standard in order to sell their EVs.

But these investments may prove to be costly as the industry quickly moves to adopt the Tesla NACS EV plug standard. 

Installing chargers is expensive, especially the DC fast charging type. They can typically range from about $100,000 to $300,000 per charger but costs can vary with local labor, and construction and utility costs.

What we don’t know is if Tesla will even approve of dealerships installing their Tesla-branded chargers in the future. And would dealers really want to have chargers bearing the Tesla brand on their property?

Only time will tell how this will play out. I do expect that many of the other automakers, like Nissan and Hyundai will soon announce they’ll develop future EV models with the Tesla charging port standard. All of which will put more pressure on dealers to build out Tesla-compatible, or even Tesla-branded, chargers on their properties.

Next up this week, Automotive Ventures is excited to announce our latest investment out of our new DealerFund into electric vehicle charging start-up Go Eve, which has raised 3 million British Pounds in its first-ever funding round.

Go Eve has developed EV charging technology they call “DockChain,” to make high-power DC charging cost competitive with lower-power AC charging options by extending the reach of single rapid DC chargers to service multiple parking spaces simultaneously.

Think about your power strip in your home. You can plug one end into the wall and plug 10 devices into the powerstrip. 

GoEve works the same for fast charging. Plug one end into a DC fast charger and plug in up to 20 vehicles into one single charger simultaneously.

This technology aims to improve on current EV charging technology, which only allows for one or two vehicles to use a fast charging station at a time. 

We hope that this company greatly alleviates the amount of EV charging infrastructure costs that auto dealers have to incur over the coming decade.

You can find out more about the company at their website, www.GoEve.com.

Companies To Watch

Every week we highlight interesting companies in the automotive technology space to keep an eye on. If you read my industry Intel Report, I showcase a few companies each week, and we take the opportunity here on this segment to share those companies with you. 

Today, we have two new companies to watch: Sicona Battery Technologies and About:Energy.

Sicona Battery Technologies

Our first company to watch this week is Sicona Battery Technologies, creating a low-cost, scalable next-generation battery materials technology used in lithium-ion batteries that enables electric mobility and storage of renewable energy.

Sicona’s current generation silicon-composite anode technology delivers a remarkable 50-100% higher capacity than conventional graphite anodes and its anode materials can deliver more than 50% higher cell energy density than current Li-ion batteries.

This is tremendous news and has big implications for the EV battery world. 

You can check out Sicona Battery Technologies at www.SiconaBattery.com.

About:Energy

About:Energy, is a London, UK-based battery technology company, that focuses on building a portfolio of battery measurement and modeling capabilities to deliver a comprehensive software solution for battery design.

The reason that I love About:Energy is that the company’s predictive models reduce the reliance on physical research, enhancing design, management, and prediction for battery development. About:Energy eliminates the barriers that prevent companies digitalizing R&D for batteries, by creating a seamless modeling experience, from battery system to simulation. 

You can check out About:Energy at www.AboutEnergy.io.

If you’re an AutoTech entrepreneur working on a solution that helps car dealerships, we want to hear from you. We are actively investing out of our new DealerFund.

If you’re a dealer who wants to invest in early-stage AutoTech companies that benefit your business, let me know. We are still accepting new investors into the DealerFund.

If you’re interested in joining our Investment Club to make direct investments into AutoTech and Mobility startups with small checks, join the Club. There is no obligation to start seeing our deal flow.

And don’t forget to check out my book, The Future of Automotive Retail, on Amazon.com.

Thank you for tuning into CBT News for this week’s Future of Automotive segment, and we’ll see you next week!

The post Why Tesla’s grip on EV fast charging could be a major headache for dealers appeared first on CBT News.

Welcome to another edition of The Future of Automotive, with Steve Greenfield, Founder, and CEO of Automotive Ventures, where I put recent automotive and mobility news items into context, in terms of the broader thematic areas that will potentially impact the industry.

I’m glad that you could join us.

This week we have a special guest joining the show to help us understand how dealers should be looking at incorporating AI into their workflows.

Following the company’s $104 million dollar growth equity financing back in January, Impel, the global leader in digital automotive engagement software and data, has now launched a new product they’re calling “Chat AI”: a dealer webchat product powered by generative AI and large language models. So, with this news, let’s welcome back to the show Impel’s Co-Founder and CEO, Devin Daly.

What we cover:

• Just about everywhere you look nowadays, the news is covering ChatGPT and other Generative AI products. Should auto dealers be paying attention to this trend, and if so, how?
• What’s the coolest application for AI that you’ve seen so far outside of automotive?
• Impel has been working with AI for a number of years now. What business results have you seen it deliver for dealers?
• Webchat is a pretty established category in auto, with lots of incumbents. Why did you decide to launch a chat product and how is it different from the existing chat offerings already in the market?
• Impel has acquired two companies over the past 2 years. How have those acquisitions gone?
• Any further acquisitions on the horizon?
• More existentially, should we fear AI? Is it a threat to the human race?

Companies To Watch

Every week we highlight interesting companies in the automotive technology space to keep an eye on. If you read my industry Intel Report, I showcase a few companies each week, and we take the opportunity here on this segment to share those companies with you.

Today, we have two new companies to watch: SendSmart and ApFusion.

SendSmart

SendSmart uses automation technology to connect your team with only the responsive, qualified leads that are ready to do business right now.

Sales leads are a race, and SendSmart helps you win every time.

SendSmart sends every new lead prompt, personalized, polite, and persistent messages referencing details from their inquiry.

When the consumer replies, SendSmart connects them with your sales team immediately via whatever channel the customer prefers.

Are you or your team wasting hours manually leaving voicemails for customers who don’t pick up the phone? With SendSmart, if a customer doesn’t respond to text or email they can leave them a friendly voicemail message. If and when they respond by calling back, SendSmart will route the call to you and your team and optionally record calls.

You can check out SendSmart at www.SendSmart.com.

ApFusion

APFusion is software to help manage automotive salvage yards.

APFusion is a B2B automotive marketplace that helps salvage yards increase their fill rate and close more sales.

APFusion’s vendors load millions of dollars’ worth of inventory into APFusion, and through the APFusion connector they make that inventory immediately available in your yard management system.

Once a sale has been made, use the APFusion desktop app to automate the purchase order. Once that item has shipped, they will send tracking information directly back into your yard management system.

The reason that I love APFusion is they allow you to get access to the fastest-growing automotive B2B marketplace in the world, and access to over $15,000,000 worth of inventory: 120,000 CAPA certified, and aftermarket products.

APFusion runs a real-time price sync to ensure what you see is in stock, actually is in stock.

You can check out ApFusion at www.ApFusion.com.

If you’re an AutoTech entrepreneur working on a solution that helps car dealerships, we want to hear from you. We are actively investing out of our new DealerFund.

If you’re a dealer who wants to invest in early-stage AutoTech companies that benefit your business, let me know. We are still accepting new investors into the DealerFund.

If you’re interested in joining our Investment Club to make direct investments into AutoTech and Mobility startups with small checks, join the Club. There is no obligation to start seeing our deal flow.

And don’t forget to check out my book, The Future of Automotive Retail, on Amazon.com.

Thank you for tuning into CBT News for this week’s Future of Automotive segment, and we’ll see you next week!

The post Why auto dealers can’t afford to ignore AI integrations appeared first on CBT News.

Welcome to another edition of The Future of Automotive, with Steve Greenfield, Founder, and CEO of Automotive Ventures, where I put recent automotive and mobility news items into context, in terms of the broader thematic areas that will potentially impact the industry.

I’m glad that you could join us.

News out this week that the 2024 Polestar 2 will offer dramatic performance improvements vs. the current generation model.

The combination of hardware and software upgrades, including larger batteries and revamped motors, will extend the sedan’s range by 20% while using up to 9% less energy and charging up to 34% faster.

At first blush, you might not think this is big news. But it’s really got me to thinking. 

If EVs are able to deliver annual performance improvements like this (through a combination of both hardware and software upgrades), what’s it going to do to the depreciation of used vehicles that are far less attractive to the consumer as a result? 

If each subsequent generation of Polestar EVs deliver dramatic performance improvements in both battery range and power, and both the speed and power required to charge them, why wouldn’t a would-be EV shopper just wait for the next model year and postpone their purchase? 

I remember back to when the personal computer’s Intel chip (and thus processing speed), and data storage were improving so quickly that by the time you had your Dell Computer delivered, it was effectively out of date.

For example, if you were interested in buying the current year Corvette, but knew that next year’s model had more horsepower and better fuel economy for the same MSRP, wouldn’t you be likely to wait to buy next year’s model? 

And then there’s the issue of used vehicle depreciation and resale values.

If automakers are able to dramatically improve each subsequent EV model, why is anyone going to want to own a 5-year-old Polestar?

I already struggle with how the industry is going to set residual values on electric vehicles in an environment where we have 150 new EV models hitting showroom floors over the next two years, and the unpredictable demand from a U.S. consumer who is still skittish about charging range, charger availability and charging speed. Never mind the current inflation of EV MSRPs vs. their comparable Internal Combustion equivalents.

Remember back to the first generation of Nissan Leafs, when they came off lease? They had a stated range of 109 miles when new. By the time they came off lease 3 years later, you’d be lucky to get 80 miles worth of range out of them. Heaven forbid if you wanted to use the AC in the summer or heat in the winter. To state the obvious, the secondary market for used Nissan Leaf’s dropped like a stone.

Do we run the same risk if the pace of technology innovation in each new generation of EV is as dramatically improved as we’re about to witness in this new Polestar model?

One other observation before we wrap.

We’ve previously discussed on this segment the threat that we may see from Chinese automakers competing on U.S. soil.  While probably a topic for a separate future segment, keep in mind that we’re already seeing evidence of this. Polestar is a partnership between Sweden’s Volvo Car and China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, Volvo’s parent company.

Polestar vehicles are currently produced in China and shipped to the U.S. Their plan is to switch production for North America and other markets starting in mid-2024 out of Volvo’s plant in Ridgeville, South Carolina. But the technology innovations mentioned at the beginning of this segment are a direct result of R&D coming out of China.

Companies to watch

Every week we highlight interesting companies in the automotive technology space to keep an eye on. If you read my industry Intel Report, I showcase a few companies each week, and we take the opportunity here on this segment to share those companies with you.

Today, we have two companies to watch: Optiwatt & Novus Sentry.

Optiwatt

Our first company to watch this week is Optiwatt.

Optiwatt is an EV charging scheduler that enables you to reduce your EV charging costs by up to 70%.

In fact, Optiwatt helps you save $388 per year on average by automatically scheduling your EV to charge when rates are cheapest.

They provide Real-time smart charging synced to your energy rate. Down to the second. The results are real-time rate tracking and forecasting to charge at the right time. 

Optiwatt also maximizes your battery life by saving the last bit of charging to pre-condition your car for departure, just before you’re ready to leave the house in the morning. 

One of the features I love the most about Opitwatt is their “Emergency Preparedness” feature. This enables EV owners to be alerted and have your battery automatically topped off prior to potential grid blackouts.

Another pretty cool feature is that they enable you to measure and monitor your savings vs. owning an internal combustion engine vehicle.  Select your previous gas car’s model to see exactly how much you’re saving by driving electric.

You can check out Optiwatt at  https://optiwatt.com/.

Novus Sentry

Our second company to watch this week is Novus Sentry. 

Novus Sentry is a technology battery health testing and diagnostic company. 

They focus on the quality of the EV battery during manufacturing and assembly; monitoring the battery performance and reliability over the lifetime of the vehicle, and finally the re-use and recycling of the battery in its second or end-of-life use-case.

Novus Sentry focuses on the rapid testing, detection and prediction of faults that can lead to high safety risk such as catastrophic failures and fires. As a result, they are able to extend the life, safety and reliability of batteries.

The reason that I love Novus Sentry is that they’re solving a real industry need.

Failures caused during manufacturing, while in use, or after retirement result in billons of dollars of recalls, loss of lives and property. This is in addition to significant damage in brand and company reputation.

Battery faults and failures may be caused by numerous conditions including manufacturing and mechanical defects, charging behavior – including over-charge, under-discharge, over-temperature, and over-current events. ​

The Novus Sentry proprietary method of testing is innovating in the early detection of internal shorts.

You can check out Novus Sentry at https://www.novussentry.com/.

If you’re an AutoTech entrepreneur working on a solution that helps car dealerships, we want to hear from you. We are actively investing out of our new DealerFund.

If you’re a dealer who wants to invest in early-stage AutoTech companies that benefit your business, let me know. We are still accepting new investors into the DealerFund.

If you’re interested in joining our Investment Club to make direct investments into AutoTech and Mobility startups with small checks, join the Club. There is no obligation to start seeing our deal flow.

And don’t forget to check out my book, The Future of Automotive Retail, on Amazon.com.

Thank you for tuning into CBT News for this week’s Future of Automotive segment, and we’ll see you next week!

The post Polestar 2 upgrades raise questions about the depreciation of used EVs appeared first on CBT News.