My name is Brian. This is The Daily.
Think there are enough car buying platforms as it is? General Motors says there’s room for one more.
Carvana, TrueCar, Cars.com, Vroom, Kelley Blue Book, Autotrader, CarMax, CarGurus, Lyft. There may even be more. When it comes to car shopping websites, the market is pretty saturated. General Motors believes now is the time to launch one of their own. Dubbed “CarBravo”, this new platform focuses on used vehicle shopping, and like the others, will grant users access to vehicles from any carmaker.
CarBravo will utilize dealerships from the brands in GM’s portfolio to create a massive used car network. The used car market is hot right now due to widespread new car shortages, and GM believes their dealers’ used car performance is detrimental to the success of the business. As such, they are taking this opportunity to capitalize on the demand. Buick, Chevrolet and GMC dealers will actually have to enroll in the program in order to be included in the network, but I don’t see why a dealership would turn down the opportunity for more traffic to their online inventory. Cadillac dealers will not be included in CarBravo, but a separate platform all to themselves. Details on that have not been provided at this time.
General Motors has around 400,000 used cars in their collective dealer stock right now, but the program will also include off-lease vehicles owned by GM Financial. Combined, you’re looking at up to 1 million cars at your fingertips. Customers will be able to shop the platform online, at a participating dealership, or a combination of both. “All CarBravo vehicles will be inspected and reconditioned to meet standards set by GM,” they claim. They will also throw in standard warranties, roadside service, courtesy transportation, and OnStar and SiriusXM trials (on compatible cars), all throughout the entire ownership duration. That’s a decent amount of peace of mind.
See the announcement of CarBravo here.