Brickell Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram dealership’s management encountered UVeye’s vehicle scanning technology at the NADA Show two years ago. They were so impressed that they incorporated UVeye’s scanning tunnel into the design of their new dealership in downtown Miami.

Like many dealerships, Brickell uses vAuto’s inventory management software to appraise used vehicles for trade-in value. The dealership quickly saw a synergy between the information provided by UVeye’s scans and vAuto’s data, dealership general manager Jonathan Noda tells WardsAuto.

Noda and UVeye encouraged Cox Automotive, which owns vAuto, to consider integrating UVeye into vAuto’s trove of appraisal data.

They found a receptive audience. UVeye and vAuto recently announced that UVeye’s AI-powered inspection capabilities would be integrated into vAuto to produce AI-generated condition reports.

“We kind of spearheaded it,” Noda says.

The integration allows dealers to quickly and more accurately make trade-in offers for used vehicles and source more inventory from the service lane. UVeye also creates high-resolution merchandising images a dealership can post on their website.

“There is a natural synergy and partnership in what our two offerings bring to a dealer,” Derek Hansen, vice president of operations at vAuto, tells WardsAuto. “To put the right value on every car, to be able to image and merchandise that car across channels and to make sure they are acquiring the inventory that can really help them continue to fuel their retail operation.”

UVeye’s capabilities and speed address one of the challenges Cox encounters, Hansen says: Dealers often put a “blanket estimate” for reconditioning on used vehicles.

For example, a dealership puts $1,500 on every appraised vehicle as a “placeholder.” But the actual reconditioning cost may be only $500.

That puts dealers at a disadvantage in an increasingly competitive marketplace, he says.

Tunnel Vision

To obtain UVeye’s detailed images, a vehicle drives through a tunnel that scans it using AI systems with advanced cameras. Besides producing images, the scan quickly detects any damage on a vehicle and generates a condition report, including repair costs.

More than 400 dealerships use UVeye’s system today, and it should be in more than 1,000 by year’s end, Amir Hever, UVeye’s co-founder and CEO, tells WardsAuto.

“We’re automating something that used to take a long time for dealerships,” he says. “You can pretty much do an appraisal or trade-in in less than a minute” using UVeye’s system.

UVeye and vAuto have been discussing the integration for more than two years. “Combining the two made a lot of sense,” Hever says.

Both companies are now working with selected dealerships to perfect the integration and will gradually make it available to all the network during the next several months.

Appraisal on Steroids

Brickell CDJR is one of the pilot dealerships. Speeding up the appraisal and merchandising process is crucial for Brickell because it sells three times as many used vehicles as new, Noda says.

Pre-owned vehicles are “a good portion of our opportunities,” he says. “With pre-owned cars, time (is key). Every day it’s depreciating, right? So, reconditioning, digital frontline readiness, all these things are a concern because the more time it takes to get it digitally retailed, the less profitable it becomes.”

To be sure, not all dealerships have the capital and/or physical capacity to install UVeye’s drive-through tunnel. Cox Auto is considering how it can assist dealers who lack the scale to use UVeye with the vAuto system.

“You will see more to come,” Hansen says.

For now, however, “We’re excited for dealers that fit that segment that have efficient scale and size,” he says. “This puts their appraisal process on steroids.”