zachshefska

Thanks! Six years in the making ... We started as a YouTube channel (me and my dad), and now we are here. So fun. So cool. What a time to be building!

80 character limit on the post title is why I edited it in that way. Thanks for the feedback. Also the article was entirely organic. The journalist saw our article/interview in PYMNTS from last week (as referenced in the Fortune piece) and then wrote this. He interviewed me yesterday. This is a bummer. I have been building this company for six years and am so proud of what we have accomplished. I hope we can get this post back on the front page. It's a tremendous moment for our team and company and I am so excited to get feedback from commenters here on HN.

It is $40 :-) https://caredge.com/ai

How can you say this is an ad? Fortune wrote an article about my company and I posted it here. How is that an ad?

No, this works for customers who are financing the purchase of their vehicle, leasing, or paying cash. The AI Agent negotiates the out-the-door price for the user regardless of payment method and then goes from there.

OP here. I’m not sure I understand your point. The AI Negotiator is only intended for customers who want to buy a car — that’s what we mean by qualified.

I hope this applies to car dealers too.

Carvana is destined for acquisition or bankruptcy. They have WAY too much inventory that they overpaid for. Consumer demand has plummeted and new car supply is bouncing back (up 78% year over year). They have too much debt on their books to make the model work. Good thing the CEOs dad cashed out when he did.

Disclaimer; I run a popular youtube channel educating consumers on car buying.

Greg did a good job documenting the challenges of buying a car in today's market. Fortunately, we are starting to see a softening in consumer demand which has led to used car prices to begin to drop in some areas and for certain types of vehicles.

We expect that as automakers increase production we'll go away from markups. The timeline for that is tricky since Asian brands (Toyota and Honda especially) are struggling MUCH more than American automakers. MSRPs are rising fast too, so while dealer markups may disappear as demand weakens and supply increases, don't be surprised if you see MSRPs that are 5-10% higher year over year.

Wait times right now for hybrid vehicles are over a year. The push to PHEV and BEV will continue to be delayed due to ridiculous prices. The average transaction price for a new EV last month was north of $66,000. Not affordable.

Great insights in Greg's article. I wish we could have helped him before he embarked on the journey.

Let me be clear; we should move away from Manufacturers SUGGESTED Retail price and go towards Manufacturers Retail Price. Just make it that the price is the price, and then the dealers can become glorified delivery centers/showrooms and service centers.

They'll make tons of gross profit because their cost infrastructure will go down, and OEMs will be happy because they still won't have to deal with customers and can focus on wholesaling cars to their "dealer" network.

The rub is in the finance and insurance products. OEMs all have captive lending arms, and currently dealers make a ton of money ($1,500+ per vehicle retailed) in finance and insurance profit. Navigating that relationship will be interesting as OEMs take on more control of the sales process.

And to be clear, consumers shouldn't have to negotiate for hours to try and get a "fair" price during "normal" market conditions.

The current "markup" phenomenon is the same as the prior experience (pre-pandemic) where OEMs intentionally subsidized the purchase of their vehicles well below MSRP, and savvy customers could negotiate thousands off a car deal. It's mind boggling to me that we allow for such an inefficient market to perpetuate! 100 years of franchise dealerships is enough! Time for business and consumers to wake up and enact change.

Thank you for the kind words. We have so much more work to do! Trying to innovate in this industry is TOUGH. All of the incumbent business models are predicated on information asymmetry. We're having fun changing the way things work and sliding the scale in the consumers favor.

The market is SO inefficient. While you’re right in describing the principles of supply and demand, the reality is that buying a car should be 10x simpler and the price should just be the price. No games, no haggling, no BS add-ons that increase dealer profits. Retail auto is due for a wake up call, and I sense it’s happening right now. You wouldn’t need markups to make extra profit if the cost infrastructure associated with selling cars was lower than it currently is.

You'll enjoy this read: https://joinyaa.com/guides/how-did-car-dealerships-become-so...

The reason car dealers are so powerful is because they influence so many aspects of local government.

Great point (I’m the Zach Shefska referenced in the article), and have been working in this space to advocate for consumers. Two things:

1) new FTC proposed rules (which are open for public comment!) would ban the practice of “surprise” add-ons at the dealership.

2) a lot of folks that contribute to markups (and other crowdsourced initiatives) go all the way to getting a buyers order and then report those add-ons when they show up then.

If you’re interested in the FTC rules, read here: https://joinyaa.com/guides/ftc-dealer-rules/

A lot of folks bought used cars at ridiculously high prices (over original MSRP when sold new in some cases). Banks approved them for those loans, and when the market corrects and used values come back in line (ie stop appreciating and depreciate again) those folks will be in severe negative equity positions.

The ripple effects from the chip shortage will be felt for years … nearly all new cars are already “spoken for” and consumers will still be paying MSRP & MSRP+ for 12-18 months. What happens to used car prices over the coming 2-3 years will be fascinating. So many people will be underwater on their car loans.

I'm sorry you had that experience. I've helped dozens of people buy cars from them and they are notorious for this. It's a shame, most dealers do this crap. It's ridiculous.

OP here: I run a popular youtube channel helping people get fair car deals (search YAA). We are building a crowdsourced database of reviews to find dealers who are doing this type of stuff: https://joinyaa.com/car-dealer-reviews/results/