29 March 2016

Buried under all the news about shiny new cars from the recent New York Motor Show was a comment made by Google’s head of self-driving cars. The search giant has built up a considerable amount of mostly positive coverage surrounding its autonomous driving exploits, but John Krafcik’s comment about the role auto retailers could play in this brave new self-driving world should, hopefully, ease some of the worry at the retailing coalface.

Our news story has the details it’s fair to say that Krafcik appears to understand the role of auto retailers. That he hasn’t dismissed the industry and hinted at starting a Google-branded support infrastructure from scratch is good news. If you know anything about how Silicon Valley works, the ‘business in a bubble’ mentality usually means that start ups will attempt to do it all themselves, sometimes with mixed results.

The future isn’t all rosy, though. The recent announcement from Mahindra outlining its plans for a direct sales approach and aftersales support through the use of mobile technicians differed from the previous retailer-inclusive future it had for distributing its new electric city car. 

Being pragmatic, Mahindra’s small-scale, go-it-alone approach potentially focusing mostly on the London area isn’t surprising. Google, on the other hand, has the potential to be a big player, and clearly identifies the role retailers can play in helping it expand. As for Mahindra, its ‘disruptive’ approach might grab a few headlines. However, it will be interesting to see what happens when it needs to scale up to meet demand and geographical reach. That’s when established auto retailers prove their worth. Just ask Google.

Iain Dooley

Editor, Agenda

Auto Retail Network

Tags: aftersales, auto retailer, autonomous car, google, Mahindra, sells driving, service