AutoAvaliar creates two-minute car evaluation
Brazilian vehicle remarketing solutions firm AutoAvaliar has developed a way to estimate the value of a car in two minutes.
The service first involves parking the car in the company's Auto Flash booth, which is a portable room about the size of a one car garage. The booth, which works hand in hand with a mobile app, nine processors and specialized software, helps car dealers or fleet managers quickly evaluate used cars without the need of an expert vehicle evaluator.
"The booth is evenly lit to take photos which indentify the exact color and condition of the paint and body. It also takes a license plate reading via optical character recognition (OCR) cameras which gives the dealer historical information on the car based on the chassis number," COO Silvio Silva told Global Fleet.
The company will soon have an updated second version of the booth which will use a laser system to read the shade differentiations in the paint, he added.
Finally, the evaluation involves an on board diagnostics (OBD-II) reading which transmits telemetry results on the mechanics of the car. Through this, the evaluator can obtain information related to the car ignition, oil level, air bag, fuel pump, muffler emissions, among others.
The evaluator does not need much expertise. He or she only needs to park the car in the booth, connect to the OBD-II outlet, wait two minutes for the results, and then remove the car.
"This is a first for Brazil and, as far as we know, there is nothing like it in the world," said CTO William Pamplona.
As the technology is very new, the company has only begun to market it. So far, two pilot clients based out of Lisboa are eying the service. One is car dealership group Santogal, and the other is automotive innovation group World Shopper.
With approximately 120,000 cars being evaluated - per month - in Brazil alone, the Auto Flash booth could be a new way to cut down on the time taken to evaluate cars.
When asked about the price of the booth, the executives said that it is only available for rent, with pricing depending on each situation. Considering the cost of hiring a professional evaluator, a competitive price can be achieved, says Silva.