NEWS

Welcome to the summer edition of the Autorola Group newsletter.

It has been a welcome return to a semblance of normality across the business world in 2022. As countries have opened and travel restrictions have lifted, companies are finally returning to doing business face-to-face again.

Although the new digital world has allowed business to continue virtually over the last three years, the return to in-person meetings has been welcomed across our industry, and it has been great to conclude new business deals with a handshake once more.

We have continued to grow as a company too, not only within many individual territories such as France and Brazil, as covered in this newsletter, but also as a group.

We detail some of the new projects below, including the very exciting new relationship with smart Europe, where we have secured a five-year contract to become its remarketing partner, and the development of new business deals with VWFS in Brazil.

Electric vehicles remain a key talking point among our remarketing partners globally, and we have further insights into how EVs are performing in the used market. In many countries that means used EVs are now selling faster than petrol and diesel cars.

I hope you find this newsletter useful, and it gives you a flavour of what is happening around our group.

Best regards
Peter Grøftehauge (LinkedIn)

Autorola Group’s Fleet Monitor has proved itself to be a huge benefit to Volkswagen Financial Services Brazil in allowing the bank to track and trace its fleet assets across the country in a way that no other product had previously been able to. This proved invaluable to the lender, which has a fleet of 5,000 vehicles, and a supplementary fleet of 13,000 vehicles, run under the brand of FleetZil.

As a result of this solid foundation of success, Autorola is able to assist FleetZil during a merger with another Brazil-based leasing company, LM. A formerly family-owned leasing company, 60% of LM has been purchased by VWFS which will continue to expand its shares in the company over the next three years. Following this merger, additional vehicles will be added to the FleetZil parc, in line its expansion goals in the coming five years.

Importantly, because LM has been a family run leasing company until the merger, Autorola is currently constructing a process that will bring solutions and modernization to LM’s old manual systems and will make a difference in the way they conduct their business in order to bring itself into line with the wider reporting and management structure of VWFS.

Toyota and Kinto sign a new contract for Brazil

Toyota and leasing giant Kinto have signed a substantial deal for Brazil with the aim of maximising growth for both parties. With its new agreement with Toyota, the international leasing company is entering a period of concerted expansion of its activities within the country, and Autorola will be key to Kinto achieving its commercial goals in this area. With the signing of this contract, it is expected to increase its market share to around 100,000 vehicles within five years.

Internal investment in the Autorola sales team

As a result of the success of the last 12 months, Autorola Brazil is now enjoying higher online auction transaction volumes than ever before. Autorola is also investing in its sales team and upgrading its internal processes to allow for the coming rise in vehicle volumes.

A streamlining of processes, an expanded team and an investment in IT infrastructure will see Autorola Brazil well-placed to service the growing needs of its expanding client base for the years to come.

Matching buyers to vendors has always been a key strength of our platform, and this is proving a crucial benefit for customers in a rapidly fluctuating marketplace. Demand is changing fast as new car prices drop after 12 months of record prices. Buyers are now flocking to new vehicles supported by attractive finance rates instead of buying high price used cars which has changed the dynamic of the market very quickly., Brazil is therefore experiencing a market correction, which will make the availability of detailed and up-to-date used car prices from INDICATA key for successful transactions.

INDICATA launching in Brazil

Until now, only Marketplace and Solutions have been offered in Brazil, however in response to our customers’ changing needs, INDICATA is soon to be launched as an additional offering enabling the powerful combination of all three services to be utilised together for the benefit of the companies we work with.

The launch is well underway internally, with several key data providers already earmarked for involvement in the project. With strong interest already in place from our customers, we expect to launch Indicata Brazil later this year.

It looks set to be a year of strong growth.

smart Europe GmbH has announced a new five-year contract with the Autorola Group. Autorola will set up and run the European fleet remarketing infrastructure for smart´s brand new range of 100% electric cars.

Autorola’s Fleet Monitor web-based asset management IT platform will be rolled out to enable an efficient, end-to-end remarketing vehicle management process across Europe.

Fleet Monitor will found the backbone of smart’s relationship with rental, car sharing and subscription companies. It will enable smart to consistently track each car’s status including mileage, servicing history and current location.

Further Autorola ensures integration of data from all of smart´s relevant partners for logistic, inspection and storage. All respective processes will be managed in a holistic and efficient context. Main target is a fast reintegration of smart remarketing vehicles into the retail process via Autorola’s pan European online MarketPlace towards the future smart agency network.

The platform roll-out includes Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland and Sweden.

André Janssen-Timmen, COO, smart Europe GmbH, said: “We are setting up our own, strong remarketing capability right from the start. Our focus is not only on the first cycle, but also on 2nd and 3rd. We believe that Autorola for us is exactly the right partner for this endeavor.”

The collaboration with smart underlines the strength of Fleet Monitor as a powerful tool to connect diverse areas of the business to create a strong platform to manage the entire fleet activities with effective end-to-end solutions.

See more here: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/666726856

To know more: https://autorolasolutions.com/contact/

Autorola France is officially the country’s fifth largest car auction company and the largest online only auction business.

According to the annual Harris Interactive car auction poll Autorola France moved from seventh to fifth place, the highest position achieved since the business was set up in 2007.

Seventy percent increase in turnover

Turnover has grown by 70% from 48m Euros in 2020 to 82m in 2021 as the entire automotive industry moved to online remarketing as the pandemic closed large parts of the used car market.

Autorola France is unique in that it also sells high value used cars online, not just unwanted low-cost dealer part exchanges. Its average transaction value is 12,500 Euros selling used cars for vendors such as Ford France, BMW, PSA, Athlon and BPCE, LeasePlan and VWFS.

Selling used cars online since 2007

“Our 22-strong team was proud to hear the news that we have become the largest online car auction business in France. We have stood by our principles of only selling used cars online for 15 years and the pandemic has accelerated its popularity,” said Pierre-Emmanuel Beau, MD of Autorola France.

“Buyers appreciate the power of bidding and buying used cars from their PC or phone, while vendors benefit enjoy reduced selling costs when compared with physical. We look forward to continuing our annual growth,” he said.

Used battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are now selling faster than petrol and diesel cars across Europe according to our latest INDICATA Market Watch used car insights report.

In April BEVs were the fastest-selling powertrain type at 6.8x whereas just 12 months ago they were the slowest at 3.7x.

Fastest-selling used cars

Electric cars took all three places in INDICATA’s fastest-selling used car table for the very first time in April with the Renault Zoe, Tesla Model Y and Kia Niro.

Market Days’ Supply for those respective used EVs was 27.7 days, 35.5 days and 44.7 days which compares with 74.8 days, 50.7 days and 60.8 days for April’s fastest-selling ICE cars, the VW Golf, Renault Clio, and VW Polo.

Speed of acceptance for EVs

This is a dramatic change from the start of 2022 when used BEVs were consistently the slowest-selling fuel type and shows the speed of acceptance of electric power within the used market after a slow start in previous years.

With supply now fully exceeding demand, dealer stock of used BEVs was 38% lower than in April compared with March.

EVs are reversing a negative trend

As supply tightens, BEV used prices are reversing the negative trend they have had for the last 4-5 years with a Europe-wide rise of 9.3 percentage points for used cars since the end of 2021.

Andy Shields, INDICATA’s global business unit director explains:

“April 2022 could be the major sea change in the acceptance of electric used cars across Europe. Last year we had seen excess BEV supply as OEMs over forced the market to reduce their CAFÉ liabilities.

Used BEV stock is drying up

“With retail buyers now seeing €50+ increases in filling a tank of fuel in an ICE vehicle they are swapping to BEVS. Long lead times on new BEVs and an ever-growing confidence in range and charging infrastructure means the used BEV market is now being sucked dry.”

For a free copy of the latest INDICATA Market Watch report go to www.indicata.com