NEWS

Introduction from Peter Groftehauge

Welcome to the Christmas edition of our group newsletter. I cannot believe another 12 months has gone by so quickly. It has certainly been a very busy one for all our business units and colleagues and we have delivered some exciting growth during 2024 as we continue to expand our digital offering to our customers.

In this newsletter we have interviewed Marcelo, our country manager in Brazil, and he tells us how the business continues to grow as our range of digital products and services that are helping to revolutionise the entire remarketing industry. It reflects our continued investment in the Brazilian market, which is resulting in us signing up high profile brand such as Nissan, Mobilize, Audi, Scania and Itau Bank.

Celebrating two award wins

In recognition of our continued focus on global digital transformation, we also received two very important awards from EY and PwC in November.

I won EY Entrepreneur of The Year 2024 for Denmark while PwC also presented us with the Danish Digital Transformation award. Both awards recognised our continued focus on digital transformation of the automotive industry and made me enormously proud of what we have achieved since we set up our business in 1996. A big thanks to our colleagues, customers and partners for their continued support.

Autorola Solutions momentum

Autorola Solutions continues to grow its momentum globally as the ‘go to platform’ for companies when they want to transform their asset management and workflow management processes.

We interview Solutions global business unit director Ib Kimose on why Sixt, Hertz and Enterprise are utilising Fleet Monitor, and how new products set for launch in 2025 will keep it at the forefront of vehicle asset management efficiencies.

Supply of used BEVs exceeds demand

The number of BEVs entering the new and used market continues to grow. Our latest INDICATA Market Watch report shows the supply of used BEVs in Europe continues to exceed demand as consumers continue to come to terms with buying and owning a zero emissions vehicle.

We will keep you informed of these trends to make sure you make the best strategic remarketing decisions for your business.

I hope you have a very restful Christmas holiday, and we look forward to seeing you in 2025.

Best regards,

Peter

www.linkedin.com/petergroeftehauge

2024 has been an important year for Autorola Brazil as it continues to build its team, launch new products and importantly continue collaborating with some blue-chip automotive clients.

Its biggest launch in 2024 has been the roll out of the INDICATA used car pricing insights platform in the summer which brings with it new levels of data quality, volume and insights.

Brazil has never seen this level of used car data in real time all on a single dashboard before and so Autorola has set a new benchmark for the entire automotive industry.

Advanced data intelligence

“INDICATA is three or four times further advanced than other products in the market which gives it a real USP when talking to large fleets, banks, OEMs and dealer groups,” explained Marcelo Cabral de Barros.

“The response to INDICATA has been very positive and we look forward to being able to announce our first major contracts in early 2025.

Giving dealers an edge

“The power of tracking real sales transactions gives the industry data it has never seen before and dealer groups in particular are very excited at how it can give them an edge when selling and buyers used cars in their local markets,” he added.

This launch has coincided with expansion of the INDICATA team as the overall Autorola team reaches over thirty people.

The potential growth of INDICATA is very exciting but it is the MarketPlace online remarketing platform which continues to deliver for high profile customers in Brazil. The flexibility of MarketPlace means it can host timed auctions, closed auctions as well as sale cascades always on wholesale auction concept.

Blue chips brands use MarketPlace

Brands such as Nissan, Mobilize, Audi, Scania and Itau Bank are all using MarketPlace to sell their end of finance/lease vehicles. Some vendors are selling ex-lease vehicles only back to their dealer networks while others are happy to sell unsold stock into the open wholesale market.

“Currently 80-85% of our MarketPlace sales take place within the wholesale market but a growing number of vehicles are now being sold to consumers. Large corporates for instance are now looking to offer employees their ex-lease company vehicles for sale before they are handed back to the leasing company. They are utilizing our platform for this purpose.

Trading in the wholesale and retail markets

“MarketPlace has the power to trade in the wholesale or retail markets and it will continue to be a big part of our business. Large vendors like the open and transparent nature of selling online, particularly the banks where compliance is so important now,” explained Marcelo.

The next exciting opportunity in Brazil is to launch the Solutions proposition which is fronted by the asset and workflow management system Fleet Monitor.

“We are very excited at the launch of Solutions as it will become the heart of a company’s fleet operation managing each vehicle’s lifecycle from order and delivery to de-fleet and sale,” explained Marcelo.

Fleet Services launch in 2025

Autorola Solutions is extending its Fleet Monitor offering to companies in 2025 in the form of Fleet Services which is a compound management module that manages everything from storage and vehicle preparation to remarketing and planning.

“Brazil is a very big country and over time building a nationwide network of compounds where our customers can de-fleet and store vehicles is an exciting new opportunity for us. But we know there will need to be some new processes that we will need to bring in to improve the efficiency and consistency of things like vehicle inspections.

Adopting a consistent inspection quality

“We want to ‘normalise’ inspections so whether we inspect and collect a vehicle or whether a sub-contractor does it, it is done in the same way. We have our own inspection software and over time we want to make sure that vendors can rely on a consistent quality and detail of inspection in the future. This is a big challenge in our country but one we believe we can address in the next year or two,” explained Marcelo.

The last few weeks have been an incredible one for the Autorola Group, with our company’s Group CEO Peter Grøftehauge collecting not one but two high profile Danish awards in November from multinational professional service companies EY and PwC.

EY Entrepreneur of the Year

Peter won the Grand Prize at the EY Entrepreneur of The Year 2024 – Denmark which is the world’s most prestigious growth creator competition.

Lars Fløe Nielsen, Jury Chair, commented: “Autorola embodies perfect timing. It’s a tough market, and many competitors have run out of steam over time. Autorola has managed to turn an otherwise unsexy industry into a sleek, well-run business built on integrity.”

Additionally, Søren Smedegaard Hvid, Partner at EY, commented: “Autorola is not just a success story for Funen but a Danish success story. The company has been on an incredible growth journey that has lasted nearly 30 years so far and seems to have no end in sight.”

Peter will represent Denmark at the international finals in Monaco at the EY World Entrepreneur of The Year awards in the summer of 2025.

PwC Digital Transformation award

Autorola Group also won the “Danish Digital Transformation” award sponsored by PwC, which recognises Peter as a pioneer with a focus on digital innovation and efficiency.

Ulrik Ræbild, Responsible for Owner-Manager of the Year, and partner at PwC said: “Peter has created a digital foundation in Autorola that is driving the company forward at an impressive speed and creating strong results across borders. His approach shows how technological solutions can support growth and competitiveness, and that makes him a very worthy recipient of the Theme Award of the Year.”

Driving digital development in the automotive industry

Unsurprisingly, our group CEO Peter Grøftehauge was incredibly proud of the award having stuck with his digital vision since launching Autorola in 1996.

He said: “I am incredibly proud to receive this award – especially given the impressive field of finalists in both competitions. The awards fill me with both humility and motivation for the journey ahead.

“My extensive efforts in driving digital development in the automotive industry and creating innovative IT solutions that elevate industry standards to a new level fills me with immense pride. This has been my mission with Autorola since we began in 1996.

“And a massive thank you must also go to our employees, our customers, and partners across the globe for trusting us every step of the way – this journey wouldn’t be possible without you all,” he added.

With large fleets coming under increased pressure to control costs, improve efficiencies, increase utilisation and automate more key processes our Fleet Monitor system has seen huge growth over the past 18 months.

After one and a half years of investment, we have extended Fleet Monitor’s footprint to include compound management under its new Fleet Services proposition. Taking the bones of the system which has been managing Autorola Denmark’s compound network over the past decade it has been completely modernised and developed by our in-house development team into a SaaS model which puts everything into the Cloud.

Power and control

It has the power to control and track the status of every vehicle on the fleet, from a new vehicle being onboarded to it being refurbed and remarketed into the wholesale or retail sector and every single process in between. Powerful management information is generated in real time for individual sites or head office to utilise.

Autorola Turkey and Belgium will be the first countries to launch Fleet Services in early 2025.

Enterprise Turkey has already rolled out Fleet Monitor in multiple sites to run its huge rental fleet more efficiently, overseeing their entire fleet process from adding a vehicle to the fleet to managing the remarketing process across 82 car rental offices.

Making strategic used car decisions

Autorola Solutions is now able to overlay INDICATA’s used car pricing platform over its asset management protocol so companies can use it to make strategic decisions on when and where it can de-fleet vehicles and make the best price. This includes utilising cross border sales and exporting to other countries based on INDICATA’s Europe-wide data footprint.

We will add further value to customers in 2025 when we look to launch the integration with our INDICATA residual value forecasting system, as companies look for support in underwriting the vast number of new models being launched into every market.

Australian rental giants onboard eRepair

We have also just launched eRepair 2.0 which is an upgraded vehicle repair management platform which currently processes 6.000 repairs monthly. The latest version enhances customisation, automation, and third-party integration and provides comprehensive visibility into the repair process, helping fleets manage repairs efficiently and minimise vehicle downtime. It also allows fleets to record vehicle summary, quotation, assessment, and repair information for each vehicle, while preserving the old order workflow.

Rental giants such as Sixt and others already use eRepair in Australia for their vehicle repair management in association with their individual supply chains which are integrated into the eRepair system. A similar application to eRepair is also in use with fleets in Germany as it continues to gain traction with customers. Hertz and East Coast Car Rentals are using eRepair 2.0 now!

Pan-European deals go from strength to strength

Multi-country pan-European deals like the one announced with smart, part of Mercedes-Benz, continue to go from strength to strength with the German BEV brand set to launch our Digital Showroom product in the New Year.

The types of Solutions contracts we are signing are now six figures in size and for multiple years with large OEMs, leasing and rental companies in multiple countries and much has been done behind the scenes to speed up the implementation with large new customers.

Large contracts can go live in just a few months

We can set up a large contract and have it live within just a few months now and our implementation is much more structured and precise which it must be if it covers multiple countries and different currencies.

The Autorola Group has already committed to continued investment in the Fleet Monitor product during 2025 and beyond with more staff and more new products and services being integrated to the main platform across our global subsidiaries.

The vision is that Fleet Monitor should be at the heart of every big fleet and when combined with our pricing data intelligence and online remarketing platform we have a powerful proposition that large companies cannot afford to ignore.

👉 Visit http://www.autorolasolutions.com to explore our solutions, discover inspiring customer success stories, request a demo, or connect with us directly to get started today!

Sales of used BEVs are slowly increasing across European according to the latest INDICATA Market Watch report accounting for a 5.8% market share in October.

However, supply continues to exceed demand with BEVs accounting for a 7.6% share of overall stock with countries such as Spain reporting a Market Days’ Supply figure of well over 100.

Overall, the retail price trend for used cars since the beginning of 2023 corresponds to public opinion and scepticism about BEVs in Europe.

The BEV price index has lost almost a third since then and hybrids suffered a loss of around one fifth in the same period. When considering the 130,000+ cars Tesla sold in 2023 v 2022 there is a risk prices may be affected as they come back into the market in 2025 unless there is a stimulation in demand.

The latest Market Watch report saw Tesla’s Model 3 remain as Europe’s fastest-selling used car under four years of age and the top selling BEV. Europe’s top selling used car overall and the top selling ICE car was the VW Golf which has held this position for many months.

Two countries in our 13-country report at the forefront of onboarding BEVs are Sweden and Denmark. Sweden is the second strongest market for new EV registrations in Europe after Norway and while the used car market is taking a little longer to come to terms with this product shift it is showing clear signs of change. In October BEVs accounted for 26.3% of used cars up to two years old while at 3-4 years of age they accounted for every second sale.

In October in Denmark almost 70% of all sales up to two years of age were fully electric and every second car sold at 3-4 years of age were electric. Even every second used Porsche sold was a Taycan. Overall Denmark’s Market Days’ Supply was a very healthy 50 which was beaten only by the UK.

“Our Market Watch report continues to track the changes in supply, demand and price trends for all fuel types with a particular focus on BEVs. There are certainly some glimpses of positivity for BEVs but unless the supply and demand balance improve prices could be further impacted in 2025 as volumes entering the used market continue to rise,” explained Andy Shields, INDICATA’s global business unit director.

To find out more on how used BEVs are performing in 13 European countries download the latest copy of our INDICATA Market Watch used car insights report at   www.indicata.com