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Death of the Car Salesman? BMW Makes AI App To Sell Electric Cars
cartechboy writes "You thought Willy Loman had it bad. BMW is launching an artificial intelligence app allowing consumers to ask questions about its new BMW i3 electric car without the hassle of having to pick up the phone or go into a dealership. Potential customers can text a simple question about the i3 and the system builds an appropriate response in real-time using AI — interpreting words, sentiment, and context. The futuristic robo-car salesman was developed by 19-year-old entrepreneur Dmitry Aksenov and operates around the clock. No word on whether the app says, 'Wait here — I'll check with my sales manager,' like human car dealers often do."
No application can be as aggressively persuasive as your general car salesman!
But will never be able to answer questions like: does a 29-er mtb fit the trunk without folding the back seats.
Vajk
BMW buyers need that personal dick sucking touch from a beneath them type salesman begging for a customer.
Hmm.. Electric... bmw... That might be the most douche you could have in one space.
Great, no salesman, no dealerships, nower costs, lower prices?
can we get rid of realtors next? And the general class of human cancers known as middlemen?
I'm not living in the american cultural sphere. Around here carsalesmen never go to their managers, they are also not aggressively pushy. They are actually pretty much the best salesmen a normal consumer will ever meet. (Seen B2B salesmen too, the really good ones usually end up there). Aggressively pushy ones end up in hospitals or unemployed. Are american carsales man really as bad as the stereotype suggests? If so, why do you think they end up being like that?
For me, the content of the answer is part of what I want. I pay equal attention to the way the salesman is giving the answer too. If I have the feeling he is bullshitting his way into a sale I know I have to ask more complex questions.
At least with robots you know in advance you are being bullshitted as they literally have no sense of ethics. For humans this requires effort and sometimes they slip up.
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
I'm sure they have a "Cloud Service" in India, and the "AI" speaks heavily Indian accented English for some mysterious reason.
without the hassle of having to pick up the phone
How exactly am I supposed to use the app without picking up the phone?
FCKGW 09F9 42
new cars are great but i dont know anyone stupid enough to buy one. what we need is an open system to easily and securely buy and sell used cars between people. Craigslist is OK until you have to deal with a car owner that freaks out over selling his Kentucky car to a person with a California drivers license because hes watched too much real housewives. ebay isnt terrible until you factor in the cut taken by PayPal. dealerships however take the cake with notoriously high pressure sales, outright lies about the used vehicles they sell, and markup that borders on the surreal.
Good people go to bed earlier.
The first time not. Then, you can program the necessary knowledge in, and from that point on all instances will be able to answer that question.
Note that a human salesman may not know either (I have no idea what a 29-er mtb is, so if I were a salesman I'd certainly not be able to answer that question). But then, even if he later learns the necessary details, it does nothing for any other salesman who might not have the necessary knowledge either.
I've always been annoyed that I can't just buy a car online (or house for that matter) - glad to see that change!
I also believe it will allow for better feedback to the manufacturer. People will ask for and select the features they like, not the ones the salesman convinced them to sign for because it helps his commission or allows him to sell a model from his inventory.
A 29er MTB is a mountain bike with 29 inch wheels. Actually, they have 28 inch wheel rims (as you find in racing bicycles), but because the tyres are so fat, the sales pitch calls them 29-inch wheels.
I see you are trying to buy an electric car.
Do you want some help?
(o) Take me to the Tesla web site
( ) Flounder around with this hunk of junk
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But will never be able to answer questions like: does a 29-er mtb fit the trunk without folding the back seats.
Vajk
No, but that's way better than lying to you by saying "Yes, of course, I do it all the time!"
(which is what a human car salesman would do).
No sig today...
..the amount of money it will take to put the keys in my hand.
By the time I arrive at (or even call) the dealership, I have researched the car, know the invoice price for the model I want, and have picked out the color.
The only opinions I want about the car are from the mechanics who work on them.
It freaked out the last salesman I bought from when I said I didn't need to test drive the car.
Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
Is it, perhaps, a sign that your product line is the problem if you feel the need to build an expert system to elucidate it for customers? Sure, an expert system designed to help the customer beats an inexpert human paid to hurt the customer; but seriously.
If you cant give me a 200 mile range (shortest range in worst conditions like -20 below heavy snow with the heater blasting full, or 120 degrees desert with AC blasting full blast) then you will not sell electric cars here in the use except for niche markets like large cities as short range commuter cars.
Most people that have the money for a BMW electric live 45 miles from work in the suburbs and will need at LEAST a comfort zone of charge. If I drive 90 miles plus 15 miles for lunch each day I need a 200 mile range car just in case I need to get groceries on the way home, or take the family to Starbucks for an evening overpriced coffee buzz.
All of the electric cars made today are useless to the demographic that can afford them, and your BMW version is even further out of the price range of the inner city folk that can use them the most.
Stop wasting time and money on stupid apps, and double the range.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
And purchase a car online, pay online, then combine this with Nissan's self driving cars.... Once the purchase is complete, the car then drives to your house and parks in your driveway.
Nathan
But will never be able to answer questions like: does a 29-er mtb fit the trunk without folding the back seats.
If you even wonder whether you can fit a mountain bike with 29 inch wheels into a BMW i3 (nicknamed Isetta 3), you have a bigger problem.
Why don't you want to test drive? Can you really establish how it feels to drive from online research?
Even the article that's linked immediately behind "19-year-old" has 7/23/92 as his birthdate. That's 21 years in my book.
But will never be able to answer questions like: does a 29-er mtb fit the trunk without folding the back seats.
So? The regular salesman won't know either.
(Just curious: is there any car out there that meets this criteria? And I mean car, not truck or van.)
Why don't you want to test drive? Can you really establish how it feels to drive from online research?
Probably they don't care. If you follow traffic laws, any car on the market will do the job of getting you from point A to point B. None of them have handling so poor as to not get you there. Most people don't even apex turns, they don't plan out what the car will do when it hits a bump ahead of time, et cetera. They just point the wheel to keep them within the lines, and slow down if they can't otherwise manage. For them, handling is irrelevant, which is how Toyota remains in business.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"About 50% of the human race is middle-men and they don't take kindly to being eliminated."
But will never be able to answer questions like: does a 29-er mtb fit the trunk without folding the back seats.
So? The regular salesman won't know either.
(Just curious: is there any car out there that meets this criteria? And I mean car, not truck or van.)
The regular salesman knows that's it's time to lie, "Sure. it'll fit. No problem".
The majority of "sales people" these days are redundant middlemen who provide negative value to the customer. Anyone who wants to, can be armed with way more information than a salesperson these days and would make a much more informed decision on their own, versus the bias from sales people towards whatever incentives and inventory they are keeping in mind.
Tesla is an example that breaks the mold, their sales people are very informed and are not there to push you into a particular model/options/upsells. In my interactions with Tesla salespeople, they are there to help you determine whether the vehicle is the right fit for your needs. If only all salesperson experiences were like this (including Realtors who are more interested in self-promotion than actually selling your home) then these middlemen would be less redundant.
Is this for real lol?
Lets be honest, all this will ever be is a controlled Wikipedia Q/A Marketing platform by BMW.
Its nothing special, nor, groundbreaking.
Live Answer/Questions (chat) with macro bots have been around on the net for years. I fail to see how this is any different.
You - "how much extra is metallic paint?"
App - "The BMW X5 comes in 5 colours, click here to order one today!"
You - "Whats the redline RPM of the BMW X5?"
App - "The BMW X5 comes in 5 colours, click here to order one today!"
You - "Does the BMW X5 come in 5 colours?"
App - "The BMW 4 Series comes in 2 colours, click here to order one today!"
You - "Whats the max HP of a BMW X5"
Google - "Some guy on youtube showing off his 1000hp BMW X5"
You - "Awesome!, (goes back to playing with matchbox cars)"
So all the feelings of winning over someone to get the best price will be dashed. I like going in and feeling that I ripped the guy off since I know he is trying to rip me off. Now how am I to feel?
Paul: Father... father, the sleeper has awakened! - Dune
Yes, but some cars feel like you're driving a sofa down the street and others feel like you're plugged into the road. They can even have basically the same handling characteristics but totally different feel. Personally I prefer to feel the road, even though that gives a slightly rougher ride. My wife disagrees. It's a matter of opinion, not something you can read about in a review.
A family is on the run and they need to buy a used car for cash, fast. They haggle with an AI salesman - a speakerbox on a booth with an appropriate robotic voice - then drop the money in a slot, more than they wanted to spend. As they're driving away they see a guy exiting the booth, counting the money. One of them cracks up - only a human being could get them to spend that much money on this piece of junk!
*Nature's End by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka. Don't you judge me.
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Part of why I like to test drive any car I am purchasing is because the ergonomics of the seating, pedal positioning, arm rests and lines of sight are important to me. I suppose you could just sit in the car to determine most of that but you can also fool yourself into thinking something is fine until you are actually trying to use it.
When I know what I want, I don't need (or want) a salesman in the way. They aren't actually providing a service at that point--they're just like little kids watching as the cookie jar is brought out waiting to get their hand in it.
It's silly to me that manufacturers cannot sell their products directly to consumers. I'd love it if the "build-your-own" features on all their websites were actually useful--with a "buy now" button at the end rather than a "check local inventory" that never has exactly what you just spent 10 minutes configuring.
When was the last time you had to legitimately phone up a salesman to ask him a question anyways.
Last car I bought I knew the invoice price ahead of time. I picked two dealerships in different cities, emailed them my offer. When they both responded, I took the cheaper response and emailed the other dealership. Rinse and repeat. When one stopped negotiating, I then went to a third dealership with the lowest price so far.
In the end, I didn't even pick up the phone and talk to my salesman. I met him the day I picked up the car.
is in the stratosphere.
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=TSLA+Interactive#symbol=tsla;range=1y;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;
New Economic Perspectives
I don't think BMW salesmen will be losing too much sleep over this. According to the second linked article the "truly groundbreaking" AI is not actually that smart; certainly not Turing Test material.
Personally I prefer to feel the road, even though that gives a slightly rougher ride. My wife disagrees. It's a matter of opinion, not something you can read about in a review.
Well, I inhabit a middle position. My first car was a 1960 Dodge Dart Phoenix (2dr) with a 12:1 compression big-block 318 with a 4-bbl carter, my last+1 car was a 1989 240SX with 4x stock spring rate and koni yellows, my current car is a 1982 300SD which aside from minor boost pressure increase and some gauges is aggressively kept stock. Where I live, the roads are awful so it's important to be able to float over them, but I want the suspension to get down and get funky when I get into a turn so that I can tell precisely what is happening as I try to make time over the Hopland Grade or Mt. St. Helena. I live 20 minutes from town and an hour and change from anywhere interesting so I need something with decent mileage, but I'm 6'7" and I can't drive most imports. W126 300SD to the rescue. 26 mpg in mixed driving here in twisty, potholed hill country with head and legroom to spare, tracks straight through potholes, floats over bumps, plenty frisky in the corners.
Everybody loved my Dart, almost nobody loved my 240SX, and the 300SD is loved by everyone who can handle the occasional whiff of diesel.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This is the sort of question that the expert system is good at. It may not be able to answer it NOW, but it can generate enough analytical data to see if it's an important question to ask or even design around. It's actually valuable feedback to the company to know what is important for the people who plan on buying the car.
Most salespeople won't be able to answer it either.
So today it might not be able to answer the question, but tomorrow it might because it was so important they researched the answer.
I test drove my car, but the real ergonomic problems didn't emerge until I had done longer drives for a few days. Most test drives are not much more than "around the block" unless you want to push hard for something more. You could rent the vehicle; but Hondas are hard to rent and hold their value better precisely because they aren't sold as fleet vehicles as much (ever?).
But will never be able to answer questions like: does a 29-er mtb fit the trunk without folding the back seats.
From the examples in TFA, this "AI App" appears to do nothing more than some keyword matching. The obviously canned answers are about as simplistic as those from ELIZA, and usually just as irrelevant to the actual question.
I was in the exact similar situation last year when I bought my Prius C.I exactly new what I wanted. So I went with Costco Auto Program finally.But I still did not have the greatest experience as I have documented in my blog post .In todays world of internet etc for new cars , we should be able to know the price which we are going to pay upfront, it is not rocket science.
Disclaimer : I am in no way related to costco or any of their affiliates.
If they were going to do this, why use some crappy half-ass POS key word matching shit? Go for real. Get a Watson. Pretty sure it could answer the mountain bike question.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
My 29er fits into the back of a renault clio -- albeit with all the back seats down and it's front wheel taken off. If I'm on my own however its far more fuel efficient + secure than putting it on the roof.
Concur. Except perhaps if your budget isn't particularly limited - you can rest assured that any luxury car is comfortable to drive.
This probably isn't AI. It's probably one of those glorified automated phone systems with some basic word recognition. I'll admit I didn't read TFA, but I highly doubt this is anywhere close to "intelligent" in any sense of the word, unless there have been big advances in AI that I'm unaware of.
I am having a bit of trouble trying to figure out what this is intended to achieve. T(brief and uninformative)FA mentioned its ability to answer technical questions that you should be able to glean from the web site if the answers have any meaning to you. And it doesn't do most of the things that a salesman is supposed to be able to do, about financing and the dealership's policies and such like.
It sounds less like a salesman-replacement and a lot more like ELIZA dressed up with car questions so that somebody can get a bit of free advertising on somebody's blog.
What about all these other apps that answer questions about car models? Do they get dismissed because they are not about electric vehicles?
Also, why would an app that answers questions replace a salesman? Does the app sell you the car?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.