ITS Nevada

Automakers, Tech Firms Form Alliance to Put Motorists Online

By Warren Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 25, 2000; Page E04

ORLANDO, Jan. 24-The nation's biggest automakers are teaming up with the world's biggest information technology companies to put the latest online technology into cars by the 2003 model year for as little as $300.

Using in-vehicle information systems developed by International Business Machines Corp., Motorola Inc. and Intel Corp., automakers and dealers will be able to remain in constant contact with their customers by providing a variety of services, including instant, wireless notices of an impending vehicle failure. Customers also will be able to gain access to home or work computers from their vehicles.

Some of the companies involved in the alliance demonstrated the planned systems for The Washington Post on Sunday and today during the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) annual meeting being held here.

Another company, Newgen Results Corp. of San Diego, will provide electronic customer-relations-management services to the auto industry by, among other things, automatically setting up guaranteed service appointments for emergency vehicle repair and routine automotive maintenance. The system will also make available pricing and vehicle information and help set up visits with dealers for haggling over a new car.

The aim is to build customer loyalty by keeping dealers in constant contact with car owners--and presumably help take sales from a proliferation of dot-com businesses such as CarsDirect.com, IntelliChoice.com and, most recently, InvoiceDealers.com, that have established themselves as intermediaries in the vehicle-buying process.

The new alliance also is meant to end a long-running dispute between automakers and dealers over who will control the future of auto retailing in the United States.

Both General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., for example, angered dealers last year by attempting to establish factory-owned stores that, through Internet sales, could have bypassed traditional auto dealers in the retail process.

Led by NADA, the dealers successfully appealed to state legislatures nationwide to block the Ford and GM moves.

GM and Ford executives, including GM Chairman John F. Smith Jr., said here that they are ending the fight. They and their dealers will work to become better e-tailers than the independent dot-com auto businesses crowding the market, executives said. "It's a matter of common sense," said Virginia auto dealer Lou N. Kairys, a NADA board member who championed the fight against factory-owned stores.

But if the new alliance has its way, that might turn out to be wishful thinking. The alliance's plan calls for IBM, Motorola and Intel to take the lead in developing an in-car computing platform for $300 to $500 that far exceeds the capabilities of models costing as much as $2,000 that are currently used in luxury cars and trucks.