CARY, N.C. -

Most weekdays, I spend the day in the Cherokee Media Group office, located in a suburban office park with ample parking and space for vehicles to move about.

So, my colleagues and I could be considered a target demographic for a mobile, on-demand car care service like Spiffy, which is headquartered just up the road in Durham, N.C.

And full disclosure, I have had my car washed by Spiffy, which cleaned my ride in this office park while I worked on Auto Remarketing stories at my desk.

But everyday consumers like me aren’t the only folks that Spiffy, and other mobile vehicle care companies like it, are looking to work with, as it turns out.

For example, Spiffy partnered with Lyft last month for a driver appreciation event in Texas, bringing the Spiffy team in Dallas to Houston.

According to this blog post about the event, Spiffy and Lyft identified (through data) areas of Houston where rider demand was high and then set up camp within 2-5 miles of those areas. Perhaps serendipitously, the was at the Houston Livestock Show & Stock, the company said.

“As we’ve mentioned in our Vehicle 2.0 Podcast, vehicle ownership models are shifting away from a traditional lease or buy experience to being ripe with ride-sharing, ride-hailing, and car-sharing options,” Spiffy said in its blog.

“The market for changing ownership models only continues to grow, bringing the need for convenient, on-demand car care along with it,” it said.

Therein lies an opporunity for companies like Spiffy and others in this space. 

For instance, the Cox Automotive Mobility Group launched a new brand in January called Pivet to provide a network of end-to-end mobility fleet services. 

The Pivet network will include both physical locations and mobile vehicle management solutions., with the initial flagship hub location being Manheim Metro Atlanta,  previously an auto auction. The initial mobile fleet services offering are being provided by RideKleen, a mobile car care company that Cox Automotive purchased in October.

Last year, KAR Auction Services bought mobilty and fleet management software comapny STRATIM.  It was  a move that gave KAR a strong foothold in the world of on-demand car- and ride-sharing services, urban commute providers and autonomous vehicles — a world in which many of KAR’s customers already take part.

And about that Vehicle 2.0 podcast the Spiffy blog mentioned.  

Scot Wingo, the company’s co-founder and chief executive, hosts the weekly show that looks at the future of automotive. He focuses on electrification, connectivity, autonomy and how car ownership models are evolving.

I was lucky enough and honored to be the first guest on the show. We chatted about how folks buy and sell cars these days, how the ownership model has changed, how auto auction industry are adapting their buiness model, plus electric and connected cars and how industry players like dealers, auctions and rental companies are getting involved in the mobility fleet space.

 

 

The quality of guests has only gone up since then, with the likes of Smartcar CEO and founder Sahas Katta, Carvana’s John Hanger and Ridecell’s Mark Thomas making the rounds.

If your podcast style is one-on-one conversations and you’re curious about how the changing automotive landscape — around autonomy, connected vehicles electrification and mobility — creates business opportunities, this may be one for you to give a listen.

Joe Overby is the senior editor of Auto Remarketing and can be reached at joverby@cherokeemediagroup.com.