#Carvana

Car valuation tools are nothing new, but it seems that mid-2023 felt like a good time for Carvana to release another one. The online used vehicle seller recently kicked off its own tool, called Carvana Value Tracker, which lets users track values over time.

Would you believe it’s been a year and a half since we last discussed used convertibles? Much has changed during the interim: The economy, the used-car market, and life in general. While some of you were fairly convinced I’d purchase a car “on the rebound” after I’d dumped the quality control nightmare that was the Golf SportWagen in July of 2021, you were wrong. Let’s catch up a bit.

If you’d been hiding under a rock and just started reading the news in the last couple of months, it’d be easy to wonder how Carvana is a thing at all. The company’s troubles seem to grow by the day, though a recent story out of Michigan shows a few bright spots for the online auto retailer.

I just posted about Carvana's most recent financial woes. So, naturally, I have to ask -- can the company be saved? If so, how?

Carvana is in trouble.

The used-car company, known for its large "car vending machines" that can be seen along busy suburban freeways, is seeing its stock tank in the wake of a Bloomberg report that at least some of its creditors are making a pact that binds them to work together in negotiations with it.

Carvana is going to cut 1,500 jobs, which is about 8 percent of its workforce.

Carvana – the used vehicle retailer with giant automotive vending machines – has reported that it suffered a $508 million net loss for the third quarter of 2022. Combined with the $945 million it bled through the first half of the year, the business is upside down for nearly $1.5 billion and we’ve still got three months left. 

Ok, maybe they wouldn’t walk five hundred miles but a new study from the eggheads at an American research group suggest customers are now willing to travel an average of 469 miles in order to buy a car.

Given the constant hassles of Volkswagen Golf ownership lately, and how every media outlet is shouting “Highest Used Car Pricing Ever” as loudly as possible, I’ve been pondering selling the Golf to a dealer. No Facebook idiots, no trade-in for something else, just a sale.

Here in The Current Year, there are many companies that purport to give you both the best deal possible and make the car selling process seamless. I found out this week what five such companies are like in the early stages.

As other used car retail outfits like Shift go public in an attempt to grow their number of stores and break into the (lucrative?) used-only dealership market, established player Carvana has a different issue on its hands: There just aren’t enough used cars to buy these days.

Carvana, the company we previously razzed for its innocuous multistory automotive contrivances, has suddenly found itself facing some legitimate problems. The car dealer is now famous for two things: vehicular vending machines and a majority shareholder with criminal ties to a major savings and loan scandal — who also happens to be the father of the business’ CEO and co-founder.

The organization is also facing a share price that has dipped 40 percent since its April 27 IPO. However, that can likely be blamed on an over-saturated used car market. Secondhand cars are incredibly affordable at the moment so, if you wanted to support Carvana or any other used vehicle vendor, now would be a good time. You just have to be alright with doing business with Ernie Garcia II, the ex-con investors are likely going to blame if the share price doesn’t bounce back.

Online used-car dealer Carvana opened its second coin-operated car “vending machine” in Houston, Texas. The four-bay location allows customers either to pick up cars they’ve purchased through the company’s website, or to buy one of the 30 vehicles in stock at the location.

While customers can have their purchase delivered directly, Carvana must think there are enough interested rubes willing to make a pitstop in Houston on their pilgrimage to the world’s biggest ball of twine to make this gargantuan novelty worthwhile. Considering that Las Vegas has remained on the map, there might be something to that way of thinking.