00:00True Car is not a startup anymore. It's been around for almost 20 years in total and
00:04really True Car was founded with the original mission to make buying a car easier and cheaper
00:09for consumers using technology. I think today buying a car is more time consuming, more frustrating
00:15and more intimidating than it's been in its entire 100 year history. I mean, even though we all have
00:20more information, more access to technology, you know, when I built True Car 1.0, we had to
00:25convince investors and partners that the Internet was a big deal today. Everybody who
00:30shops for a car goes online. Everybody who goes to market, whether it's a dealer or OEM, goes to the
00:34Internet. So the way we shop has certainly changed. But I don't think that the experience has gotten
00:40fundamentally much better. There's been some real pioneers as well, like Carvana and others. But at the
00:45end of the day, buying a car in 2026 is just as bad as it was five or 10 years ago, although some things
00:51have changed. And then today, of course, we all use our smartphones. The emergence of artificial
00:56intelligence completely raises new questions about what's possible and what can we do using
01:01technology that we were not able to before. So I really want to return the company to its original
01:06mission. I think it needs to focus on helping customers save time and money when buying a car. And
01:11we've done that once before. There's some different ways to do it now. But the company also clearly has to
01:17deliver a lot of value because I think, you know, retailers are under more pressure than they've ever
01:23been. It's not just high interest rates, which obviously affect new car sales more than used cars
01:28because new cars today cost over $52,000 on average. So the cost of a new car has been going up.
01:34And therefore, 94 percent of people do not pay cash for their car. So when the interest rates are higher,
01:40sales slow down, you know, sort of the old conventional wisdom that you go to the dealership at the end of the
01:45month to get a good deal really does hold true. When you drive by a dealership and you see a thousand
01:49cars on the lot, somebody's paying to keep those cars on the lot waiting to be sold.
01:53Scott, I, you know, I spend a hell of a lot of time, really an unhealthy amount of time looking at
02:00True Car, at Auto Trader, at Car Gurus, and then comparing the prices asked for the prices that actually
02:09happen on Bring a Trailer and other platforms where I can see the trade. Dealers are always asking
02:16significantly more than the car actually trades for. And that creates an annoyance, right? Because
02:22I think if I want to go in there and buy the car, I've got to haggle. I've got to bargain. I'd like to
02:26have more transparency. Can't we just get to what you know you're going to take at the end of the day?
02:31Can True Car solve that?
02:33You know, I do believe that truth and transparency start by leveling the playing field,
02:37educating the consumer as to what a car really costs. I think that the difference between new
02:41and used cars is dramatic because in used cars, the name of the game is variety and you want to
02:46see all the cars stacked up against all the other cars. But in the new car space, you're buying an
02:51appliance that comes off a factory assembly line. So the idea that you could go to a dealership and
02:55pay a dramatically different price just because you're not informed is a huge problem. So I think
03:00where True Car has to reclaim its position is really a source of truth. And it doesn't need to operate
03:06as a VIN-based marketplace just simply offering variety of cars. The value proposition was always
03:11about saving time and money. And while the cost of a car has moved from about $38,000 in 2008 and
03:17nine when I launched the business to today over $52,000, you still need to expect to save about 10%
03:25on the price of a car off of MSRP. That's a big deal between $5,000 and $10,000 today. And I think most
03:32consumers really want to understand what they should pay for the car, what the car is worth,
03:37what others are paying. And all that information is available today. It just takes the courage to
03:42publish it. And so we're going to return to our roots. We're going to give people the information
03:46that they need to understand car pricing as a first timer.
03:50Scott, one of the other differences of when you first started True Car and where we are now
03:54is the existence of competition. You and Matt both mentioned it, the likes of Carvana or even dealer
03:59websites that now exist. How do you want to position True Car compared to the competition?
04:04Is there some element of price discovery or transparency that you can offer that others
04:09can't? Yeah, well, first of all, I think that True Car was not started as a VIN-based marketplace
04:15of classified listings of cars for sale, where you can see a million or two million cars.
04:20It was really about saving time and money through transparency and publishing upfront prices
04:25from a select dealer network of dealers that were committed to dealing with customers using
04:30technology. So what they gave is an upfront price that was a transactional price that represented
04:35real savings. We tended to do that through affinity relationships like USAA, Capital One,
04:41the largest direct automotive lender. Today, we bought True Car with some real innovators and strategic
04:48partners. One of them is PenFed. PenFed, for example, like USAA, committed to military,
04:54but unlike USAA, PenFed has a national charter where they can actually lend to anybody anywhere
05:00in the United States. They operate as a nonprofit. So they have about a 200 to 400 point basis point
05:05advantage over a retail bank. And the fact that they're willing to do it all directly and do it
05:09online. Which is huge, by the way. That's a I mean, that's a massive savings. Yeah. You're partnered
05:16also with AutoNation. So how many, I guess, dealership partners will you bring into that
05:24fold? How many how many other businesses are going to get access to your platform in that case?
05:31Well, when I was running True Car in 2016, you know, we actually took the public, the company
05:36public in 2014. We had about 2,500 dealers and we were nearly 400 million dollars in top line revenue.
05:42You know, right now, True Car has almost 11,500 dealers. So it's a much bigger business.
05:48There's nearly 8 million in market shoppers every month flowing through True Car. So it is one of the
05:54largest automotive marketplaces. But what's interesting about True Car is it skews new.
05:59About 75 percent of everybody who goes to True Car is looking for a new car. Whereas at AutoTraderCars.com
06:04CarGurus, they're all looking for a used car, 80 percent plus. So the real moat at True Car is that it is a
06:11new car auto buying program, not a VIN based listings marketplace. And that's what we're
06:16going to really pivot back to and focus on. And I do believe that having a base of 11,500 dealers
06:21that are committed to that value proposition is means it means that we do not have to go out and
06:25recruit for a lot of, you know, new dealers thinking differently. We already know who they are.
06:30Having AutoNation as the leading, you know, automotive consolidator in the U.S. in terms of size and
06:35coverage really means a lot. They were also an owner of True Car. But, you know, it also reflects that
06:40we had to focus a lot on the balance in the system to make sure that not only does this
06:44work for consumers, but this also works for dealers. Dealers are looking for ways to reduce
06:48costs and sell more cars. And this is really about delivering more sales.
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