CARY, N.C. -

When General Motors launches CarBravo later this year, the majority of the vehicles available on the omnichannel used-car sales platform will be inventory owned by its dealers.

However, CarBravo will also include vehicles owned by General Motors and GM Financial, like off-rental and off-lease units.

So, that begs the question: how would that impact the number of vehicles that GM or GM Financial might sell wholesale at a traditional or digital auction?

“I think that will be determined over time,” said Dan Ahearn, who is senior manager of pre-owned vehicles at General Motors, in an interview with Auto Remarketing.

“Being able to put these vehicles out there so that customers can select them right after is going to be a big advantage for our dealers, and frankly, for the customers from a selection standpoint — that they’re going to be able to see more cars that are available for them to choose from,” Ahearn said. “We’ll see as it progresses, what does that mean from the remarketing component of it.”

While not providing specifics, he said GM is “working with one of our auction partners on what we’re doing with CarBravo on the remarketing side. So, they’re intimately involved with what we’re doing.”

In a statement provided to Auto Remarketing, a GM Financial spokesperson said: “The CarBravo program was designed and developed to work within GM Financial’s existing wholesale distribution network. Integration with our operational sales efficiencies and GM dealer network will create new competitive advantages for dealers and drive a convenient customer experience, marked by more options and greater inventory selection.

“With financing support, CarBravo can also help bring more customers into the GM family for retention opportunities,” the spokesperson said.

When asked how it will be determined whether a vehicle is sold via CarBravo or in a wholesale channel, Ahearn said it will be “market-driven” and based on analytics.

“We’re going to have analytics we’ll look at as we’re going through (it). And frankly, the power of what we have with the ecommerce platform is we have a lot more analytics that come out of that, that allow us to say, ‘Ok, it looks like all of the Terrains are moving very quickly, so let’s backfill with more Terrains to make those available to consumers,’” Ahearn said.

“We think we have, from an analytics standpoint, a pretty good platform for us to be able to look at that and make market-driven decisions on that.”

Inventory access

During an online media briefing earlier, Steve Carlisle, who is the executive vice president at GM and president of GM North America, said that with CarBravo, GM dealers will have access to vehicles owned by the automaker, in addition to their own inventories. That would include off-lease and off-rental vehicles.

When asked by a reporter during a Q&A if dealers would still have first crack at buying off-lease cars, Ahearn said that access “doesn’t change.”

“The dealers still get that first shot … Our dealers currently have about 400,000 used cars in inventory. So, there’s a huge opportunity for incremental growth,” Ahearn said. “It’s combining the strength of what our dealers have in inventory with what we have in inventory, and putting those two combined and again, giving the customer a huge selection to pick from.

“Now, part of the DRP (GM’s new digital retail platform) allows them to filter into the appropriate spots … We’re going to combine the strengths of what our dealers have with what we have. And it’s not changing the process. it’s putting in an iterative step there that allows us to put that our there to the consumer.”

No CPO included

Looking at the retail side of the equation, the CarBravo platform will not include certified pre-owned vehicles, Ahearn said.

With CPO representing less than 3 million of the 40 million annual used-car sales industrywide, CarBravo provides an “opportunity for that other 37 million cars that are out there that are both GM and non-GM,” he said

But like CPO, CarBravo will have an inspection process, though with fewer inspection points (126) than the certified program.

All makes and models will have the same checklist. There is a digital inspection tool at the back-end of the platform, which allows the technician to conduct it all electronically via iPad, Ahearn said.

CarBravo will also have a wider age range of vehicles than certified. Most CPO programs mandate that eligible vehicle are 5 to 6 years old or younger with 75,000-80,000 miles, at most, Ahearn said. CarBravo expands that to 10 years (or less) and 100,000 miles or less.

There is also a second tier: Bravo Budget, which includes vehicles that are 10 to 15 years old and have mileages over 100,000 but less than 150,000 miles.