Alibaba's automated car vending machine for Ford goes live in China  

Ford Motor Company has partnered with China’s Alibaba to explore contemporary opportunity of digital retail of its vehicles in the world’s biggest auto market. 

Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba has made its ‘Tmall’, an automated test-drive car vending machine installed in the city of Guangzhou, become functional for the public.

The unmanned multi-level car dispensing system, which was set up earlier this year in January, after a collaboration in December 2017 with American carmaker Ford to sell its EV offerings for the Chinese market in the future, will exclusively offer Ford vehicles, and allow prospective customers to have a comprehensive test-drive of their selected model for up to three days, before arriving at a decision to purchase the car.

Ford’s iconic Mustang, its Explorer SUV and the Escort sedan will be offered in the 100 vehicle test-drive fleet and Alibaba aims to facilitate customers with a smooth online booking process, and then, a visit at the vending centre to collect the car, which would take no longer than ten minutes according to the internet giant. 

Speaking on the activation of the new service, Gu Wanguo, general manager, Vehicles, Tmall Auto, said, “The auto vending machine is an important step in Alibaba's new retail push. By leveraging Alibaba's data intelligence and technologies, the auto vending machine and super-drive test services can enable auto brand owners and distributors better serve their customers."

A prospective customer will need to sign up on the mobile shopping application of Tmall or Taobao, choose their car model, credit a deposit amount and schedule the vehicle pickup. On arriving at the vending centre, a verification of the identity with the customer's selfie will enable the automated system to deliver the car at the ground floor, from where the test drive would commence.

If not totally satisfied, a customer will be allowed to swap cars and can take a total of two vehicles for test driving, provided that both are of different models. A subsequent purchase of the car will require the customer to visit any of Ford's 4S outlets, pay the remaining balance and take its delivery. Based on consumer insights derived from user activity and history within the Alibaba ecosystem, potential customers will also be offered discounts and other incentives to sweeten the deal.

While there would be a cap of a maximum of five test-drives over two months to prevent the misuse of the unmanned technology, to avail the facility, customers would also need to be Alibaba Super Members, which is based on the company's credit scoring system. 

"Consumers can use the internet to access more accurate, convenient services and get a deeper understanding into particular vehicles. In the meantime, we are expanding the infrastructure of our car vending machines to the entire industry to leverage and enable their distributors, in hopes of helping upgrade the automotive sector as a whole”, Wanguo said. 

Alibaba also plans to build similar auto vending machines in Beijing and Hangzhou in the near future, while continue exploring collaboration opportunities with Ford in cloud computing, digital marketing, as well as in-car operating systems with AliOS, Alibaba’s IoT operating-system developer.