Canadian startup looks forward to sell electric cars

A Canadian automobile seller is on the way to drive the around the world market for electrical car sales by introducing an innovative web-based sales platform and showroom that will move transactions online and away from the conventional car lot.

Devoted entirely to electrical and hybrid-electric vehicles, the GTA-based business, called EVEN Electric, will not be exclusively aligned with one particular auto maker. Instead, the retailer will offer multiple, competing brand names of both used and new green cars, delivering them right to the driveways of consumers worldwide and often to places where electric vehicles are not yet sold.

The design, which leaves drastically from traditional automobile sales conventions, is created to attend to a number of issues hindering the expansion of electric cars on the road. EVEN’s founders state some of those concerns can be traced to issues at the point-of-sale.

Standard bricks-and-mortar car dealerships rely greatly on high-volume sales that translate into a stable stream of service dollars– some dealerships make up to 50 per cent of their profits from oil changes, tune-ups and other gas engine-related maintenance. Electric cars need less maintenance and a lot of owners go to service centers once a year or less.

“We have some customers who drive 50,000 kilometres and bring their vehicle in for service and discover it needs extremely little,” said John Gordon, a co-founder of EVEN who has been running an all-electric used automobile dealer outside St. John’s, Nfld., from 2013. On numerous days, he stated, his service center has no bookings; his mechanic works between three and 6 hours weekly.