ABC’s publication also cites Carvana’s tower as “the original car Vending Machine concept in Atlanta in 2013”. Although we reiterate our belief that Carvana deserves all the recognition for developing this dealership concept in the US, the facts tell otherwise. The AutoStadt towers in Germany have been dispensing an average of 500 vehicles per day to their new owners for the last 20 years, using the same tower type automated parking technology at a much bigger scale. If we think about it, Carvana may have been the first to acknowledge that automated parking systems are truly ideal for car dealership operations; after all, the space saving superpowers of automated parking systems would save car dealerships acres over acres of land, development, operational and maintenance costs to store that insurmountable amount of cars and to provide state-ot-the-art and innovative customer service at a much lower cost. Automated parking garages would allow dealerships and any other parking operation whether residential, commercial, public or private to store the maximum number of cars in the most efficient use of space (sometimes up to 70% less of the land required to park the same number of cars).

Since automated parking garages do not require operators to perform parking and retrieval tasks, they offer an opportunity to significantly reduce operational, security and maintenance cost. Automated systems do not need to be illuminated nor require ventilation because there is no human access to the vehicle storage areas, making them a lot more energy-efficient and safer for people and property; in the sense that vehicles are protected from accidental damage (such as scratches or dents) caused by the mere risk of driving and are almost immune to theft or vandalism.

Another wonderful selling point of the AutoStadt towers is that the vehicles that get to the customers are truly “zero miles,” as the process of loading brand new vehicles into the towers and then dispensing them to their new owners occur without ever turning on the engines! The vehicles have never been driven, not even inside the dealership.

The valuable lesson here, however, is how long it has taken the U.S. to catch up with the times when it comes to parking technology compared to Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Carvana knows that this is the inevitable future, just as the rest of the U.S. companies dedicated to offer Automated Parking consulting and integration services and that are pioneering at creating a very fast-growing new industry in the country. Kudos to all of them!