Volvo USA Launches Dealer Program To Install UVeye Instant Inspection Stations

Volvo Car USA announced Thursday it has launched a program for its U.S. dealers to install automated drive-through vehicle inspection stations that can detect exterior, performance, structural, mechanical and tire defects within seconds.

The inspection stations are produced by Israeli tech company UVeye. They use a combination of cameras, artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to examine the vehicle and produce reports on the spot.

In an interview with Forbes.com, Rick Bryant, Volvo Car USA vice president of sales operation, explained the UVeye inspection stations will provide both customers and dealers accuracy, efficiency and confidence in several ways.

“You’ve got lease return inspections, you’ve got used car appraisal inspections when someone wants to trade a car in, you’ve got service inspections, which today are done in a very archaic fashion for the consumer,” Bryant said. “You’ve got the opportunity to have great repeatability and efficiencies in the service shop that today we lose, perhaps trying to contact a customer at 2 o’clock in the afternoon when they’re busy. We’ll be able to do those inspections right in front of the consumer.”

Three UVeye inspection stations will be available to dealers:

• Atlas and Atlas Lite – Two 360-degree exterior inspection systems to scan sheet metal and other exterior components for paint chips, dents and other issues. While UVeye advises Atlas scanners are best suited for high-volume service facilities, fleet operations and assembly lines, Atlas Lite is specially designed for dealership use.
• Artemis – Detects sidewall damage and tread depth, as well as tire air pressure, age and brand.
• Helios – An underbody scanner able to detect a wide variety of potential safety issues, including fluid leaks and frame damage, as well as brake and exhaust system problems.

Participation in the program is “100% optional” according to Bryant with the company offering incentives to do so, although Bryant declined to specify the details. He said, however, Volvo’s goal was to “make the decision easy” for dealers, especially when measuring the return on investment (ROI) the stations would offer.

Speaking to Forbes.com UVeye CEO Amir Hever ticked off a laundry list of ROI opportunities including, “The undercarriage and tires can give them ability to sell more services. Underside gives them the ability to really appraise vehicles to deal with the trade-ins, sell more used cars and give the real condition of the vehicle to the buyer or someone coming in for a trade-in.”

Dealers don’t actually buy the inspection stations, but rather purchase a subscription plan from UVeye, with Hever explaining, “We’re giving them all the updates, upgrades, maintenance. If we have any new hardware…they’re getting a system that keeps evolving all the time but they don’t need to do anything or deploy a large sum of money to install the system.”

Hever calls it inspection as a service.

Right now four dealers near Volvo Car USA’s New Jersey headquarters have installed the stations as part of a pilot testing program, according to Bryant, but the company is hoping the majority of its more than 280 independent U.S. dealers will join in. Volvo Canada and Volvo Mexico have both expressed interest, as well as other nations where Volvo operates, Bryant said.

This latest initiative represents a broadening of a relationship between the two companies that began in 2019 when the Swedish automaker invested in UVeye through its Volvo Cars Tech Fund. Since then, Volvo has installed UVeye body-inspection scanners on its assembly lines to boost quality control.

For UVeye, which has been rapidly expanding in North America, Europe and Asia, Hever says the new dealer program with Volvo in the U.S. “completes our vision” of providing more transparency to the customer.

As UVeye widens its footprint, Hever sees its inspection stations taking on important new roles in two key areas— detecting issues in tech-heavy electric vehicles and evaluating used cars and trucks offered to dealers at wholesale auctions. On the latter, Hever said he expects UVeye will expand its presence at more auction sites and used car marketplaces.

Regarding EV’s Hever said UVeye inspection stations are already able to detect battery flaws and assess overall battery life, but “eventually we see ourselves as complementary inspection to what the computer already knows about the vehicle. We’ll connect with the vehicle computer and we’ll be able to give you the full picture of the real condition of the vehicle including all the sensors and all the things you can see from the exterior.”

Meanwhile, Volvo’s U.S. program adds to Uveye’s overall roster of about 100 dealerships, and growing, boosted by its relationship with Carmax, which is also an investor in the company. Hever said several other automakers are poised to begin promoting UVeye inspection station installations at their dealerships “in the next few months.”

“It gives them the ability to understand a lot of things and insights that are really hard to understand in vehicles today. We’re collecting a lot of data on the vehicles and show them insights they’re maybe missing,” Hever said.

That’s a big reason UVeye is demonstrating its inspection stations at the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) annual show this week in Las Vegas where dealers gather, in part, to learn about new technologies that will boost their businesses.

Indeed, Volvo’s Rick Bryant said dealers were encouraged, during a recent meeting, to stop by UVeye’s NADA booth. He’s confident they’ll be sold, and if they pull the trigger, “As fast as they order them we’ll install them.”