AutoGravity

Background

Daimler Financial Servicers (DFS) is the global financial services provider of Daimler AG. DFS offers brand-specific lease and purchase options to customers who choose Mercedes-Benz vehicles.

Digital Ventures and DFS assembled a multidisciplinary team to research frictions in auto financing.  Daimler was concerned about the threats posed by digital innovation.  They decided to build a “digital attacker” to try and disrupt themselves.  In this way, they could position themselves of competitors and develop the capabilities for future success.

The project goal:

”To build a digital attacker in the US market that has the potential to disrupt the core business of DFS.”

My Role

  • Lead Visual Designer
  • UI Design
  • Style Guide
  • Logo Design
  • Branding
  • Icons and illustrations
  • Wireframes
  • Storyboards
  • User Flows

Insights

Auto financing lacks transparency.  If it did, Daimler Financial Service’s core business could be disrupted.

In other words, if car buyers knew they could get better rates, DFS would lose business.

Car buyers think the hard part is done when they negotiate the car price.  They prepare themselves for haggling, do research on prices, decide what options they want.  Then they find their car, go back and forth with a salesperson, and agree on a number

And then they enter “The Box”

Car dealers refer to the room where car buyers complete the financing portion of the purchase as “The Box.”  It’s usually a private room somewhere in the office where buyers fill out reams of paperwork.  It can take hours. 

What buyers don’t know is that the negotiation process is still going.  Dealers present buyers with financing as if it is a done deal, set in stone.  But buyers can actually haggle over the interest rate and other terms of the purchase.

There is no transparency in this process and buyers come unprepared.  Dealers can make quite a bit of money and buyers miss the chance to save with a better interest rate.

Solution: AutoGravity

The AutoGravity platform connects car buyers with lenders and dealers, providing a fast, convenient and transparent car-buying experience for everyone. Shoppers select their preferred new or used vehicles from local dealer inventory. Then, they receive tailored loan or lease offers from AutoGravity partner banks and financial services companies.

Personas

Through ethnographic interviews, we discovered six key personas regarding auto financing.

Wireframes

Select a car by make, model and year or take a photo of the VIN
An initial concept for a affordability calculator
Enter your personal information by scanning your driver’s license

Evolution of the Loan Calculator

User testing showed high engagement with the loan calculator. Ultimately, it was cut from the Minimum Viable Product because it wasn’t on the critical path for the user, but planned for release in subsequent versions.

UI Design

AutoGravity’s style guide made use of icons and illustrations that facilitated quick reads of information. Since the process was complex, the illustrations were there to reinforce the information.

We tested three color schemes for the branding, but users associated a blue color scheme with financial products and trust.

User Flows

Select a make, model and year, then AutoGravity finds a matching car in your zip code.
AutoGravity handles your loan application. Take a picture of your driver’s license to speed things up.
The basic signup flow is designed to catch common errors
The dealer finder helps users find dealers nearby that have the car they want and partner with AutoGravity
Loan responses from competing banks appear within the app after the user’s credit application has been processed. Loan signature is handled in the app. The user then walks to the dealer with an approved loan in AutoGravity that they can show at purchase.

Results: Traction as of January 2018

  • Funding: $80M
    • $50M from Daimler for Seed and Series A,
    • $30M from VW for Series B
  • Demand side traction
    • 2.1M mobile app downloads or web sign-ups
    • $3.2B in auto financing requested
    • 145K credit applications
  • Supply slide traction
    • 15 lenders
    • 2000+ dealerships
  • 110+ employees in Irvine, California

AutoGravity pivoted its business to subscription car service in October of 2019 and rebranded as “Turn.”