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How TWINNER enables the professional remarketing of young used cars with Renault Group
The Renault factory in Flins-sur-Seine, France, has been going through a transformation. In order to adapt to the growing demand for high quality young used cars, the “Refactory project” is paving the way towards a digital and sustainable future. Instead of producing new vehicles, it is being converted into a mobility hub embodying a full circular economy concept, where used cars are refurbished and prepared for remarketing. TWINNER is proud to have been selected as a technology partner, to enable the best possible vehicle digitalization at an industrial scale.
Changing consumer demands and market conditions
We have seen a global shift of consumer demand, from buying new vehicles to acquiring young used cars instead. In 2020, 36 million used cars were traded on the European market, resulting in a market value of 410 billion EUR. A further market growth of 3-4% per year is expected in the coming years.
In France, used car transactions in the first half of 2021 were 9% higher than in 2019, according to the automotive data provider AAA Data. This is in sharp contrast to the 20.9% fall in new-car registrations. The growing demand for cars, coupled with shortages in the production of new cars, have led to soaring prices in the used car space. This opens new business perspectives for dealerships but also for the OEMs.
Supply and demand of young used vehicles on the rise
These developments are strengthened by the generous supply of young used cars from the growing trend of short-term leasing and car subscription models. In Europe, the supply of used cars from leasing companies is expected to reach 7.4 million vehicles in 2023, up from around 6 million back in 2019.
In addition to the growing popularity of used cars, consumers have adjusted to seamless and secure eCommerce experiences, which now have to be met by the automotive industry. In fact, many players have been working on strategies to achieve high quality, digital and contactless customer journeys, which has only been accelerated during the pandemic.
Renault introducing innovative business strategy together with TWINNER
Renault Group saw an opportunity in these developments and is now remodeling its factory in Flins-sur-Seine, France, dedicating its activities towards the repair, refurbishment and remarketing of high-quality used cars.
Renault decided to convert an existing factory of theirs into a circular economy hub for used cars. The mostly young used cars from rental and leasing returns, are prepared, repaired, refurbished, digitalized on site, to then be remarketed by their dealership network. The new process contributes to a significant reduction of the reconditioning time of a vehicle from 21 to 8 days.
Twinner® Spaces have been located in the factory, at the end of the refurbishment process, in order to produce spotless remarketing materials.
“When choosing our partners, we decided to work with the best available providers along the entire value chain. The quality of the 360° visualization and future proof inspection strategy convinced us that Twinner provides the most advanced image capturing technology and inspection system for the remarketing process. Our dealers can now get an accurate representation of their available stock at any time and in the most consistent fashion. We therefore ensure the utmost transparency and trust in the digital car trade.”
For each vehicle passing through the Twinner® Space, a Digital Twinn® is generated. This includes, automatically processed vehicle data, equipment details, a picture set of 18 individually chosen perspectives, a 360° interior and exterior view of the vehicle and underbody view and tire tread depth measurements.
These materials are available immediately to the dealership network, which can focus on speeding up their sales activities and offering an outstanding customer experience.
Transparency creates trust
Thus, TWINNER brings trust and transparency to a digitalized environment and offers maximum digital comfort during the car buying process. As the case of Renault has shown, OEMs can benefit from the standardized vehicle digitalization process for new as well as used cars.
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