Hacker News Reader

Comment by gbronner | Hacker News Reader

The concept is great. But the volatility in the used car market has been historically unprecedented, and there's no easy way for them to hedge this.

As an FYI, I sold a car this spring for 8% over what I paid for it 6 years prior, i.e. it was worth about 85% of orig price adjusted for inflation. Today, edmunds appraises it for 45% of orig price adjusted for inflation.

That is an insane move on a durable asset.

View on HN

The concept is great but I never really saw the point of Carvana when CarMax already exists.

Unless your plan is just to leverage easy capital to push CarMax and traditional dealers out of the business like Uber and taxis.

Carvana came to my house and picked up the car I was selling. It was all done in a few minutes. I didn't have to take any pictures, just describe it on the web form, and sign some papers when they showed up.

Certainly shocking that they are struggling with excess inventory and need to cut jobs.

Have you looked to see if they followed through with the paperwork with the state to ensure the state no longer thinks you own the car? One of the complaints I've seen is that they are woefully behind in areas like this so that the new "owner" isn't really the legal owner because some paperwork hadn't been completed by Carvana

I filed it myself in California. Doesn't matter who I'm selling to, I file the release of liability immediately. I don't want to pay for someone else's parking tickets or other much worse crimes.

I am sure it was but that is a ridiculous business model when the secret sauce of the whole operation is economy of scale along with no ability to improve margins much.

I am sure they could cut the lawn and feed the dog while there also but none of this sounds profitable in the long term.

It almost sounds like we were in a giant bubble...

Getting a quote just by entering your license plate was also brilliant.

Carvana did deliveries to your home (apparently), while CarMax would deliver to their nearest lot, which might be a long way away.

I scrolled through Carvana inventory, picked a used car, purchased it, and it was delivered to my driveway like a week later. I live very far from any decent-sized car dealership.

I did all this laying in bed on my phone.

I have some complaints about the quality of their service, but the value prop is pretty amazing.

Did you get the real/legit title of the car signed over to you?

I purchased a car from CarMax earlier this spring online and it was an easy process. Filled out some forms online, went through some questions on the phone and then had a car dropped off in my driveway a few day later.

Carmax is an Amazing operator. Shift has now cut test drives at home.

I was just looking into the market for my own comparison. I bought a 9 year old minivan back in January, and I can't find any deals quite as good as what I got (granted, I spent a few weeks finding that.) So I guess in my area (Virginia) I upgraded at a good time.

I'll confirm your sale anecdote though. I sold a 16 year old car in May for 19% more than I paid for it in 2018, having driven it about 45,000 miles over that time (120K -> 165K)

Very similar experience selling my car to Carvana last fall. I wish I put the obvious pieces together sooner about how they can't keep overpaying for cars and stay solvent.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com