Buying an LDV D90 made smarter

LDV distributor Ateco Automotive will introduce Australian buyers of the LDV D90 SUV (pictured) to a sophisticated new online ordering system that places the consumer in charge.

Named 'Smart Spider' by LDV's parent company SAIC Motor, the ordering system will be offered here for the LDV D90 only, in a pilot program testing the waters outside LDV's home market of China.

SAIC says that Smart Spider, which refers to the system's web-like networking capability, may not be known by that name in Australia. It's a C2B (Consumer to Business) system offering personalised, intelligent and customisable ordering over the internet.

According to SAIC Smart Spider can guide a buyer through the ordering process in under three minutes and can even inform the buyer when to expect delivery of his or her new LDV D90. Smart Spider works in four consumer-friendly modes: Intelligent, interactive, hot-sale and geek. SAIC says that Smart Spider will yield 90 per cent of D90 sales, with 49 per cent of those coming from the system in 'geek' mode.

Head start for Aussie market

Ateco is introducing Smart Spider in Australia as a prelude to other SAIC distributors launching the system elsewhere around the world. Edward Rowe, spokesman for the distributor, says that Australia is a sophisticated market in a timezone just two hours east of China, SAIC's home market. All that makes Australia a useful test case for new products and services such as Smart Spider.

"They're using Australia as a development market for a whole range of different things," Rowe told Australian journalists in China last week.

"Not just vehicles, obviously; we're the first people to get Smart Spider. They just see us as an ideal market for that."

Rowe says that Smart Spider will be both an app and a function on the local website. At present there's no word on a start date for the system in Australia. Being able to haggle for a price below the manufacturer's retail list price is currently a hurdle to overcome, Rowe also advises.

"That's going to be another issue for us, because it obviously has to be done within the trade practices legislation. It isn't an issue if the vehicle is a 'driveaway' – that's what LDV does – but... obviously it's illegal for a wholesaler to tell a retailer what [price] they can sell a vehicle at. A vehicle may be a driveaway price, but that doesn't stop you walking in and negotiating a better price with the dealer."

Among the other issues to iron out before Smart Spider becomes operational in Australia, Ateco Automotive must find a way to determine who gets the sales commission.

"We have to work within the franchise legislation, which rules on how we work with dealers. There are different areas of legislation that have to be looked at to ensure we're still operating obviously within the all rules of trade practices, franchises and so on."

Batch production goes the way of the dodo

Providing some background to Smart Spider, Rowe explained that the system was now possible as SAIC plants and the manufacturer's parts suppliers moved away from traditional forms of mass production.

"What you're looking at here with Smart Spider is a whole raft of changes within the car industry – essentially over the last 30, 40 years, as you've seen different philosophies introduced into how cars are made, the use of technology and so on."

The introduction of just-in-time parts delivery, self-cleaning paint spraying equipment and other production efficiencies have upended the cornerstone of mass production – building cars in batches. It now costs almost nothing more to assemble three cars of different colours and different powertrain configurations in sequence than it would to build 50 cars of the same colour and the same powertrain.

"If the customer walks into a dealership and places an order for a car... the computer message comes to us and then we go on to the factory," Rowe continued.

"Then the factory takes over the order and places the orders for all the components and parts. What you're actually now looking at is that process being linked all the way through.

"For most car makers it's a live system from the dealer all the way through to the manufacturer. [Smart Spider], technically, is a link... from the customer all the way through to the manufacturer, and ultimately the parts suppliers."

This new type of system offers the potential for vehicle trim levels to become a thing of the past, Rowe suggested. With production-line flexibility taken to the ultimate extreme, buyers could in theory order a base model four-wheel drive with rubber floor mats, steel wheels, Apple CarPlay and triple-zone climate control, if that's what the customer wants.

"Essentially, the customer comes in; they'll be able to order what they want and [we'll] stop having this hierarchical [system] – the base model, the L, the GL..."