Come for the Ride…

According to AdAge, the autos industry will be pushing more ad spend online in 2008. While this is definitely good news for us, what I’m more surprised about is how little they’re spending online now compared to other media.

Our Congressional leaders have spent some time, probably a few million (in the process) and have come to the agreement that cars and trucks are required to have a MINIMUM miles per gallon rating of 35 MPG; but by the year 2020!

If this was the conclusion from a meeting that happened in 1978, I may not have been so repulsed when I heard about it. But this happened today, when most foreign automakers have already met and exceeded this requirement. I mean, do they not remember the Toyota commercials where kids were screaming 35! 48! 60! Those are MPG ratings people! They certainly were not additional sides added to the AD&D dice. (Do people still play that?)

With such pathetic requirements handed down by the government, it’s no wonder we’re falling behind. Innovation comes from need, annoyance and unexpected surprises. Apparently our annoyances have not hit a peak where change is mandated. At this point, I’m not really sure if this is the fault of us needing to rely on foreign oil or if the Big 3 have been using money to bribe the government instead of spending it on some serious R&D.

Had bootstrap entrepreneurs been running the country, we would have been far FAR ahead in solving these problems now.

What we really need is to throw down some serious, meaningful and immediate deadlines; right now. When we decided to go to the moon in a few years, we did it. When we realized we needed to fix ALL the computers in the world for Y2K, we did it in two or three years. Why should this be any different?

If no one is pushing the top three automakers that actually have the funds for research and innovation, then what hope do we have for change and mass adoption? If nothing else, Big 3 should at least look towards buying up small companies that have developed the technologies that are available today instead of spending more money trying to reinvent the wheel. Take a lesson from Google or Microsoft. It’s still (very) possible to buy up smaller companies, take their great qualities, merge it with your own, and be profitable and green. Show us you care and are not sitting on your butts and sales may just pick up…

So… autos is a $380 billion dollar industry you say? (advertising makes up for $31 billion dollars with $2.8 billion for online) Well, advertising aside, these were the number of cars sold in the last three years which accounts for all sorts of other $$$.

2004 – 7,505,932 cars

2005 – 16,912,553 cars

2006 – 16,559,970 cars

edit: is it bad that I did my research on the web in the exact same way that teachers are teaching kids not to?

After a week long domain auction bidding war; (with one bid from me) I’m now the proud owner of EasyAutoSales.com. The name is not particularly short or witty but its clear in its offerings and that’s all that matters. Now we just have to build a site around it.

TechCrunch had an article today about a new video classifieds autos website that launched or is in the process of launching. The website called HotSwap, focuses on selling autos through the use of user generated videos.

This brings up a good question. Is the public ready to do the work required to populate a site with video commercials? We know YouTube was a big hit with user generated videos… but I would venture to guess those are a bit more fun to make than 30 second to 4 minute long commercials.

On another note, the HotSwap site does have Web 2.0 design elements which is cool and it’s something different than the other auto sites out there. Also, the TechCrunch article says the used autos ad market is at $370 billion a year. If that number is accurate, then this project is heading towards a great place.

Edit: I saw another article today that says U.S. online advertising currently tops off at less than 20 billion dollars. I think they meant to say $370 million dollars earlier…