EV shoppers are hungry for facts online. Volkswagen hopes a Toronto AI firm will help.
Car shopping has become a game of cross-referencing multiple websites: listings, price comparisons, reviews, recalls. For EVs, add queries about chargers and comparisons between your daily commute and a vehicle’s battery range. In 2021, Google estimated that 90 per cent of Canadian new car buyers relied on online information, with EV shoppers being twice as likely as gas-vehicle buyers to complete their purchases entirely online.
“What is a level-one charger? How can range be affected by cold climates?” said Vishnu Rajasingam, director of digitalization at Volkswagen Canada.
“We saw a lot of people struggling, endless scrolling, high bounce rates from specific pages, people calling in to customer relations and asking repeated questions.”
Toronto-based startup Carity AI is working on a pilot with VW, creating better bots on the automaker’s website to answer common questions about how EVs work, beyond the specs of an individual model. The startup says the bot, named Roboto, is not just a matter of convenience for shoppers: It reduces the risk that consumers will encounter misinformation online.
The goal is to be markedly different from other chatbots, which don’t have the best reputation. In January, a third party aiming to spread criticism of Toyota’s environmental policies convinced shoppers it was a company-made chatbot. In December, a shopper negotiated with a dealership chatbot to sell them a Chevy Tahoe for US$1.
Carity co-founder Steven Choi said cars’ complexity can confuse the average bot. Luiz Solia, who works at supply-chain tracking firm Kinaxis, told me earlier this year that an average automaker manages one hundred quadrillion permutations of parts, colours, trims and options across its models.
Karthik Ramakrishnan, CEO of Toronto-based AI company Armilla AI, said chatbots are getting better at managing complex customer questions, provided they have the right safeguards. His company tests bots by feeding them tens of thousands of the same or similar questions to see if the bot provides consistent results.
Carity is also focused on customized guardrails for VW’s bot. They feed Roboto information vetted by Volkswagen, which Carity has fact-checked in advance. They’ve trained the system to head off attempts to trick Roboto, and taught it such nuances as the phrase in Quebec French for “all-wheel drive.”
Trustworthy information sources are especially crucial for auto retailers, since consumers hold dim opinions of car salespeople. Questions about recharging on road trips and misconceptions about battery fires are among the issues people bring to Cara Clairman, CEO of Plug n’ Drive, which educates consumers about EVs away from the pressure of dealerships.
In early tests, Roboto is helping Canadian shoppers looking at Volkswagen’s electric SUV, the ID.4. It has a long way to go, but the hope is products like Roboto can someday also help dealerships, or be used to train staff.
J.D. Ney, the automotive practice lead at J.D. Power Canada, wouldn’t comment specifically on VW’s product, but said that car-buying is changing as the EV market expands from hyper-knowledgeable early adopters to mainstream consumers.
“In order to be as successful as possible in selling EVs,” he said, automakers and dealers need to do more to give customers an “EV concierge.”
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