[NADA 2024] Using AI To Revolutionize Auto Trades with Eliron Ekstein

Eliron Ekstein, is the CEO and Co-founder of Ravin, a technology company dedicated to digitizing the automotive and transportation sectors. Before co-founding Ravin, Eliron was Head of New Business Development at Shell’s Digital Ventures unit in London, and he also served as the CEO of FarePilot.com, a startup using machine learning to help taxi and Uber drivers find their next passenger. Eliron has an MBA from London Business School and is the proud father of three.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• What is Ravin?
• How Ravin simplifies trade assessment for dealers
• Understanding Ravin’s position in the market
• What Ravin’s integration with Orbee entails

In this episode…

Ever wondered how technology is reshaping the way we buy and sell cars? One such invention is Ravin, an AI-powered inspection solution that’s changing the game. Could this innovation bridge the gap between consumers and dealerships, revolutionizing the entire car transaction process?

Car enthusiast and CEO, Eliron Ekstein, explores Ravin’s groundbreaking technology, designed to provide unparalleled visibility into vehicle conditions. By seamlessly integrating with mobile phones or stationary fixed camera systems, Ravin empowers dealerships to accurately evaluate cars without requiring customers to physically be in the showroom. This innovative solution transforms the car-buying experience for both dealers and consumers. 

In this episode of Inside Auto Podcast, Ilana Shabtay sits down with Ravin’s Co-founder and CEO, Eliron Ekstein, to talk about transforming auto transactions using AI. Tune in as Eliron discusses how Ravin simplifies trade assessment, Ravin’s position in the industry, and its integration with Orbee.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Fullpath
• Ilana Shabtay on LinkedIn 
• Eliron Ekstein on LinkedIn
• Ravin
• Orbee
• NADA

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Fullpath (formerly AutoLeadStar).

Fullpath is the automotive industry’s leading customer data and experience platform (CDXP).

Fullpath enables dealers to turn their first-party data into lifelong customers by unifying siloed data sources and leveraging that data to create exceptional, hyper-personalized customer experiences.

To learn more, visit www.fullpath.com 

Episode Transcript

Intro  0:02  

Welcome to InsideAuto Podcast where we feature everyone and anyone you’d want to talk to you in and out of the automotive industry.

Ilana Shabtay  0:10  

All right, Ilana Shabtay here InsideAuto Podcast live from NADA. I’m here with Eliron Ekstein, CEO of Ravin. Hey, hey, thanks for joining me. 

Eliron Ekstein  0:24  

My pleasure. 

Ilana Shabtay  0:25  

We’ve met before. So this is exciting, I get to talk to a friend, a fellow Israeli. Tell us about Ravin. Let’s start with that. 

Eliron Ekstein  0:32  

Right. So Ravin is an inspection solution powered by artificial intelligence. We work with either mobile phones or with stationary fixed camera systems. And we basically give visibility on vehicle condition, whether you’re buying a used car, whether you’re trying to sell your car to a dealer, whether you’re at the auction, and you’re trying to enhance condition reports and provide more disclosures. And also, we work with car rental companies to identify and recover damage. And finally, we have insurance companies who would like to settle claims on them. 

Ilana Shabtay  1:04  

Wow. And it’s cool, because it’s just something you could have on your phone, you could just scan the car like this, is it? Is it more for the consumer, or is it for the dealer, or both? 

Eliron Ekstein  1:15  

In the dealer space. And that’s like, what we’re really excited about is we can actually help dealers assess cars remotely. So what happens today, in many cases is dealers get leads from people maybe trying to sell their car. 

Ilana Shabtay  1:29  

Right? 

Eliron Ekstein  1:30  

You know, leads could come from KBB, autotrader, whatever, other Websites or their own website, and then what would happen is they would probably type in the VIN and they would get some sort of automated offer based on very general information. And then in the next step, what happens, dealer calls them up, or a bots, you know, chases them, Hey, do you want to come in, schedule an appointment, but people, increasingly, people like you and me younger generations, we don’t want to show up, we don’t want to come into the dealership. And so what will end up happening is we’ll sell our car to Carvanha, right with somebody else that offers a surprise, even if it’s lower, the dealer loses the trade and loses the engagement with a potential customer. 

Ilana Shabtay  2:13  

Right? 

Eliron Ekstein  2:13  

So what we help the dealer do is actually assess the trade remotely without asking customers to come in. On one hand, they don’t need to come in. On the other hand, we remove a lot of the risks that the dealer is taking. And they kind of for that risk that Carvanha and the others maybe can’t afford. 

Ilana Shabtay  2:31  

And it’s also more accurate, right? So it’s a better user experience, because you can get a random trade, but then it’s not accurate. They come in the consumers upset does it help with that as well like

Eliron Ekstein  2:43  

work? So the pitch to the consumer is it’s going to be quicker for you. Yeah, because if your car is good, and we know it’s good, because you’ve told us it’s good. But if we see that it’s actually good. You’re not going to show up, we’ll just verify when we come and pick it up. So we’ll give you money when we come and pick up the car. And if you’re hiding the engine is not working, we’ll find out don’t worry. But otherwise, the car looks clean. You don’t have to show up for those that will show up. It’s much quicker. And they get an uptick. They get a premium on their vehicle. 

Ilana Shabtay  3:13  

That’s awesome. So it’s these companies. It’s through our manufacturers, and you’re getting direct to the consumer. 

Eliron Ekstein  3:20  

Yeah. Consumer to dealer. So yeah, I mean, it’s sorry, through the viewers, but eventually the user is a consumer. 

Ilana Shabtay  3:26  

Right. Okay, that’s great. And so here at NADA, what’s your, what’s your goal for this any day? I know, this is your fourth one. So your first rodeo, what are some of the goals? 

Eliron Ekstein  3:36  

So I think we’ve just interested in getting our brand more known and familiar within the dealer community, and talking to some of our partners, existing partners and new partners to take this to market. You know, it’s an ecosystem, we have companies like Orbee, like other companies that sit in the middle of all these transactions. And we don’t want to take over the entire ecosystem, obviously, we want to play that role in that conversation that I just mentioned. So it’s about building and continuing those relationships with companies that are here. 

Ilana Shabtay  4:10  

Yeah. And I think that’s a theme I’m seeing now. There’s a lot of collaboration with the different technologies, a lot of collaboration and innovation in the space. You just released yesterday, unless it was before. But I saw yesterday, the collaboration that you guys have now with Orbee, which is a customer data platform, I think they refer to themselves as middleware or in the industry. We know those guys over there we like to tell us about that integration. 

Eliron Ekstein  4:35  

So that’s something we’re pretty excited about. And we’ve actually launched this integration some months ago, with a group of dealers that were basically doing customer inventory acquisition. That’s exactly the use case I just mentioned, the customer calls up and instead of asking them to come in, they just do a quick scan and we can give them a better offer on their vehicle. So we’re the kind of dealer that is finding back again the online marketplaces that just offer you cash. So they can secure these trades without dragging the customer in. 

Ilana Shabtay  5:07  

Right. 

Eliron Ekstein  5:07  

And that’s getting a lot of really good conversions. Like we’ve seen. I can’t talk about the numbers yet, but we’ve seen much higher conversion than, you know, if you’re looking just at a KBB offer, you’re just like, Okay, well, I’m gonna go somewhere else. It’s not good. Yeah, here, if the car comes clean from the scan, people like the scan. 

Ilana Shabtay  5:25  

Yeah. It’s also like, it’s, it’s, it’s like a new way of doing these via the acquisition or these, trading. 

Eliron Ekstein  5:32  

Right. It’s like, I have a good car, and I want to show it. Yeah. And in the end, you get a souvenir, you get a condition report that you can take so people 

Ilana Shabtay  5:40  

And you guys, you guys, you produce that. 

Eliron Ekstein  5:50  

Right? So what happens is the customer, you know, clicks on the link and gets into our experience on their mobile browser, it’s not actually an app, they don’t need to download anything. 

So as part of that experience, that camera opens, and they’re like, you know, almost like virtual reality. Yeah, like guides you through the car, and you know, shows you things about the car. And then in the end, after a few minutes, you get your condition reports with lots of images, this is the grade of your car, this is the adjusted value of your car. 

So it’s really clean, and therefore you get the highest price possible. Or, hey, there are a few things with your car, a few dings, a few scratches, maybe we need to replace a tire and you get a fair price. So you know what you’re up for. 

Ilana Shabtay  6:27  

Right? That’s cool. So Orbee’s, helping you just bridge the gap between consumer dealers and make sure that your reach is actually getting out there with consumers. Is there anything on the CDP side there that’s interesting in the integration? Or is that 

Eliron Ekstein  5:44  

There is the ability here to create some long term relationship with that customer. 

Ilana Shabtay  5:50  

Okay. 

Eliron Ekstein  6:42  

And I think for us, the exciting bit is it’s not just about that particular transaction, because a lot of people will do the scan. But maybe they don’t want to sell their car right now. 

Ilana Shabtay  6:57  

Right? 

Eliron Ekstein  6:57  

So the data that we have, 

Ilana Shabtay  6:59  

oh, that’s excellent 

Eliron Ekstein  7:00  

to see just knowing that this guy was in the market. And this was the condition of their car, you based on creating a database of really good cars for sale, they will come on the market at some point. 

Ilana Shabtay  7:11  

That’s cool. And then it just feeds into the customers report or the customers record. And you can have that and then, you know, 

Eliron Ekstein  7:16  

You can reach out for more information. 

Ilana Shabtay  7:18  

Yeah, that’s great. Any other integrations that you can tell us about coming up? Not yet. 

Eliron Ekstein  7:23  

Well, I can talk generally about our fixed installations. So in addition to the mobile app, we also work with six cameras. And we’ve been working for years now with car rental companies on that. 

Now we have at least two partnerships that we’ll be talking more about in the coming months that will help us scale our installations with manufacturers of cameras, and also installers that will basically bring these camera systems to dealerships and auctions around the country. 

Ilana Shabtay  7:53  

Wow, it’s great. So that’s really cool. You guys are doing really innovative things. Are you here with other people from your team? 

Eliron Ekstein  7:59  

Yeah, we’re a whole delegation here we have the Jim O’Brien who runs our North American business Neil Allison the harder product other people from the Austin office, that 

Ilana Shabtay  8:09  

Nice All right, well, thank you so much for joining InsideAuto Podcast. Because it was great getting to know you, Ravin, you’re doing amazing things. So our listeners are probably going to be really excited. Can they just download? Can we just download the app? 

Eliron Ekstein  8:20  

Yeah, for sure you can go on ravin.ai 

Ilana Shabtay  8:23  

Okay, 

Eliron Ekstein  8:23  

and just get a link to the app. 

Ilana Shabtay  8:24  

Amazing. Great. Thank you so much, InsideAuto Podcast.

Intro  8:29  

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