Carvana enters new car business with dealerships, test drive center
A retailer that has been disrupting how used cars are sold is turning its attention to the new auto market.
Since 2012, Carvana has sold used cars both via online delivery and its “car vending machines.” Upon purchasing a car on the Carvana website, customers can schedule as-soon-as-same-day delivery or pickup at a car vending machine (in markets where they are available) in as little as 10 minutes.
[READ MORE: Online retailer disrupts dealership category with ‘car vending’ machines]
However, in 2025, Carvana became a Stellantis franchisee with its first dealership in Casa Grande, Ariz. Today, Carvana operates seven Stellantis dealerships in cities across the country including its first-ever test drive location in Dallas, which opened Wednesday, June 17.
How it works
Within weeks of buying its first Stellantis dealership, Carvana brought brand new Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram (CDJR) inventory to its website, enabling customers to purchase these new vehicles online.
At the physical dealerships, Carvana maintains its fixed pricing, integrated financing and online transaction model. In-person customer advocates replace traditional salespeople, offering support by helping answer questions, walking customers through features, and directing customers to the website for purchasing, financing, or trade appraisals without taking an active role in making a sale.
At the new Carvana test drive center in Dallas, there is seating without offices and live plants growing inside and out. When a customer comes in, they are greeted, but not followed. A self-service, tech-supported shopping experience begins with a 10-square-foot cube of LED screens.
Customers scan a QR code to take control of the display from their own advice, filtering through the dealership inventory and selecting the model and features they like. This workflow ends with a custom map of where they can see what they liked on the property.
The same technology that runs the cube also supports a page on the Carvana website where customers can configure a new car with feature-level pricing transparency and see the exact purchasable vehicle(s) in the retailer’s inventory that meet their specifications.
Outside, a recycled rubber material covers what Carvana calls the “playground,” where cars representative of the full range of trims and features are laid out and clustered by model for side-by-side comparisons. Vehicles are unlocked and waiting with room to open doors and get inside.
Each vehicle displayed is numbered and the vehicles and model areas have unique QR codes that open immersive digital tours detailing their features and specifications. When a customer is ready to test drive, they click a button directly from the digital vehicle tour on their phone, which instantly notifies a customer advocate who pulls a duplicate of the vehicle they were examining.
Customers can then provide their name, email, phone number and driver's license and take a test drive without any Carvana personnel in the car. Carvana provides a suggested route and meets the customer when you are ready to drop the vehicle off. The customer decides when they are ready to buy, and when they do they can tap into Carvana’s full inventory and purchase process on the Carvana site.
"Everything we've built at Carvana has been in service of giving customers more control and more confidence when buying a car,” said Tom Taira, president of special projects at Carvana, in commentary provided to Chain Store Age. “Test drive Ccnter extends that to the in-person experience. Customers can explore, compare, and test drive on their own terms — and when they're ready, they buy online, the Carvana way."
