VW and Daimler back heycar used car online marketplace

A new online marketplace for used cars launches in the UK today (15 August). heycar.co.uk is on a mission to bring greater trust and transparency to one of the UK economy’s largest retail sectors.

The brand will do this by creating a superior user experience for consumers and dealers, launching with an inventory of over 100,000 listed vehicles from nearly 50 brands across 1,400 dealerships.

heycar has a strong focus on offering quality used cars to consumers. This is achieved by partnering with selected dealers and only listing vehicles that are under 8 years old, have less than 100,000 miles on the clock and come with a warranty.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) puts the value of the UK used car industry at £50bn. The UK used car finance point of sale market is valued at £17.6bn by the Finance and Leasing Association.

The UK used car industry has long suffered from strong consumer scepticism. heycar aims to overcome this scepticism and make its mark on the sector through innovation and fresh thinking. heycar brings a simpler solution to the UK, allowing users to search for and find their used car, complete with a finance quote, in a seamless online journey.

Speaking at the heycar launch event in London, CEO Mat Moakes comments: “The UK used car industry is worth £50bn, yet it works inefficiently for consumers and dealers. Buying a used car can be like a lottery, you don’t know what you’ll get. Existing websites are often cluttered with ads, eroding consumer trust. Dealers are burdened with rising fees for listing used cars online, squeezing their margins without a guarantee of leads or sales.

“We’ve developed heycar to solve these pain points. We’ll offer a simpler, more effective solution for both used car buyers and dealers. Our site will be ad-free, improving transparency and consumer trust. heycar won’t charge dealers a listing fee, encouraging them to display all their best quality stock. After the launch phase we will charge on a lead-generation basis, guaranteeing a win-win for our dealer partners.”

heycar launches with an impressive leadership team, led by CEO Mat Moakes, who joins the new business from a role as Managing Director of Centrica’s digital venture, Local Heroes. Managing the heycar dealer relationships, Karen Hilton joins as Chief Commercial Officer with over 10 years of automotive experience and three years in leadership roles at the disruptive start-ups carwow and nested. In addition, the setup has been supported by BCG Digital Ventures (BCGDV).

heycar launching in the UK market follows the brand’s foundation in Germany in 2017. Since then, heycar has built up an inventory of over 400,000 quality used cars from more than 4,000 dealerships in Germany, making it one of the top players in the German market. heycar.co.uk now builds on this success in the brand’s second European market.

heycar is a brand owned by Mobility Trader Holding GmbH, whose shareholders are Volkswagen Financial Services and Daimler Mobility.

The heycar team conducted research with 2,000 participants in the UK, exploring consumer attitudes towards the used car industry. The research finds that ‘choosing a car to buy’ is the life decision that the largest number of Brits wish was simpler, selected by over a quarter of participants. The most important factor to simplify the car buying process is ‘better quality assurance’, selected by 43 per cent of participants.