Amazon already has a stranglehold on most of the stuff people buy, and now the retail giant wants to sell you a car.
Cars will begin showing up next year on Amazon, the company revealed at the LA Auto Show Thursday. Amazon is partnering with Hyundai, which will be the first cars sold on the site in 2024. In turn, Hyundai vehicles will start Amazon Web Services for its cloud services and begin incorporating Alexa into the cars.
“Hyundai is a very innovative company that shares Amazon’s passion for trying to make customers’ lives better and easier every day,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a press release. “Our broad, strategic partnership should do just that, from changing the ease with which customers can buy vehicles online, to making it simple to use Alexa in Hyundai vehicles for entertainment, shopping, smart home adjustments, and calendar checks, to enabling Hyundai to transform their customer experiences and business operations by moving to AWS.”
The way this whole process will work is that Hyundai dealers can put their vehicles on Amazon. Customers can check out the car they’re interested in based on the vehicles available in their area. The cars can be purchased on Amazon with the pricing being labeled as “transparent,” and then the customer can pick up their new vehicle at the dealership.
Dealers will be the official sellers of the cars and will be the ones offering financing to customers. Service and warranty for the vehicle will also be handled by the dealership.
Hyundai’s 2025 line of cars will be the first ones to make full use of Amazon’s Alexa. This means drivers can ask Alexa to handle automated tasks that it does at home as well as ask it for traffic updates or directions to a destination.
Amazon says it will test this new car-buying feature over the coming months and will begin the rollout sometime next year.