Amazon launches Vehicles, a new destination for car shoppers

Amazon is getting its feet wet in the car shopping business with today’s launch of Amazon Vehicles. It’s not a car store; you can’t buy cars (yet?) through Amazon.com. But it certainly moves the company much farther down the path toward selling cars.

For now, Amazon Vehicles is a research destination aimed at helping anyone looking to buy a car, car parts or accessories. It offers details on new and old cars, ranging — as Amazon’s press release points out — from a 2016 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon (shown below) to a 1965 Ford Mustang. It has car images, videos and customer reviews, and a forum of car enthusiasts where shoppers can connect to get additional questions answered person-to-person.

As a research destination, Amazon Vehicles competes directly with the big online car sites like Cars.com, Edmunds.com, AutoTrader.com and others. It will also compete with the official sites of car manufacturers like Ford, Toyota and others. And it may also impact Google by offering car shoppers an alternative to general search.

“Our goal is to support customers during one of the most important, research-intensive purchases in their lives by helping them make informed decisions every step of the way,” said Adam Goetsch, director of automotive at Amazon.com, in today’s announcement.