UCARS, a marketplace to buy and sell new and used cars in Singapore, is integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud computing into its platform together to provide consumers with enhanced transparency, security and satisfaction.
Singapore car owners can now expect to sell their vehicles within three days at the highest prices when they use the AI-enhanced tools provided by the UCARS platform, and a commitment to shift the automotive industry towards a more modernised and customer-centric landscape.
Using AI, the company has successfully created a proprietary valuation tool on the platform that provides consumers with an estimate of their cars’ resale value within seconds, making it the first instant AI Car Valuation Tool in Southeast Asia. Compared to other valuation methods that take at least a day to give an estimate, the UCARS AI Valuation Tool is the fastest valuation tool available to consumers in the region.
With the current economic lull due to COVID-19, transfer of private vehicle ownership for cars has seen an average of 15% year-on-year increase compared to September last year and reached an all-time high in September this year, based on figures from Singapore’s Land Transport Authority. Consumer demand for new and used cars has been seeing a steady increase in the Southeast Asia region.
“We speculate that some Singaporeans are anticipating an economic rebound in the near future, and coupled with pent-up demand for cars and reduced quotas, we are expecting to see car sales skyrocket in the coming months,” said Cho Kok Yick, Chief Technology Officer at UCARS.
One seller, Gideon Lam, who has successfully sold two cars on UCARS, stated that his experience was a seamless process as UCARS “helped to coordinate all the necessary” without him needing to do extensive preparatory work. Another seller, Michael Chong, showed appreciation towards UCARS for ensuring that the entire process was “smooth and transparent” on both ends.
“We want to make the second-hand car selling process as safe and as easy as possible, this is why we continuously invest in AI technologies," Cho added.
Using AI to make informed decisions
To help consumers make better informed decisions in a fraction of the usual time, UCARS is progressively introducing new and improved tools and services powered by AI.
UCARS seeks to deepen consumer trust by integrating better infrastructure and cloud security into the platform, and embarking on several AI-related projects to improve customer experience. This includes a Car Image Search Engine powered by machine vision and machine learning, as well as an improved AI Valuation Tool. All of them are developed on ModelArts, the AI platform of Huawei.
Using an improved algorithm, the accuracy of each valuation on the UCARS AI Valuation Tool improves with every use. By getting a better estimate on the value of their car, consumers can sell their car on the UCARS platform with ease of mind knowing the amount they can expect to get back, and at a fraction of the usual time it would take on other automotive platforms.
UCARS is also working on creating an AI-powered car search tool to help consumers identify the make and model of a car using only images. With machine vision, image recognition can also be utilised to find a specific vehicle that buyers desire.
