Fast Talk: Hard Drive

Arianna Huffington

Columnist/Cofounder, The Detroit Project
Los Angeles, California

I'm not trying to psychoanalyze why people drive SUVs. But one morning, when I was taking my daughter to school, I saw a huge Cadillac Escalade with five American flags. I thought, Wouldn't it be much more patriotic just to dump the thing? In November 2001, I gave up my Lincoln Navigator in favor of a Toyota Prius.

For me, the catalyst was September 11. I wrote a column that parodied the ads about the drug war that say that drug users support terrorists. I pointed out the much more credible argument that gas-guzzling cars fund terrorists. I ended with a rhetorical question: Would anybody be willing to pay for a campaign to jolt our leaders into reality? I woke up to a flood of email. We produced two ads, which created a media frenzy and got us millions of dollars' worth of free exposure for our message.

Something is changing out there. We've had a 14% drop in SUV sales recently. There has been a tipping point. We need to keep the pressure on Detroit to produce hybrid SUVs. We need to move from prototypes and rhetoric to actual cars on the road and put some advertising muscle behind it. This can become a self-sustaining movement, like the designated-driver campaign. Do you remember how we went from the idea that drinking and driving was macho and cool to it being socially irresponsible?

There will be plenty of people who want to go ahead and drive these gas-guzzlers. This is not about mandating what people drive. Our campaign uses parody and satire to change the way that Detroit and Washington operate and to help people connect the dots of their own consumption habits.

Simon Rothman

eBay Inc.
Founder of Ebay Motors
San Jose, California

There are lots of different ways that people have approached selling cars online. Our approach has been unique for three reasons. First, we only sell used cars. Second, we have nationalized the used-car marketplace, where before it was inherently local. Third, we have introduced an element of control. If you're a seller, you set the price that you want for a vehicle; as a buyer, you put in the price that you're willing to pay. There's a little more information symmetry that way. Additionally, you can find out everything that the seller has bought and sold on the site to get a sense of his reputation. It's almost like getting to know him a bit.

So far, our approach is working. Last year, the second full year that the business was in operation, eBay Motors did nearly $3 billion worth of automotive sales, representing approximately 300,000 cars. Even in a huge industry -- there are 42 million - plus used cars sold per year, around $370 billion worth -- this is an interesting and promising number.

One big factor behind our success: We don't view dealers as competitors. Dealers are great at selling cars. The majority of car listings on eBay are from dealers. Why? Because for $40, a dealer can attract a national audience. We have 61 million customers on the site, and last month, 8 million people hopped on to eBay Motors. Each auction gets an average of seven or eight bids. Roughly 75% of the cars sold on the site are sold across state lines. The National Automotive Dealers Association reports that dealers spend upward of $500 to get one local customer to buy one car. So eBay is an amazingly efficient distribution channel for dealers.