The Use of Drones and UAVs in Auto Dealerships, Auto Parts & Salvage Yards

The Use of Drones and UAVs in Auto Dealerships, Auto Parts & Salvage Yards

Robots are no strangers to the world of salvage yards and auto dealerships. Giant unmanned machines have been put in use for a decade or two now to squash and reshape auto parts in salvage yards. After the commercial introduction of drones and UAVs, auto dealerships and salvage yards owners started using them to wow vehicle buyers and sellers. They purchased unmanned aircraft to spice up promotions and spark viral social media campaigns. They believed that in such a highly competitive market, using drones is their way to stand out among their competitors.

One of the first auto dealerships who started using drones in their promotional campaign is the Jeff Wyler Automotive Family. In August 2015, the auto dealership announced that they bought a drone with a GoPro camera strapped to it for $1,200 to be used in their promotional campaign. The GoPro camera was gyro-stabilized to limit bouncing and disorientation. Their plan to use the drone was simple but quite genius. They planned to record the process of car delivery to customers, starting from the moment the sales person drives it out of the dealership to the moment when their customers are handed the keys, and hand the video over to them for free to celebrate their purchase of the new vehicle. Of course videos like these were going to end up on their customers' social media profiles and thus provide the company with free and unforgettable form of advertisement.

Drones can also be used to scan and map large salvage yards. Some yards spread across acres of lands and to be able to manage such a vast space, owners need the help of drones. UAVs are also often used to look for and find auto parts. Using services like DroneDeploy, which is a cloud-based system that feeds your drone a previously charter route to follow, salvage yards owners can scavenge junk yards for useful parts and thus save a large sum of money in the process. They also can inspect pick up locations remotely.

With the rapid development of drones and UAVs, it's expected that in the near future they'll be strong enough to participate in auto parts movements and delivery. If Amazon Air Prime is expected to deliver packages to their customer's doorstep using drones and UAVs in early 2020s, the unmanned aircraft aren't so far away from participating in movement of larger and heavier objects. They're also expected to be equipped with scanning abilities to determine and classify auto parts on sight. If equipped with the necessary data capturing parts, unmanned aerial vehicles will be able to give accurate details about auto parts and report them on sight. Drones and UAVs have already been playing a significant part in auto accidents reports, whether in salvage yards or on the roads, saving thousands of lives in the process. Once they become cheap enough for every salvage yard or every county to possess and use regularly, they'll be saving many more lives, money, effort and time. They will definitely make humanity stronger than it already is.