“We don’t mind a little friendly competition.”īobby Cavender of the Cavender Auto Group agreed, pointing out that EchoPark won’t have access to certified pre-owned programs, in which manufacturers inspect used vehicles to make sure they meet quality standards.Īnother national auto dealer, AutoNation, once had stores in San Antonio but closed them many years ago, Cliver said. “With the market growing as much as it is in San Antonio … I think there’s enough to go around,” Cliver said. Tim Cliver, chief operating officer at Red McCombs Automotive, said he didn’t think EchoPark’s entry into the market was a big threat to existing dealerships. CarMax employees receive commissions, but they aren’t based on the price of the car sold, eliminating the incentive to steer customers toward more expensive cars, spokeswoman Beth Singer said in an email. Its employees carry tablets allowing them to complete customers’ purchases in less than an hour, he said.ĬarMax, which opened its first San Antonio store in 1998, also has an online store and boasts of its low-pressure, no-haggle sales tactics. Dyke described the dealerships as “a mix between a Starbucks and an Apple Store,” with employees that are less pushy than the traditional image of a used-car salesperson because they are paid salaries, not commissions.ĮchoPark has a website where customers can shop for vehicles online before coming to the store, Dyke said. The company launched EchoPark in Denver in fall 2014 with a stated goal of offering a friendlier customer experience for buying used cars. based on sales of 287,000 vehicles from 99 dealerships in 2015. Earlier this year, Sonic announced plans to open EchoPark dealerships in new markets in Texas, North Carolina and South Carolina in 2017.Īutomotive News recently ranked Sonic as the fourth-largest auto dealership group in the U.S. Sonic already has 19 other dealerships in Houston and four in Dallas. San Antonio and Austin are growing joined at the hip.”ĮchoPark, which currently operates five stores, is also expanding into Austin, Dallas, Houston and Waco, Dyke said. “The growth to the north, it’s incredible. “We’re sort of putting a circle around the city,” Dyke said. Each location represents an investment of about $7.5 million, he said.
It plans to build all the dealerships at the same time, breaking ground next summer and finishing around the beginning of 2018. The company is in the process of buying land for EchoPark dealerships in the areas around Boerne, New Braunfels, SeaWorld San Antonio and the intersection between Loop 410 and Interstate 35 on the Northeast Side, Dyke said. Charlotte, North Carolina-based Sonic Automotive bought 4 acres of land last week at the booming intersection of Interstate 10 and Loop 1604 for an EchoPark dealership, located between iFly San Antonio and Topgolf San Antonio, said Jeff Dyke, the company’s executive vice president of operations.
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