Soon we’ll have drive-through service centres

The bugbear of car ownership is usually the time it takes to get the car serviced. That and the fact no one enjoys a Soviet-inspired waiting room, sitting around on an old crusty pleather sofa located next to a broken water cooler and lunch box full of instant coffee mix.

Thankfully, UVeye might have the solution to retain our sanity.

The Israeli-based start-up has created a ‘drive-through’ service centre using specialised devices and software to assess the health of a vehicle quickly, so you can drive in and, if it ain’t broke, drive out.

Gaining further funding from Volvo and Toyota Tsusho - part of Toyota Group - the company now has $50 million behind it to move drive-through systems into dealership centres. Volvo and Toyota will begin rolling out the tech while UVeye has further commercial relationships with OEMs including Daimler and Skoda.

It also has backing from W.R. Berkley Corp, a large US insurance group that will benefit from being able to quickly and more accurately diagnose vehicle faults by driving a car past sensors.

UVeye can assess physical and mechanical flaws, as well as panel defects, by comparing images and scans taken with manufacturer specifications. Artificial intelligence crunches the numbers in minutes and lists any faults. Matched with condition-based servicing that uses sensors and driving data to log vehicle health, the two systems can work in tandem by making the usual vehicle inspection and service visit much more efficient.

CEO at UVeye, Amir Hever, is bullish that the tech will become standard in nearly all dealerships, as machines continue to replace humans in vehicle manufacture and maintenance.

“This latest investment including leading automotive strategic partners is an important signal that we believe paves the way for UVeye to become the standard of automotive inspection and safety,” said Hever.

“We are delighted to have world-class companies in their respective sectors endorse our game-changing auto scanning solution”.