What do bags of chips, overpriced headphones and cars have in common? Theyre all available from vending machines, of course. Well, if you live in London, at least.AutoTrader UK has just set up shop at Spitalfields Market in a tony area of the city, stocking the countrys first car vending machine with a Renault Zoe. For those not in the loop, the Zoe is a compact electric car, and one of Renaults hottest tickets right now.Unlike your local dealer yknow, the kind where you generally need to negotiate the price of a new cars across the desk from a salesman aching to meet a quota this vending machine is strictly a no-haggle zone. AutoTrader set the Zoes price at 16,000 (approximately $26,000 Canadian).This compares very favourably against the cars reported actual sticker, some ten grand higher. Incentives are a wonderful things.As with most everything else in this life, shoppers can pay for their freshly vended Renault with their phone. It took about twelve weeks for six engineers to design and build the machine, which includes a custom key release function.Reports dont specify if the vending doors spring open automatically upon payment or if the purchaser gets to open them dramatically as if they are uncovering a Lamborghini barn find.Perhaps unsurprisingly, this marketing effort was spurred by a study that indicated about half of those surveyed disliked negotiating the price of a new car purchase. An electric car was chosen for this experiment thanks to over three-quarters of Brits believing only hybrid and all-electric cars should be allowed to drive in London thanks to pollution concerns.Heres hoping the car inside this vending machine doesnt get snagged on the dispenser like the last chocolate bar your author tried to
Origin: Haggle-free, ‘contactless’ car vending machine appears in London