UCDP #77 – AI in Dealerships & EV Retail Innovation w/ Ross Tinkham & Alex Lawrence

Recorded just after NIADA, where AI was the talk of the conference, this episode of the Used Car Dealer Podcast digs into what AI actually looks like inside an independent dealership today. Host Zach Klempf talks with Ross Tinkham, go-to-market leader at Podium, and Alex Lawrence, CEO of EV Auto, a used-EV-only dealership group and longtime Podium customer. Alex walks through how EV Auto leans on Podium's AI agent, nicknamed Amy, for inbound lead handling around the clock, alongside Podium's phone system, payments, Google reviews, and after-hours texting, while a human teammate and salespeople cover the rest.

Ross explains how Podium's AI BDC pushes leads in and writes data back out to a dealer's CRM, why the out-of-the-box agent is a solid "B" that needs real tuning to become an "A," and how Podium engineers emotional intelligence into the agent so it reads for intent rather than just syntax. The conversation also covers why Alex refuses to run digital retailing tools because most EV buyers are first-timers with lots of questions, what's different about servicing EVs, and Ross's preview of Podium's upcoming voice-AI service-scheduling offering, which was in beta with EV Auto at the time of recording.

Key takeaways

• Podium's AI arrives out of the box at a "B or B-plus," and Ross says it typically takes dealers 60 to 90 days of tuning conversations to get it to an "A."

• At EV Auto, 80 to 90 percent of customers have never bought an EV before, which is why Alex skips digital retailing entirely in favor of a zero-pressure, in-person buying experience that can take as little as 20 minutes.

• At a recent NIADA session, only about a third of dealers in the room said they had used or tried an AI solution, underscoring how early adoption still is across the industry.