On Thursday, Amazon, along with its new partner Hyundai, announced that the company will start selling cars in its US store in the latter half of next year. While this will initially be limited to Hyundai vehicles, the other brands are expected to follow later that year. 
Some people see this as an extension of the Amazon Vehicle Showroom site, which currently allows customers to buy accessories for their cars as well as allow manufacturers to advertise their cars. 
According to the announcement, customers will be able to browse cars based on their preferences including model, trim, color, and features. Once the customer has chosen their preferred car, they will be able to pay via Amazon.com using their preferred payment method and have the car directly delivered to their home or to their local car dealership. 
Marty Mallick, Amazon’s vice-president, said the move was aimed at “changing the ease with which customers can buy vehicles online”.
The Telegraph reported that “Shares in rival and traditional car dealers fell following the announcement. Carvana, the online used-car retailer, dropped as much as 9pc on Thursday while shares in CarMax, AutoNation and Asbury Automotive Group also fell.”
It should be noted that Amazon is merely taking on a middleman role, the seller of record for the car will still be the dealership. 
48 US states either ban or limit car manufacturers selling directly to customers. Previously dealerships in multiple states had filed lawsuits against Tesla, a company with no independent dealerships, to prevent them from selling their cars directly to customers. However, by including car dealerships in this process and only acting as a middleman, Amazon is able to sidestep this issue. 

As part of its deal with Hyundai, Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant will be included in Hyundai cars starting in 2025. And Hyundai will be using Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its cloud provider. 
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