Drop a coin in a vending machine, get a car
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It looks like a vending machine, albeit eight stories tall.
It operates like a vending machine, requiring insertion of a coin, that instead of Cheetos or Snickers, dispenses a motor vehicle.
It is, incredibly, a vending machine.
That rectangular structure alongside Interstate 79, a blue beacon to nighttime motorists, is a Carvana Car Vending Machine. Carvana, the online national auto retailer, built it and opened it for business March 22, as part of the Newbury Market project in South Fayette Township.
Carvana, which has been selling cars in the Pittsburgh area since 2016, decided to construct a CVM off the Bridgeville exit of I-79.
“We had built up our customer base in Pittsburgh, so when we had the opportunity to build at this location, we ran with it,” said Amy O’Hara, spokeswoman for the Tempe, Ariz.-based company.
The South Fayette vending machine is one of 16 in the U.S. and one of two in the state, the other being in Philadelphia.
A prospective customer goes to www.carvana.com, where more than 15,000 vehicles are listed and priced, and a selection may be made by year, make, model, color and/or mileage. You purchase online and if a Car Vending Machine is nearby, you pick up the vehicle there. If there isn’t a CVM, the new wheels will be delivered to your home.
Until it erected the South Fayette CVM, Carvana delivered in just that fashion in the Pittsburgh area.
For pickup, a buyer selects a date and time to do so – and does, indeed, need a coin to get the vehicle from a vending machine.
“It’s about the size of a hockey puck,” O’Hara said. “You insert the coin and the computer knows where the car is. The lift picks it up and brings it down to you.”
As many as 27 vehicles are parked in the South Fayette CVM, although that number varies at other vending machines, depending on the number of stories and design.