AVL's Reimagine Mobility Podcast

Automotive Aftermarket Technology and the Future w/ Jeff Varick

• AVL, North America

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In this episode, of Reimagine Mobility, Stephan sits down with Jeff Varick, Founder and CEO of Brandmotion, LLC to discuss the impact of aftermarket products on the mobility sector.

Jeff Varick is Founder and CEO of Brandmotion, LLC, a Novi, Michigan-based vehicle safety systems development company focused on improving vehicle safety performance through retrofit and original equipment technology integration.  

Brandmotion is a developer of highly integrated vehicle retrofit safety solutions for the automotive aftermarket.   Brandmotion distributes OEM-quality advanced safety technology solutions under the Brandmotion brand through its North American network of over 2,500 installers, fleets and dealers. 

In addition, Brandmotion develops and supplies custom safety solutions for some of the nation’s largest commercial, specialty vehicle manufacturers and upfitters.  

Brandmotion is also a pioneer and market leader in integrating Connected Vehicle (CV) solutions to advance V2X communication technology to greater numbers of cars and trucks already on the road.  The company has served in the Vehicle Integrator role for over 40 US CV Deployments and has installed more V2X onboard units in vehicles in North America than any other entity.  As Vehicle Integrator, Brandmotion is responsible for all sourcing, verification, system integration, installation, and field support of the vehicles. 

 Brandmotion has won numerous awards from SEMA, the leading aftermarket association, including Manufacturer of the Year in 2016.  In 2017,  Jeff was honored by the SEMA PRO Council as Person of the Year for his leadership in leading the aftermarket into the Connected Vehicle era.    Jeff also serves on the Global Board of Directors of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). 

If you would like to be a guest on the show contact: namarketing@avl.com

Welcome to the Reimagined Mobility Podcast series. I'm here with Jeff Varick Jeff, thanks for joining me. The expert in the business of mobility up fitting in operates in all sorts of different technologies. So, Jeff, before we really get into it, what we together can and re-imagine mobility look like in the future. Tell us a little bit about your background and tell us a little bit about the company you're leading right now and what you guys are doing. Yeah, happy to do it. Thank you very much, Stephan. Good. Good to be here. Yeah. So my background is is automotive, spent 11 years at General Motors, the last four of which were in your home country of Switzerland working for General Motors, General Motors International. And it was there. I got bit by the aftermarket bug. I really started to feel like I wanted to take a turn in my career towards kind of an entrepreneurial side of the auto industry. This was, you know, 15 years ago. It wasn't as many opportunities as there were today. But I found the aftermarket to be fascinating and and pursued that. I had some great mentors along the way and, you know, led to where I am today with with Brandmotion. And and Brandmotion was actually started as a spin off of tier one called Johnson Controls Automotive, as you are undoubtedly familiar. So the the way I got into this and foreign Brandmotion is we spun off the aftermarket group of JCI, and our job was to take, you know, find applications for OEM technology in the aftermarket. But today, you know, kind of fast forward to 2023, we help commercial fleet and RV drivers to improve their situational awareness around their vehicles so they can avoid collisions. That's the main thing we do. Excellent. So let's let's jump right into it. Jeff, with you with your background again, GM and then, as you call it, got bitten by the by the by the aftermarket and the abilities that you can do to help maybe a much larger group of consumers reimagine mobility now instead of having to wait for the next vehicle purchase. Right. So. So share a little bit where you feel maybe the aftermarket business, let's say that you're in, has maybe at times been kind of looked at, maybe a little weird or a little bit as a sort of outside business that's trying to come in mainstream. Share a little bit what people may not realize and how impactful the aftermarket is specifically, as each is mentioned for for the safety and and and convenience, but generally speaking, improvement of people's lives when they drive these vehicles. Yeah. Then you put your finger on it. Right? That that's exactly what I saw was I mean, when I looked at the aftermarket, I saw products and technologies that weren't always the same quality level as an OEM. And I just kind of asked myself why Why can't there be, you know, this kind of OEM grade personalization had done that's done after the vehicles built. Right. And that just that issue just stuck with me. And, you know, I had a mentor, a very fortunate mentor. And Clay Christensen, he was the author of The Innovator's Dilemma, and he taught me a lot about modularity and how as products mature, you know, their infrastructures tend to become more modular so that you can handle greater levels of consumer personalization. And I thought, you know what? That's exactly what's going to happen in the auto industry. We're not talking about rust anymore. And we're not talking about vehicles breaking down by the side of the road. We're talking about features that really make a difference for consumers. So I said, how can I apply that? So I didn't set out to do safety. We started with a kind of partnership with Johnson Controls around overhead rails and vehicles that you could snap content to. And I thought that's a perfect platform for personalization. You may remember the the F-150 had these rails overhead, but, you know, quickly the safety thing came along because there was so much more demand in the late 2000s for backup cameras than the car companies were supplying. And, you know, it was we had a contract with General Motors to to kit a mirror and a camera in the hardest thing for the Silverado and to do it to direct to the dealer. And that led to an entire business around radar blind spots and sensor integration to vehicles that really showed us that there's a tremendous amount of opportunity to add safety technology to vehicles. And of course, you know, 15 years later, we've been involved in just about every safety technology. And it can be it can be added. The thing that fascinates me about the aftermarket, most people don't know you can do that kind of deep content and you can integrate well, right? We're integrating two CAN data systems. You know, we're we're making it completely seamless because we have, you know, fantastic technicians. So a tremendous amount of our opportunity in the aftermarket, especially given the fact that we're just going in the wrong direction as a country. The 36,000 deaths on the roads at the end of 2019 and last year, 43,000 were just going completely the wrong direction because of distraction, alcohol and speeding. So you try to solve that with new vehicles that have the latest technology. It's going to take you a long time. But if you try to solve it and address the other the 280 million vehicles that are already on the road, you might get somewhere. And that's that's kind of our mission. It's like we're really inspired by the fact that, you know, a company such as ours and others can take an approach to aftermarket approach to safety. In fact, there was a study done in 2015 by I forget who did it, but it was one of the leading consulting groups. And they said that if every vehicle on the road had access to the same technology coming out of the OEM factories, we'd say 10,000 lives a year as a country. And I remember that hitting me. I remember where I was when I heard that read that hit me like a ton of bricks. Like that's the aftermarket opportunity. It's interesting. I mean, I haven't been much in the aftermarket space or helping companies with technologies in that space for now, probably ten plus years. So maybe my recollection is now we are out of date, but I still want to ask it, Jeff. When I was heavily involved with with aftermarket, we're talking Liftgate for Handicaps, we're talking backup cameras, hands free systems, some model of things. Right on. And aftermarket basis. It seemed very, very difficult to really seamlessly integrate those technologies, not for all vehicles, but for the majority of vehicles because there was a little bit this thing that the OEMs really wanted to sell their own stuff and didn't really want you as a as a true aftermarket supplier come in and take their market away. Has this changed? I mean, what you're talking about is is absolutely right. If we wait for every vehicle to come out with level two or level three technology, Etos technology, we're going to wait for ten plus years, right. Until we truly have a large deployment on the road with an aftermarket cheaper solution and maybe even better solutions. In some cases, it will go away faster. So has the industry between OEM and aftermarket come much more together and realize that we got to do this together? Or is there still quite a bit of gap between the two? Yeah, that's an excellent question. I mean, I don't I think in many ways you're seeing the OEMs, you know, take accessories and personalization more seriously. You look at recent launches like the Bronco and other vehicles where there's just a tie, even the new Tacoma, just a ton of personalization around it. Now safety not so much because, you know, safety has great implications, right, for for a car company when when you when you when you even say that word right. So they want to control that. They're also on a slightly different path in terms of like integrating into the vehicle and into the vehicle actions, the vehicle taking control of itself, whereas we're mainly providing driver information systems. It situational awareness systems that you see camera images, you see tones of some of these in your blind spot, Right. You know, when you're backing up or going forward in turn. And in the case of fleets, if you're going to hit something right. So there's a tremendous amount of opportunity that's kind of unique from that. And what we're seeing, too, is really the the fleets is where we're focused now. We used to be focused on the car dealer that that was great when there was so much more demand for cameras and sensors than the car companies were supplying. But now we're finding that the the guys that really need it are the the larger fleets, the commercial vans, the delivery vehicles that business, you know, with Amazon and everything is exploding and and you have more and more newer drivers and more time that those vehicles are on the road. Right. They just live on the road. In fact the collision rate for fleet vehicles is three times what it is for a passenger car. It's 20% of vehicle fleet vehicles get in a collision versus 6% for for light duty vehicles. So and there's no regulation. There's no law like there is for the backup camera that came in 2018 and light duty vehicles, passenger vehicles, there is no law, 10,000, you know, pound vehicle and above. So and there's an incredible desire, I'd say, for the technology because it's not it's very different than when it was a dealer equation and the consumer wanted it. Now it's around ROI, it's around keeping vehicles on the road, it's around driver safety, it's around pedestrian safety, it's crash repair costs, insurance costs. And so there's a and there's even new factors such as driver retention and driver recruiting. You want to be known as the company that's using technology to keep the driver's safe. If you're in an environment where there aren't enough drivers and so you're trying to make your company more attractive. We work with a shipping company that that is though that is their message. You come drive for us. You're going to be more safe and comfortable than if you drive for one of the other guys. So there's a tremendous, tremendous amount of opportunity and the OEMs aren't really addressing it. I mean, it's slowly coming, but they're just there's forces that work in the industry that just makes it a little bit slower. So that that's why we're we're very excited about some of the partnerships that we have with major up fitters, major fleet companies. And, you know, there's there's dozens of issues that we help we help solve. I can give you a couple examples if you like. Yeah, well, we've before, before we go to that, or maybe we've traveling to the next next pick your answer. But the question is that you brought up there is no regulation, no regulation for backup cameras. Maybe want to go back quickly. Recently, we finally now have a law in Michigan that you're not supposed to have be on your cell phone or know even talking, but certainly not email texting that frankly, in my about our drive home from work, usually 80% of the people that I wonder, what are you doing on the road or exactly doing this and we have a law now do you do you see regulatory change is also coming again to your current main market, which is two fleets or is this We knew we were you didn't come in and say, hey, we all know it's the right thing to do, there is no law. So there are me for the OEMs are not necessarily enticed to put additional cost into their vehicle and that's what you're coming in to then. Or as we reimagine mobility here, is this more or less a matter of the next two or three years and there will be more regulation also in the in the delivery vans, let's say, because as you said. Right. I mean, it used to be a see a delivery man once in front of my house. I see him now three or four times a day. Right. So, yeah, know, more and more. So where do you see that? Yeah. You know, I'm not sure I know that I haven't seen much regulatory movement in that direction. I haven't heard or seen. And, you know, we're we do a lot of work in V2X and so we're pretty close to the federal at the federal and the government level in the in the state DOTs. But let let let me give you an example. Let me give you an example of why. Here's one client of ours, 3000 vehicles there. They have a no cell phone policy yet, and yet their half their accidents are because of cell phones for 50 you know, 50% are rear end. Their distressed rear ending. They're distracted. They have one accident a day and they total one car a month, 75% of the time it's their fault. And, and, and they're self-insured. So do you think this is an issue on their radar? Probably, right, Yeah, it very, very much so.$87,000 average cost for a collision. And we can give them ROIs that are significant in the order of 75 to 100000, you know, over three years. If they add the technology to the vehicles that is going to help mitigate it. A lot of that. Right. There's a lot of different technologies that can help that can help solve that. So that that's that's how we we think about it. It's probably not going to come as much from the federal regulations. It's going to come from the business mandates, the the corporate mandates from companies saying, you know, we can't keep going like this. We have to make our vehicles safer for the driver, for others, you know, for the cargo and the and and the corporation, because you just can't afford to have these kind of costs when you know they're that they're that significant. Well, so with with I mean with that statistic and again one example you said you probably have plenty auto ones, but we're talking a fleet of 3000 here decent. But again, if you take the complete fleets of all in the U.S., we're in the hundreds of thousands, I'm sure. So so why then, Jeff, is the OEM saying this is a huge market, not because of regulation, but because of customer demand? And I can differentiate yourself? Or are they just ignoring this are they not seeing it or just saying, hey, I can't compete with Jeff and his company, so I might as well not even try? Am I missing something or what is the deal here? I mean, you know, there's probably a couple of ways to look at that. One, one that that that fascinates me. You know, I was at a fleet safety conference with a major OEM that provides vehicles to the to the fleet industry. And they were telling the audience that, hey, you know what, guys, we need to cut down our plant complexity. We need to offer fewer variations. And you think about all the technology that can make its way into into vehicles. Now, also at the same time, I got to, you know, tip my hat to Ford and Ford Pro, where they're actually doing some interesting things with with Fleet. They're thinking about the fleet market more holistically. They're offering solutions for productivity, safety, telematics. So maybe it'll continue to move in that direction. But again, you have a lot of vehicles that that we serve, a lot of the vehicles that are based on chassis and they're built, custom built. And for some of those customers, I mean, they're they're actually realizing what an incredible opportunity is for them to offer their customers safety solutions with basically boxes that they've been bolting to frames for 100 years. And that hasn't changed much. Right? But now they're starting to see, yeah, we have to do more. We can offer more. We can do more because they're the special vehicle manufacturers. The outfitters that are really in charge of the content. So I think I think and couple that with all the vehicles on the road that fleet vehicles last 12 to 15 years that that you're going to have to have an aftermarket equation to to make a dent. And in that collision rate that. When when when we talk now we've talked mainly about safety. Right. And I think that's certainly a very important point. And as you mentioned, many companies have really that's part of their DNA. They want to maybe not only be sustainable, but also want to be a safe environment both for their workers but also for the for the customers, obviously. Yeah. What do you see the next Greenfield that companies like you in this space are going to go into? I mean, as as we more electrify everything, is it is it charging infrastructure? Is it a certain safety thing? Is it how maybe drivers need to be retrained on how much more powerful media an EV can be driving than than a gasoline diesel? Do you have any insight on that? Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there's there's companies and and industries that are going to focus on like the, the, the, you know, the different driving dynamics and things like that where we're seeing tremendous amount of opportunities that go beyond safety to productivity using cameras. And we just actually designed a camera system at a request of a towing products company that they wanted a movable battery powered high definition camera that their customers could put anywhere on the back of the towing vehicle or the trailer and have it come to their company application smartphone app. And we just launched it actually this week at SEMA. They won an award. Very proud of that for best new product. you know, just by thinking about the environment and the needs of a, of a in this case towing customer that tows and we're seeing tremendous amount of of need around specific use cases for vehicles like towing. We have one very large fleet utility or utility company that when their vehicles are backing up with a trailer, they have a hard time doing that. Not all the drivers know how to do do it the same as as as as everyone. They would require a second person, a spotter, to get out and help back the the truck up. You can imagine finding a second guy if you're not necessarily we solve that for him with cameras so that and and again we did it with wireless technology that's now really advancing quickly, where the camera could work with multiple vehicles. So they could have different trailers, different vehicles, and everything's interoperable. So that for us is I think in terms of like productivity, aids, aligning up for towing, looking inside the cargo box, monitoring cargo over a 24 hour cycle, we just see tremendous amount of opportunity just using cameras and sensors. Interesting. Let's maybe the last couple of questions. One more in the forefront of future related. So you've talked a little bit clearly how the industry has common what we've done, what you have done sort of now it moves as not just safety but into productivity, which is a key piece for any organization. What are you mostly excited about over the next five years that in your industry is is coming out of that you guys may look at to to capitalize on either from a market demand or from a thing that you feel like, hey, we have something to market doesn't even realize. But once they see it they will need it. And you don't need to share those top secrets. But what are you most re mostly excited about over the next five years is again, as we reimagine mobility here specifically with with your industry in mind. Yeah. You know I mean, there's several things. I mean, I could answer that just based on the incredible amount of technology that's making itself available. That's just more than the car companies can digest, right? So it's just spilling over. And there's a lot of opportunities, too, to integrate. There's startups that ask for our help to integrate, you know, to two vehicles. And I think if you if you believe that the technology will continue to offer a new solution for vehicles and vehicle owners, the future is extremely bright. I mean, I'm also hopeful about V2X. I mean, we've been on kind of rocky national journey with that. We've been involved in that heavily for the last ten years. We've installed more media, Exxon board units than any company in North America and the deployment, the US D.O.T. deployments. And in that setting, there's some recent news that, you know, maybe that's they're ready to to try to move that national national mandate forward again. I mean I look at I keep an eye on that, but I just think, you know, the fun of this business and the fun of this industry is looking at all the things that people need out of their vehicles. They use vehicles for looking at emerging OEM technology and thinking of ways to bring that to the vehicles that are that are already on the road. That's to me, it's going to go well past me and my my time here and this tremendous opportunity to help society, I think, to and help, help, help a lot of people. Feel that's good. All right, Jeff, last question, not related to your industry, but what's the next vehicle you're going to buy and why? I am. That's a great question. I am a car guy, so I did just buy a Cadillac BLACKWING, which is for me and my friends at Cadillac, General Motors, who are you know, I see engine guys, too. I look at that and kind of seem to see them doing the mike drop on that car because it's a fan. I've never driven a more engaging, completely excellent vehicle. But next year I am. I had a milestone this week, my 15 year old, she drove herself to school for the first time in my in my GTI and she wants it now. So I got to get another vehicle. My daily driver probably looking at a an electric vehicle. I'm I'm pretty fascinated with the technology and I'm looking at a lot of options. But probably something that you talked about earlier that might might have some speed associated to it. Very good. Thank you so much, Jeff, for your feedback. Very interesting. Giving us a glimpse into how we reimagine mobility also in the aftermarket and how you specifically deal with fleets and and their needs. Excellent. Thank you, Joe. Thanks for listening to Reimagine Mobility Podcast. If you like this episode, please subscribe and tell a friend.