TrueCar, Inc. Patent applications |
Patent application number | Title | Published |
20140279709 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DETERMINING COSTS OF VEHICLE REPAIRS AND TIMES TO MAJOR REPAIRS - Systems, methods and computer program products for determining costs of vehicle repairs and times to major repairs. In one embodiment, a system includes a computer processor, a data storage device, and an output device. The processor receives information from a user identifying a vehicle of interest. The processor retrieves repair data items that have characteristics common to the vehicle of interest from a database stored in the data storage device. The processor determines repairs that are expected to be necessary for the vehicle of interest based on the retrieved repair data items, and determines the costs associated with the identified expected repairs. The processor provides output to the user indicating the repair costs and/or the times at which the repairs are likely to be necessary. The output may be in graphical and/or numerical form. | 09-18-2014 |
20140279263 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PROVIDING PRODUCT RECOMMENDATIONS - Systems, methods and computer program products for providing recommendations to consumers, where the recommendations are based on determinations of similarity between desired products and recommended products. In one embodiment, a system includes a server computer coupled to a network and a data store. The server computer receives from client devices user input that identifies the characteristics of a desired product. The data store contains a plurality of product listings. For each of a set of these listings, the server computer identifies characteristics of the listed product, and compares characteristics of the listed product to characteristics of the desired product. The server computer determines similarity measures for the individual characteristics, and determines an overall similarity score for the listed product based on the similarity measures for the individual characteristics. The server computer orders the listed products based on the similarity scores, and provides a recommendation output to the user. | 09-18-2014 |
20140279258 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DETERMINING COST OF VEHICLE OWNERSHIP - Systems and methods for estimating the cost of vehicle ownership wherein, in one embodiment, a system includes a computer processor that is coupled to a network interface, a data storage device and an output device, the processor being configured to receive information identifying a user-specified vehicle of interest and interval of interest. The processor uses this information to identify and retrieve pre-calculated data items that are stored in the data storage device, and to request external data items from an external data source and receive the requested external data items via the network interface. The processor computes cost-of-vehicle-ownership (COVO) components for the vehicle of interest, sums the components to determine an overall COVO, and outputs the components and overall COVO to a user via the output device. The user may provide further input to modify the COVO calculation. | 09-18-2014 |
20140244424 | DYNAMIC VEHICLE PRICING SYSTEM, METHOD AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT THEREFOR - Embodiments provide consumers browsing and shopping online for durable goods such as new vehicles with pricing information for user-specified vehicle configurations based at least in part on dynamic, user-centric local regions that can be any shape. A local region may initially center around or start from user-provided geo-specific information and be refined using criteria such as distance, demographics, buying behaviors, etc. The system can leverage data from the finest level of granularity available and dynamically determine multiple, potentially overlapping, local regions which can be user-specific, product-specific, or both. A pricing model may incorporate the data within a dynamic local region thus determined. The parameters of the pricing model may be weighted utilizing a weighting function that can be dynamically adapted to individual users as well as specific vehicles. The pricing model may provide for pricing information that is not limited or constrained by standard administrative or political boundaries. | 08-28-2014 |
20140222519 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR THE ANALYSIS OF PRICING DATA INCLUDING PRICING FLEXIBILITY FOR VEHICLES AND OTHER COMMODITIES - Embodiments disclosed herein can provide consumers with an effective tool for evaluating the negotiability of prices for vehicles in the marketplace. The tool may include a negotiability index which determines flexibility in vehicle pricing. Specifically, a method may obtain data from multiple sets of vehicle models, construct a price flexibility model to estimate an average price range for each set of models, determine a negotiability index using the average price range, and generate an interface to present the negotiability index. In one embodiment, the price flexibility model incorporates a plurality of factors. | 08-07-2014 |
20140214696 | Wholesale/Trade-In Pricing System, Method and Computer Program Product Therefor - Systems, methods and computer program products that determine wholesale prices for durable goods such as used vehicles. In one embodiment, a system includes a computer processor, a network interface, a data storage device, and an output device. The system collects and stores, via the network interface, historical sales information from external data sources. A retail price for a target vehicle is determined based on the collected information. Condition information for the vehicle is collected and used to adjust the retail price to arrive at a wholesale price, which is output to a user. The system may also adjust the price based on repair costs associated with identified vehicle conditions. The system may collect cost information associated with a wholesale sale transaction and deduct these costs and a profit margin from the wholesale price to produce a trade-in price. | 07-31-2014 |
20140214491 | Out-the-Door Pricing System, Method and Computer Program Product Therefor - Embodiments provide consumers browsing and shopping online for durable goods such as new vehicles with out-the-door prices for user-specified vehicle configurations. A vehicle data system can obtain automotive registration data from various sources, identify true taxes versus fees, process them into separate groups, associate them to vehicle configurations, and persist the associated taxes and fees in a database. This backend process can be done offline, independent of a frontend process that services user requests in real time. A user request containing a user-specified vehicle configuration may be received by the vehicle data system through a website. The vehicle data system may determine an out-the-door price for the user-specified vehicle configuration, the out-the-door price representing a final amount that a consumer is to pay a dealer for the user-specified vehicle configuration and including applicable taxes and fees retrieved from the database. | 07-31-2014 |
20140188558 | SUBSCRIPTION PRICING SYSTEM, METHOD AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT THEREFOR - A method for subscription pricing may include estimating a number of leads to be provided by an entity to a dealer in a dealer network associated with the entity; estimating a price per lead based at least in part on the estimated number of leads; determining a preliminary subscription price for the dealer based on the estimated number of leads and the estimated price per lead; and applying one or more decision rules imposing one or more constraints to the preliminary subscription price to thereby determine a final subscription price for the dealer. The one or more decision rules may be applied depending upon whether the dealer is a potential subscriber member or an existing member of the dealer network associated with the entity. | 07-03-2014 |
20140180882 | PAY-PER-SALE SYSTEM, METHOD AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT THEREFOR - A vehicle sales matching system may include a vehicle sales lead data database, a vehicle sales information database, and a sales matching system embodied on a non-transitory computer readable medium and communicatively connected to the vehicle sales lead data database and the vehicle sales information database. The vehicle sales lead data may include validated customer data and third party customer data. The vehicle sales information may include sales data from vehicle dealers, third party data extract services, and third party sales data sources. The sales matching system may be configured for applying one or more matching rules for matching a vehicle sales lead from the vehicle sales lead database to a vehicle sale from the vehicle sales information database. | 06-26-2014 |
20140136550 | SYSTEM, METHOD AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT FOR DECODING VEHICLE IDENTIFICATION NUMBERS - A vehicle identification number (VIN) decoder (VDC) implementing a unique VIN decoding method may, for a given VIN, shorten the VIN and form a stem and a leaf therefrom. Utilizing the stem, the VDC may operate to find matching leaf values, if any, from a set of look up tables. Depending upon a match outcome, one or more trim identification code (TIC) values can be assigned to the VIN and a candidate list can be constructed utilizing the assigned TIC value(s). The candidate list, which can be optimized, may contain one or more candidate trims for the VIN. For each candidate trim, a confidence score and a match probability can be generated. The VDC may provide decoded information containing trim data associated with at least one of the one or more candidate trims for the VIN to a client device over a network connection. | 05-15-2014 |
20140129290 | SYSTEM, METHOD AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT FOR PREDICTING ITEM PREFERENCE USING REVENUE-WEIGHTED COLLABORATIVE FILTER - Embodiments disclosed provide a system, method, and computer program product for identifying consumer items more likely to be bought by an individual user. In some embodiments, a collaborative filter may be used to rank items based on the degree to which they match user preferences. The collaborative filter may be hierarchical and may take various factors into consideration. Example factors may include the similarity among items based on observable features, a summary of aggregate online search behavior across multiple users, the item features determined to be most important to the individual user, and a baseline item against which a conditional probability of another item being selected is measured. | 05-08-2014 |
20140114726 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ANALYSIS AND PRESENTATION OF USED VEHICLE PRICING DATA - Systems and methods for the aggregation, analysis, and display of data for used vehicles are disclosed. Historical transaction data for used vehicles may be obtained and processed to determine pricing data, where this determined pricing data may be associated with a particular configuration of a vehicle. The user can then be presented with an interface pertinent to the vehicle configuration utilizing the aggregated data set or the associated determined data where the user can make a variety of determinations. This interface may, for example, be configured to present the historical transaction data visually, with the pricing data such as a trade-in price, a list price, an expected sale price or range of sale prices, market low sale price, market average sale price, market high sale price, etc. presented relative to the historical transaction data. | 04-24-2014 |
20140089046 | System, Method and Computer Program Product for Demand-Weighted Selection of Sales Outlets - In embodiments disclosed herein, a computer may operate to determine, for each member in a set and each non-member under consideration for the set, an expected revenue to be passed to an organization. The expected revenue may be determined utilizing a plurality of weighted features. Members in the set may be ranked according to their expected revenues. Top performing members in the set may be protected to ensure their expected revenues. Bottom performing members may be removed from the set and/or replaced with new members outside of geographical protective areas of the top performing members. The optimization process can be repeated until the set of members can satisfy an existing demand and/or revenue for the organization is maximized. | 03-27-2014 |
20140074553 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CONSTRUCTING SPATIALLY CONSTRAINED INDUSTRY-SPECIFIC MARKET AREAS - Disclosed is a new methodology for defining fixed industry-specific market areas (ISMAs). A system implementing an ISMA construction algorithm may extract relevant primary geographic polygon (PGP) data and operate to optimize a predefined industry-specific objective function, given relevant constraints such as the spatial relationships between PGPs and their adjacencies, industry-specific constraints such as the number of sales, and non-industry-specific constraints such as median household income. A PGP represents an undividable geographic administrative unit such as counties, states, Census tracts, 5-digit or 3-digit ZIP Codes, etc. A set of ISMAs may be constructed using a hierarchical PGP merging process in which PGPs are merged iteratively until a stopping condition is met. An iterative PGP swapping process may be employed to adjust the outcome from the hierarchical PGP merging process to achieve the best possible outcome for the objective function. | 03-13-2014 |
20140058957 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR THE UTILIZATION OF PRICING MODELS IN THE AGGREGATION, ANALYSIS, PRESENTATION AND MONETIZATION OF PRICING DATA FOR VEHICLES AND OTHER COMMODITIES - Embodiments of systems and methods for the aggregation, analysis, display and monetization of pricing data for commodities in general, and which may be particularly useful applied to vehicles are disclosed. In certain embodiments, one or more models may be applied over a set of historical transaction data associated with a vehicle configuration to determine pricing data. Some models may leverage incremental data in various conditions, including cases where fewer than a desired number of historical transactions are present in the bin of a specified vehicle, where fewer than, equal to, or more than a certain number of list prices for the specified vehicle available, and where no historical transaction data for new models is available. | 02-27-2014 |
20140032272 | SYSTEM, METHOD AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT FOR PREDICTING VALUE OF LEAD - Embodiments disclosed herein provide a solution in determining a lead value and making an introduction accordingly. In some embodiments, in response to a consumer's search request for a retail item within a geographical area, a decision system may obtain from a local database a list of dealers capable of provisioning the retail item—such as a new or used vehicle—at various locations within the geographical area. For each dealer, the system may calculate a dealer score across a plurality of tests and set a dollar value to an introduction utilizing the dealer score associated therewith. The performance measures of the tests may be normalized and adjusted utilizing a set of coefficients. The list of dealers may be sorted per dollar value of introduction and presented to the consumer. To provide more accurate dealer evaluations, the system may periodically reset the set of coefficients using sales data. | 01-30-2014 |
20130311341 | Systems and Methods of Matching Purchase Requests with Consummated Sales - A sales matching system which may match sales of products or services with consummated sales by collecting selected leads from a group of lead suppliers, collecting a plurality of sales records from multiple sales sources, and matching at least some of the sales records to selected leads. The matches may be assigned a matching confidence, and may reach a threshold level of confidence to be considered a matched sale. The system may also generate invoices to selected sellers identifying invoice-able sales for which compensation may be obtained in exchange for providing leads giving rise thereto. | 11-21-2013 |
20130311319 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SALES GENERATION IN CONJUNCTION WITH A VEHICLE DATA SYSTEM - Embodiments of sales generation, including sales generation employing reverse lead generation using vehicle data systems and methods, are presented herein. In particular, in certain embodiments a user may utilize the vehicle data system to obtain pricing data corresponding to a desired vehicle configuration. When the user is presented with the pricing data associated with the specified vehicle configuration the user may additionally be presented with an upfront price offered by a dealer, where by providing their personal information the user may obtain the name of the dealer offering the upfront price and may additionally be offered the opportunity to purchase the desired, or similar, vehicle at the upfront price. | 11-21-2013 |
20130304571 | SYSTEM, METHOD AND COMPUTER PROGRAM FOR VARYING AFFILIATE POSITION DISPLAYED BY INTERMEDIARY - Endogenous and exogenous variables associated with an item for sale by an affiliate may be displayed to a user of an affiliate decision-making tool. In response to the user selecting one of the endogenous variables, the affiliate decision-making tool may compute a number of introductions, a number of leads, and a number of sales for each of a plurality of possible values of the endogenous variable. The computation may be done utilizing a display position algorithm. A visualization of effects of setting the endogenous variable at different levels may be presented. The user may interact with the display position algorithm to vary one or more of the plurality of possible values of the endogenous variable such that the affiliate is eligible or disqualified to be displayed by an intermediary in response to a search for the item by a visitor of a network site owned and operated by the intermediary. | 11-14-2013 |
20130018804 | System and Method for the Analysis of Pricing Data Including a Sustainable Price Range for Vehicles and Other Commodities - Embodiments disclosed herein can produce and present sustainable price information to help dealers to price vehicles for sustainability and facilitate consumers in making purchase decisions. In one approach, a sustainable price range for a specific vehicle configuration may be based on an average profit margin (APM) determined utilizing historical sale prices and an estimated actual dealer cost. Other approaches may utilize some or all of the following steps: determine APM and build a model of distribution of profit margins by APM, build a model to adjust APM by certain variables, identify sustainable levels for the inventory, production, and incentives variables feeding into the APM model, plug those in to get the averages for those sustainable levels, identify sustainable percentile cutoffs for a given profit margin, then use this relationship with the now identified sustainable levels as inputs to find the overall sustainable profit margin. | 01-17-2013 |
20130006916 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SELECTION, FILTERING OR PRESENTATION OF AVAILABLE SALES OUTLETS - Embodiments disclosed herein provide systems and methods for the filtering, selection and presentation of vendors accounting for both user characteristics and vendor characteristics, such that the systems and methods may be used by both customer and vendor alike to better match customer needs with the resource-constrained vendors with whom a successful sale has a higher probability of occurring. Embodiments may include filtering, selecting and/or presenting vendors to a user sorted by the probability that the particular vendor will possess the characteristics that appeal to a particular customer and therefore result in a large probability of sale and suppress presentation of those vendors that are unlikely to be selected by the customer since their characteristics are less consistent with those needed by the customer and, therefore, are unlikely to result in a sale. | 01-03-2013 |
20120259728 | System and Method for Sales Generation in Conjunction with a Vehicle Data System - Embodiments of sales generation, including sales generation employing reverse lead generation using vehicle data systems and methods, are presented herein. In particular, in certain embodiments a user may utilize the vehicle data system to obtain pricing data corresponding to a desired vehicle configuration. When the user is presented with the pricing data associated with the specified vehicle configuration the user may additionally be presented with an upfront price offered by a dealer, where by providing their personal information the user may obtain the name of the dealer offering the upfront price and may additionally be offered the opportunity to purchase the desired, or similar, vehicle at the upfront price. | 10-11-2012 |