By Adam Clark

Amazon.com is now selling vehicles on its U.S. website. That brings more competition for Carvana and CarMax, but the challenge is limited for now.

Amazon on Tuesday opened access to Amazon Autos, an e-commerce business selling vehicles for customers in 48 U.S. cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co. is the exclusive partner for the launch. Amazon is currently offering only new Hyundai vehicles.

"We continue to add more Hyundai dealerships, and next year, we will roll out additional manufacturers, brands, cities, and new functionality, " Amazon said in a blog post.

The moves shouldn't come as a surprise: Amazon said late last year that it was planning to move into vehicle sales. That might account for the lack of much response in rival car vendors' stocks, with Carvana up 0.2% in early trading and CarMax dropping 0.5%.

Apart from the limited brand selection, another limitation of Amazon Autos is that for now it is only selling new vehicles. Amazon said it would add functionality such as leasing and expanded financing options at a later date. However, it does offer trade-ins.

Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@barrons.com

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December 10, 2024 10:17 ET (15:17 GMT)

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