The launch of our new Spinner technology achieves the goal of providing car buyers with a truly immersive and interactive experience that allows them to virtually tour vehicles online like never before. Below we share the story of how this cutting edge Carvana innovation came to life by providing a behind-the-scenes look courtesy of the creative and collaborative minds who made it all possible. Our story continues with Suhail B., the key engineering architect on the Carvana Spinner project.
TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK
In the several months leading up to the launch of Carvana’s all-new Spinner technology, Carvana teams from across the country worked together to efficiently align themselves in the execution of this radical new offering. The process of integrating these various teams was tackled by a number of individuals at Carvana, though there was perhaps no one more integral to that process than Suhail, the designated engineering architect for the Spinner project.
Upon Carvana’s acquisition of Car360, the company suddenly possessed powerful technology that included 3D analysis and machine learning that needed to be somehow integrated into the Carvana.com website. Suhail’s job was to take the Car360 technology from a prototype state to what he describes as a “fully fleshed out, functioning, testable, reusable, fast, efficient, web-facing product.”
“On a more granular level,” says Suhail, “it was my job to get the engineering that’s happening with our team in Atlanta to become more formalized under the processes that we established for the Carvana 2.0 project – which, along with the Spinner, includes a rebranding of the Carvana website and the Vehicle Details Pages (VDP).”
For Suhail, this included multiple trips to Atlanta to meet with the Spinner’s engineering team in person, not to mention constant remote correspondence with the Atlanta team to ensure the integration process was running smoothly and going according to plan.
“I would say the final two and a half to three months leading up to launch were probably the most intensive, as that’s when the Spinner really became a primary focus for everyone working on the project. During that period, there was full-blown focus on integration and ensuring the Spinner worked in concert with the VDP and the rest of the website.
“This project was really a big goal for us, so in a way, unofficially, the whole engineering organization has been dedicated to getting this project off the ground.”
Now that the project is complete, Suhail believes the new Spinner is particularly successful in “telling a story” about the vehicles that appear on Carvana.com, offering customers a new level of insight and peace of mind before they make the decision to purchase a vehicle online.
“We really tried to approach the challenge of immersing the customer in a virtual car buying experience from a scientific/computer science standpoint,” says Suhail.
“To the extent that we are really, truly trying to get into this 3D environment and doing whatever needs to be done to virtually immerse the customer in the vehicle they’re viewing, I don’t know that anybody else is doing that.”
