Inside the Auction World: Trust, Tech & EV Transitions with Joel Beck

In this episode, special guest host Jamye Carpenter, VP of Customer Success at Privacy4Cars, sits down with Joel Beck, Director of Auction Sales at Red Mountain Technologies. They explore the evolution of vehicle history reporting and how Red Mountain’s AutoCheck product helps maintain transparency and trust in the auction world—particularly in guarding against odometer fraud and other risks. Joel shares insights on the complexities of battery health in electric vehicles, why insurance companies are struggling to keep pace with technological change, and how regulations and legacy systems are slowing innovation in the insurance industry. Plus, Joel reflects on what makes the auction industry feel like a family and why long-standing relationships matter in a rapidly shifting landscape.

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Transcript

Angela Simoes:

Welcome everyone to the Mile Marker podcast. My name is Angela Simoes. I'm your host and I'm here with my co-host, Jamie Carpenter, VP of Customer Success for Privacy for Cars. Welcome, Jamie.

Jamye Carpenter:

Thank you for having me.

Angela Simoes:

And our guest is Joel Beck, director of Auction Sales for Red Mountain. Welcome, Joel.

Joel Beck:

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Angela Simoes:

So give our listeners a little bit of background about yourself. How did you get into auctions, and then tell us a little bit about Red Mountain as well.

Joel Beck:

Okay, so a lot of people, I kind of fell into this industry when I finished college. I had to get a job. My first job was with auction access. Some of your listeners may know about those guys, but that was my first job in the industry and I've really just been there forever. I worked also with our insurance company doing payment and title insurance for wholesale auto auctions. And then a few years ago, Jamie hired me to come on the team at Red Mountain Technologies where we do the auto check auctions, vehicle history product.

Angela Simoes:

Got it. And so tell us a little bit about the AutoCheck product and because that's all about vehicle history and that certainly has, I think almost become standard now. No one's going to buy a car without vehicle history now. So how did that evolve and why was it so important? Is it so important?

Joel Beck:

Well, it evolved out of a need for the auctions to be able to see data from each other in an effort to, I guess, police themselves against dishonest car dealers. And so years ago there was an issue in the auctions with odometers and rollbacks and dealers buying cars from one auction and taking it to the next one, not really disclosing everything about it and making money that wasn't necessarily honest. And so that became a problem for the auctions. It became a bad reputation that the auctions had. And so using our vehicle history service, the auctions are able to send us their announcements and then the dealer or me the other auctions are able to see those because they're uploaded in real time and police themselves against those particular

Angela Simoes:

Issues. So the stereotype of the used car salesman, there's actually a little bit of truth to that historically it sounds like. I hate

Joel Beck:

To say for us. Right.

Angela Simoes:

Yeah. Yeah. And so what kind of changes have you seen in the industry over the past few years when it comes to vehicle history?

Joel Beck:

Well, to start with the electric vehicles, we are trying to work together that data with our partners at Experian. It's going pretty well, but the battery part of it has been a little bit of a road bump. Otherwise the vehicles aren't much different. So there's still a lot of the same type of data points that you would get from a electric vehicle or a gas vehicle. But it seems that the industry is really concentrating on the battery health and how can

Angela Simoes:

We, and that's kind of hard from vehicle to vehicle. It's a little different. So how do you give it a rating when batteries can be different?

Joel Beck:

And there's so many factors that can affect the battery, whether it's weather or how the driver drove it, just many different factors. And so how can we measure that? Battery health has been more of a problem to try to figure out, but it sounds like they're getting close and we can't wait because we're going to be able to plug that into the auto check vehicle history report and bring a lot of value for the auctions that way.

Jamye Carpenter:

And I can speak for my own EV that I've now owned it for going on four years and it was used and the weather plays a huge part. We had a colder winter this year than normal, and I'm so glad that the warmer temps are here because my battery's already lasting a little longer.

Angela Simoes:

Yeah, I will say so I also drive an ev, and it always is kind of frustrating when you do a full charge, you one day and then you do a full charge a different time, and the amount of miles you get on a full charge can vary. And like you said, Joel, it depends on how you drive it, how far you drove between fuelings, if you'll chargings I should say. So yeah, there's so many factors and it can be a frustrating experience. It's not like an ice vehicle where, okay, if I fill my tank, I'm going to get X amount of miles on it.

Joel Beck:

That's right. And even the way you charge it can affect it too. The superchargers charge 'em quickly, but there's some new studies coming out saying that that's damaging your battery. So I think we're stumbling through it, but we're going to find

Angela Simoes:

It. So here at Carr, at the conference today or this week actually, what are some of the things that you are excited about as far as topics being addressed or people you're hoping to meet with? Because it's an annual conference, everybody's talking about the future. So what are you excited

Joel Beck:

About? Well, for me, it's just an opportunity to finally see everybody again, starting off the new year, our trip to NADA was because of the snowstorm, and so we didn't get a chance to see everybody. So it's been five months or so since our last event. So just kind of seeing all the friends and the relationships and getting to check in with everybody is what I was looking forward to. And a little bit of sunny San Diego weather.

Angela Simoes:

I will say a similarity between this conference and aflo, which is a pretty focused on fleet. These are I guess smaller conferences than some of the massive conferences, tech conferences. And it's like a little family reunion, which is hilarious.

Joel Beck:

Absolutely. It is that way for me too. And that's probably one of the things I enjoy most about this industry is it doesn't change much. I mean, it does change a lot, but the people tend to stay the same. And over the years I've been able to really develop some great friendships. And so the first thing that would always come to mind with that question would be getting to see all my friends, including Jamie.

Angela Simoes:

What would you say is the biggest learning you've had over the last few years, whether it's auction specific related or technology or just industry like, oh my gosh, I've seen this happen in the industry.

Joel Beck:

I'm not sure I have a great answer for that question of what I have learned. I know being in this industry now for almost 18 years, whether it started out as a customer service representative to now being a sales director, is that the auctions are, they all work real hard. They all work real hard to be successful. And whatever we try to do to serve them is appreciated and helpful. And I spent a lot of time, whether it was helping not lose money when I was in my insurance days to providing vehicle history. ServiceNow is if you can do the right things, then everybody will appreciate that. And hard work. Hard work is certainly something that they look for and appreciate working hard.

Angela Simoes:

Can I ask an insurance related question? Would that be

Joel Beck:

Sure. We'll

Angela Simoes:

See if you have an answer. Okay.

Joel Beck:

So our insurance was a little different than most insurances, but I can give it a shot.

Angela Simoes:

Okay. So speaking of insurance, things have been changing so much in the industry from how people are purchasing vehicles. Sometimes they want a longer term lease. Now there's these vehicle subscriptions and how does insurance work for that? And then even on the fleet side, there's different business models. They're evolving. So given that you have a little bit of history insurance, any observations you've made there now that you're on the auction side on how the evolution of the market, whether that's because of EVs, whether that's just because of, I guess the market and maybe inflation and prices going up for everything. How has the insurance aspect been affected by things?

Joel Beck:

Well, so auto insurance is not doing well. They haven't been doing well for a couple of years. I think that it's because the price of vehicles is going up and with all the technology that's advancing in these vehicles, there's so many more things that can go wrong with it. And those things are becoming more and more expensive. For example, if your vehicle's in a accident and your front windshield is affected, there's sensors and all kinds of things that go into that windshield that have to be recalibrated and made sure that they're working correctly. And the price of just replacing that windshield is not what it used to be. And so the insurance companies are not being able to keep up with how much more expensive everything's gotten while at the same time trying to keep their rates low because everybody's going to complain when their auto rate goes up.

Angela Simoes:

I'm hearing some chuckles over here, Jamie, so I think you have some

Jamye Carpenter:

Thought. Yes. Well, I was laughing because I will say, even when I was in Joel's position, and not only do we work with auctions, but we also work with insurance companies as well, and they are the slowest to adopt technology and they need it the most. It's a little frustrating because we offer a great solution and a great tool that would help them with rating, but they don't have the money to focus on technology. And it's just strange. And it's weird to me that they are, people think automotive is slow, no insurance is the slowest industry There is.

Angela Simoes:

And I was going to ask you why you think that is? You mentioned that they don't have the investment to make the funds, and it's primarily it would be a software investment, right? Correct. You need the systems and then to plug in. So I mean, is it that they're just holding onto their legacy systems and there's nothing, I mean with AI coming on board, there should be, oh, let's make this faster and easier. Right.

Jamye Carpenter:

Well, I think to that point, they have to redo their internal systems before they can even take in an API. So it's like they've got to invest in that, and then it's like you'll be on the list and you'll be next, but that next could be two years. It could take that long for them to just do the internal work to be able to plug in those tools that could really help them with, and a lot of it has to do with rating, right? If they can rate better, then they can afford to make the payouts or to change that windshield without the consumer taking the bulk of that. I know, and you probably know they don't even know how to price it yet.

Angela Simoes:

Wow. It just seems so bizarre that and coming from somebody who's not in the auction industry or the insurance industry, that it would take that long given cloud-based applications or AI coming onto the scene. And I mean it just,

Joel Beck:

Well, not to get the government involved, but another big problem and big hurdle pain point that they have is the department of insurance in each state and the regulation that goes along with it. Those things are all reviewed. So if an insurance company wants to add a new rating variable into their underwriting process, that has to be approved through the state. And so now you're at the mercy of the state and different states operate at different speeds and have different opinions on what should or shouldn't be used to rate for a new driver. So there's so much more that goes into it. So it's not just a heavy lift for 'em financially, it's also a heavy lift for 'em with process

Jamye Carpenter:

Wise,

Joel Beck:

With their process. Yeah,

Jamye Carpenter:

And that's so true. I was going to mention that as well, but I was like, is this going to turn into something that is government related? We don't want to go down that path. No, we don't.

Angela Simoes:

I was going to say, maybe we want to stick Elon Musk on them with Doge and make them efficient insurance government, right. Insurance efficiency. He probably cut all of the team that makes the

Jamye Carpenter:

Regulations.

Angela Simoes:

He might just fire all of them and start from scratch, right? That's

Jamye Carpenter:

Right. Yeah. Good.

Angela Simoes:

Well, thank you for joining us. I hope you have a good show and that you have the reunion and make the connections that you're looking to connect with. So thank you for joining us.

Joel Beck:

No, yeah, thank you guys. And it's an honor to get to sit in with y'all.

Angela Simoes:

Thank you so much. Bye.