We're Building the First AI-Native Dealership Group
A combination auto retail has never had on one team — a world-class engineering team with decades of building automotive technology companies, working side-by-side with a dealer principal who owns and runs dealerships himself. That combination is the magic.
Dealerships Weren't Built for This Era. They were optimized for transactions — not intelligence or experience.
Excessive Headcount
Repetitive admin across sales, service, and accounting slows everything down and inflates SG&A.
Disconnected Systems
CRMs, F&I, and DMS don't talk to each other — creating blind spots, rework, and inconsistent experiences.
Incomplete Data
Data is fragmented across platforms. Nobody has a complete picture of what is actually happening.
Lagging Indicators
Reports show up after problems arise. There is no real-time view into what is happening in the store.
Consumer Distrust
From sales to F&I to service, customers expect transparency but get confusion — killing retention and upsell.
Customers Pay the Price
All of this inefficiency lands on the customer — in time, in friction, in the experience itself. It is why people dread buying cars.
Dealerships aren't lacking tools. They're lacking integrated data, real-time visibility, and execution systems.
A Dealership, Built Around AI From Day One
AI lowers the cost of running the operation. The savings get reinvested back into the customer experience. Happy customers and a healthy business are the side effects.
In every operation
Not a feature bolted on. The operating system every employee, every department, every decision runs on — from day one.
The one customers actually want
Less friction. More transparency. No pressure. The car buying experience the industry should have delivered a decade ago.
Savings flow back to the customer
Modern technology lowers the cost of running the dealership. What we save gets reinvested into the experience — not the bottom line.
We Built Our Own AI Platform
Built in-house. Proven in our own stores. Released to every dealership willing to deliver a better experience.
Build
In-house, by a world-class engineering team.
Prove
In our own dealerships, in production, every day.
Release
To the broader market — for every dealership that wants in.
The mission isn't complete until every customer gets the car buying and ownership experience they deserve.So we're opening up the tools we're building — not someday, but as we prove each one inside our own dealerships.
For dealerships inquiring about the platform.
“To deliver the car buying experience customers actually want — by putting AI at the core of every dealership operation.”
For decades, automotive technology has lived in two silos. Tech companies build the software but never run the dealership. Dealer groups run the dealership but never build the software. The seam between them is where customer experience falls through.
This is the first time anyone has actually put both on the same team. A world-class engineering team with decades of building automotive technology companies — the founders of CarWoo, leaders from TrueCar and Springboard Retail — working in the same building, on the same problems, alongside a dealer principal who owns and runs dealerships himself and has spent twenty years on the floor. That combination has, simply, never existed in auto retail before. We're it.
The benefits compound fast. Engineering ships a feature → the operator deploys it on the service drive the same afternoon. The operator finds a process gap → engineering rewrites the underlying system that week. Nobody is designing for a hypothetical customer; the customer is us. No consultant in the middle. No translation tax. No “let me check with my dealer council.” A feedback loop measured in hours, not quarters.
That's the magic. A dealer principal brings discipline software can't fake. Engineers bring leverage headcount can't match. Together we build technology that actually works on the dealership floor — and a dealership that actually compounds with technology. AI at the center of everything we do, applied by people who've lived both sides.
Starting in Los Angeles.
Building From There.
Eventually, axleauto.ai is where you buy your next car — backed by the only dealer group built around AI from day one.
The First Three Stores
Coming Soon
Our first store, live and operating on the platform today.
Running on AxleAuto.ai
Coming Soon
A second Los Angeles store, with the deal underway now.
Acquisition in progress
Coming Soon
A third store joining the group — identity disclosed soon.
Target 2026
Identities disclosed soon
One Team. Both Sides of the Floor.
Founders who've shipped automotive technology at scale, and a dealer principal who's spent two decades owning and running dealerships — same building, same problems, same team.
Tommy McClung
Co-founder & CEO. Previously co-founder/CTO of CarWoo, CEO of Release.
Victor Oh
President, Dealership Operations. Dealer principal and owner with 20+ years running and owning dealerships.
Jay Stotz
Co-founder & CTO. Previously CTO at Springboard Retail.
Erik Landerholm
Co-founder & CPO. Previously co-founder/CTO of CarWoo, SVP Software Engineering at TrueCar.
David Giffin
Head of Infrastructure. Previously SVP Technology at TrueCar, Head of Search at Etsy.
Reimagining Auto Retail
Building the first AI-native dealership group. If that's a story you want to be part of — investor, partner, or future hire — let's talk.
Live demo · no sales call · ~30s to your phone