The economic happiness we’ve all enjoyed for the better part of the decade has helped North America’s truck manufacturing and service industry grow into one of the biggest bulls at the county fair. These days, new truck sales generate $20 billion US in revenue a year, and $750 million in new truck gross profit. Parts sales yield around $14 billion annually, service labor another $20 billion. These are Grade A Prime times.

But to Marc Gustafson, president and CEO of Volvo Trucks North America, one word-Autobytel.com-flaps around like a red flag. It’s both a warning and signal to charge. In case you haven’t heard, Autobytel.com (Autobytel.ca in Canada) is one of the bellwethers of e-commerce-a way of combining information and network technology to generate sales. The four-year-old company is using the Internet to help people shop for and buy cars. Other services on the Internet act as conduits for traditional car sales by merely posting dealer Web sites and leading customers into the traditional car sales scenario-so despised by customers that it’s the reason they’re shopping at arm’s length in the first place.

Autobytel gives you point-and-click access to as much information as you can digest about nearly every make and model of car you’d find on a dealer lot-including MSRP, dealer invoice, and option pricing. Once you’ve made your choice, you submit information about the make, model, and other relevant information to Autobytel via its Web site.

The company hands off the data to one of its 2700 accredited dealers, which, if all goes according to plan, locates the car you want and phones within 24 hours with a no-haggle price. You go to the dealership, and if you like what you see, you arrange to buy the vehicle. You can also apply for leasing, financing, warranties, mechanical breakdown coverage, a rewards program, insurance, even aftermarket items through Autobytel’s Web site.

The company says emphatically that it is not a brokerage: it doesn’t charge dealers on a per-car or per-customer basis, nor is there a charge to shop at Autobytel.com.

“What they do well is arm the customer to the teeth with information so he can do his own legwork whenever or wherever he feels like it,” says Gustafson. “That turns the tables on the traditional customer-dealer sales relationship in two ways. First, you don’t have to spend your weekends running around to car dealerships, because you view data online and then ask Autobytel to have the dealer call on you. Second, when you do go to visit the dealer, there’s no veil of secrecy on price: everyone knows the real cost of the car. That eliminates the negotiating ritual that makes most shoppers feel uneasy.”

That’s good, he says, because the customer will feel better about coming to the dealer for other things if a level of openness exists. But there’s a flip side.

So far, Autobytel seems limited only by the number of vehicles it can offer to voracious Internet shoppers. The company processes over 100,000 purchase requests for new cars each month in the U.S. and Canada, and receives over a million inquiries for used vehicles. It’s a virtual sales lot where cars actually do move fast, often selling within hours of being posted.

The question Gustafson and others are left to ponder is this: how long before Autobytel-or a company like it-picks up the scent of the heavy-truck market? After all, business-to-business commerce dominates economic activity on the Internet. This year, companies buying from other companies will account for $17 billion of the total $21.8 billion in Net transactions (excluding financial services), according to Forrester Research. On-line business-to-business sales will surpass $300 billion by 2002.

As they scan the water for fins darting toward them, truck OEMs are bracing for the day when pricing becomes transparent-as customers start cutting into that $750-million margin with all the precision of a shark frenzy.

“We’re looking at a situation where margins on new truck transactions would begin a downward spiral stopping at the lowest common denominator,” Gustafson says. “Deal money associated with individual transactions would disappear. Dealers would be forced to greatly reduce their focus on new truck sales in favor of aftersale service.”

Until now, the specter of an Autobytel for heavy trucks was unthinkable. A third party stood little chance of compiling the depth and breadth of information a buyer needs in order to spec and purchase heavy trucks online, on their own. There are too many product options to track, and reducing those options would mean reducing customer choice.

But that’s changing. Truck OEMs and component suppliers are moving toward a more modular approach to building a vehicle, integrating powertrain components and on-board electronics, for example. Programs like Navistar International’s DiamondSpec offer customers pre-determined specs designed for specific trucking applications. The options are being reduced.

“For 10 or 15 years, we’ve worked really hard to eliminate the middle man from the deal so we can have a more direct, face-to-face connection with our customers,” says Derek Kaufman, president of Ada, Mich.-based C3Network and a consultant on e-commerce. “Integrated components, vocation-driven packages of specs, a more streamlined order book-these OEM initiatives are opening the door for the middle man and grooming heavy-truck customers for a point-and-click approach to buying.”

Furthermore, dealer networks have been protected by the entry barriers of sizeable investments in facilities and tools. In the information age, those barriers to entry are eroding. Trucks are evolving to the point where service records are stored on-board and prognostic information is readily available to anyone with the tools to extract it-someone other than the truck dealer, component providers, or OEMs.

“Add financing, insurance, a used-truck pool, warranty data, and so on,” Kaufman says, “and you can have an Internet service that looks remarkably similar to Autobytel.”

Won’t happen? Take a look at E-steel.com, a place where you can buy steel, broker steel, or sell steel all within the bounds of one Web site. “Who would have thought that steel companies would put their product online in one marketplace?” Kaufman asks.

Several truck OEMs have shored up and tried to personalize the level of customer service they can offer, while at the same time forging stronger electronic bonds with their customers. And more dramatic changes are in the offing to try to meet the sales, service, and information needs of truck fleets. Two bear special attention:

o Guaranteed availability-and the service to back it up-will drive sales. In lieu of transactions based on miles used, truck makers will instead sell guaranteed vehicle uptime. “That, my friends, will necessitate a very comprehensive and highly computerized support method and supply chain program,” says Freightliner Corp. president and CEO Jim Hebe. “Probably nothing we can do to truck design will do as much to affect truckers’ bottom lines as ensuring vehicle systems and their service, uptime, and performance.”

Like Hebe, Volvo’s Gustafson talks of offering a truck with a “sealed hood,” noting that truckers value the use of trucks, not the need to fix them. If a vehicle breaks down or needs routine maintenance, the OEM would simply supply you with a replacement.

o OEMs are wiring into fleet operations wherever possible. Companies are using Internet technology to process EDI transactions over the Internet for a fraction of the cost of a dedicated network. For example, in 1997, Volvo established a corporate intranet-a network accessible only to the company hosting it and that company’s designated business partners-to speed the flow of information among the truck maker, its nearly 200 dealers, and industry suppliers. The company’s Volvo Action Service program brings a human voice to the electronic connection.

Gustafson is the first to admit that setting up the intranet was arduous, requiring lots of co-ordination on technology, security, and process issues.

But the rewards have been considerable. Volvo dealers can tap into the company’s financing system to process a credit application within hours. They can order parts more quickly and accurately. Vehicle repair histories are instantly available to any dealership: a technician in Toronto can see how a repair was diagnosed in Houston and what was done to correct it.

The system doesn’t have to be so centralized. Earlier this year, Paccar Inc. established a simple network connection that lets Kenworth and Peterbilt dealerships monitor the ebb and flow of the parts inventory at a trucker’s shop. Each part has a bar code that’s scanned when the item gets picked. When the shop is getting low on, say, oil filters, the dealer can send a passel on over well in advance of a request from the shop floor or an oily-handed mechanic.

“It’s not complicated,” says Jim Biederweiden, director of operations at Inland Kenworth in Langley, B.C., “and probably not much different than how a supermarket keeps track of how much milk it’s sold. But it’s helped us pick up parts business we would not otherwise have, it keeps the contact between the local dealer and the local customer alive. And it’s free: we even supply the PC.”

Derek Kaufman believes this kind of interaction will become typical: dealers as a point of human contact, but wired into their customers’ businesses wherever possible. “I don’t believe that dealers will sell as many trucks in the future, I believe they will provide service continuity,” he says. “Don’t underestimate the value in that. People still want a handshake at the end of the deal. They want real people to connect with. They want personal attention.

“But they also expect those service reps to have the information they need at their fingertips,” Kaufman notes. “Their eyes are opening up to the kind of value that electronic interaction can bring, just in what they do every day. And they’re eager to adopt right now.”