Anyone who has sold a used car in India or tried to claim insurance after a minor accident, knows the argument. Was that scratch already there? Did the dealer record the dent prior to the test drive? Mercedes-Benz might have just come up with a solution to settle that debate before it even begins, with its new XENTRY Vehicle Scanner which is now operating at a Landmark Cars dealership in Jogeshwari West, Mumbai. This is the first automated vehicle scanner of its kind that uses artificial intelligence to scan cars in India.
How It Actually Works
Instead of a service advisor walking around a car with a clipboard, the owner simply drives through a scanner bay fitted with 13 cameras and a LiDAR sensor. The system takes approximately 150 images from all angles in 4-5 seconds. These are then fed into AI which identifies scratches, dents, tyre wear, and underbody issues including distinguishing between an oil leak and a water leak which a hurried manual check might overlook. The full report is available in approximately 8 minutes and is attached to the service record.
What Is the Relevance of This Beyond the Workshop?
The obvious use case is faster and more consistent service inspections. The more intriguing part for Indian owners, however, is what this data trail might hold for them in the future, outside the workshop. Disagreements over undocumented pre-existing damage are common in the used-car market in India and in the insurance claims process which can sometimes be a battle of words between two parties. Whether it’s a buyer asking for a car’s history before entering into a resale transaction, or an owner establishing that a dent was not present before an accident claim, a digital, time-stamped condition record created each time the car enters for service can resolve these issues.
A Bigger Shift in After-Sales
The scanner is part of Mercedes-Benz’s ongoing efforts to make the ownership experience more transparent and digitised in India which the brand has been testing on the sales side. The technology is not new in the world, it is already in use in Germany, Italy, Korea, Netherlands, Switzerland, and Turkey. The Indian rollout is significant because of the market it is entering: a market where the lack of documentation on the condition of the vehicle has financial implications for the owner.
If it’s rolled out to more than one Mumbai location, it could be one of the more useful tech features that Mercedes-Benz has introduced in India, not for its ability to detect a scratch sooner, but because it provides the owner with something to point to when it counts.
