DETROIT -- TrueCar Inc. expects participating dealerships to sell 400,000 vehicles this year from the shopping site, up 60 percent from the 2012 total, CEO Scott Painter said last week.
TrueCar now has 6,600 participating franchises and is adding more to expand geographic coverage, Painter said.
That's a far cry from early 2012, when regulatory woes caused TrueCar's network of franchises to fall from about 5,600 to a low of about 3,200.
Today, TrueCar is profitable, Painter said, and participating dealerships are earning more from TrueCar leads. Average gross profit on those sales has risen $100 per new vehicle to $350 today, from $250 a year and a half ago, he said.
"We've shifted our [marketing] emphasis from offering the lowest price to the consumer not overpaying," Painter said in an interview here.
Painter engineered a transformation of TrueCar in 2012 after the company had to suspend operations in several states temporarily to fix regulatory concerns about TrueCar advertising and pricing practices. The company lost $75 million in 2012 on revenue of about $85 million, he said.