Amazon launches its vehicles product for research, not yet commerce (link). If you tie this together with Amazon’s recent hire of the ex Top Gear stars (Jeremy Clarkson, et al) for a new automotive show, it is clear something auto-related is afoot in South Lake Union. The next shoe to drop will be either a deeper commerce integration or something which shows their wider ambitions around the vehicle as a market — such as an investment or purchase of a vehicle fleet provider, and we know of one for sale.
In his must read weekly read newsletter on transportation, good friend Reilly Brennan connects the dots between Amazon’s efforts to sell cars and the hiring of ex-Top Gear Stars. Makes perfect sense to me – Jeff Bezos has been pushing commerce+content-advertising strategy for a long time. Amazon is almost always a harbinger of web trends.