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Of all the things we do here at The Drive, there’s one kind of story that’s particularly polarizing: deals. Judging by our inbox, some of you love them, and some of you consider them war crimes. And I get it. Everyone on the internet is trying to sell you something, including your friendly neighborhood car news site. At the same time, part of being a car person is buying a lot of stuff, and who doesn’t like saving money on crap?
To level with you, we post deals because it’s part of how we make money and keep the lights on as a free website. If you click a link on a deal we feature and buy the thing, we get a few cents. I believe an outlet like us doing a good job with this can be a really useful thing for our audience. But I’ll be the first to admit we haven’t always met that standard.
So we’re resetting our whole approach. Today, I’m proud to introduce The Drive’s DealEngine, an AI-powered bot we built to trawl Amazon.com for killer deals on products for car people. Craftsman tools. Bilstein shocks. Dometic fridges. Meguiar’s soap. Mobil 1 oil. Random parts like wheel hub assemblies. Every day, basically every hour, it’ll post those deals to a new X/Twitter account before they expire. We’d be grateful if you gave it a follow.
Screenshot
Why X and Amazon? They’re the easiest places to automate and test tech like this, because ultimately that’s what we’re after. We want to make a tool that does its thing for you on any platform, for any retailer, and this is just the first step. We might as well get something for enthusiasts out of AI, right? And if you don’t care about deals? Skip it. You can opt out of this whole endeavor.
It’s clear that just plopping a deal on the homepage and expecting you to care isn’t the way forward. We’ll still do those occasionally, but you come here for the news, car reviews, and culture stories. This project will help us keep those going, and hopefully prove its worth to you. Let us know what you think: feedback@thedrive.com.
As Editor-in-Chief, Kyle draws on 15 years of newsroom experience and a lifelong passion for cars to shape The Drive’s singular approach to automotive news.
