Eric Frehsée and his Capture Automotive team in Southfield do what traditional dealers can’t — sell, lease, and rent vehicles to competitive OEMs for benchmark testing.
There are a handful of companies automakers and suppliers call when they need competitive vehicles to compare and contrast while developing their own products.
One of those is Capture Automotive, which a decade ago began supplying vehicles to clients that wanted to inspect new models for a few months at a time. Part of The Tamaroff Group in Southfield, which has been selling vehicles of multiple brands in metro Detroit since 1969, Capture Automotive was a classic case of listening and reacting to the needs of the marketplace.
“We were doing this for about a year when I asked this guy to explain the business model to me,” says Eric Frehsée, president of The Tamaroff Group. “It seemed like a good business, so we gave it a try.”
Capture Automotive started with one employee working out of the back of Tamaroff’s Nissan showroom and has since expanded to 12 employees. Today, the team deals with thousands of vehicles each year and operates out of a 10,000-square-foot former dealership service center on the Tamaroff lot.
The building houses 6,000 square feet of fleet garage space, a 1,500-square-foot studio, and 2,500 square feet of office space.
“I love the brands we represent (through the Tamaroff dealerships), but I love all cars, and
I love technology,” Frehsée says. “For me, starting this business was an opportunity to have the ability to touch, feel, and smell every single product that’s out there.”
According to Frehsée, the Capture Automotive business has changed quite a bit in recent years.
“When we started, there was some heavy-duty benchmarking on transmissions, and engines and suspensions,” he says. “Now, it’s more technology they’re testing.
“Let’s say they’re benchmarking the time it takes for the navigation screen to turn on and populate when you hit the start button on a new vehicle. They might want to test 10 different vehicles, benchmark all that data, then try to beat that.”
The push toward electric vehicles, which might be changing with the new presidential administration, has caused the biggest change in Capture Automotive’s operations.
“The last three years were focused on EV,” Freh-sée explains. “It used to be 90 percent ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles. Now, it’s 90 percent EVs as all of the OEMs are moving toward BEVs (battery electric vehicles) and hybrids.”
Looking ahead, what does the future hold for Capture Automotive?
“OEMs and suppliers are always going to need cars,” Frehsée says. “The market is evolving. Consumers are evolving. Technology in cars is very important to consumers. All these safety features (including) autonomous driving and adaptive cruise control are still being integrated into vehicles.”
Frehsée says automotive timelines are evolving faster than ever. Life cycles used to be five or six years. Now, minor model changes turn into major model changes in a much shorter period of time.
“The future depends on how the market moves or doesn’t move toward BEVs,” he says. “Either way, we’ll continue to see more testing.”
