When Amazon announced it was expanding Amazon Autos to include used vehicles, Alex Lawrence saw more than a new sales channel.
For the EV Auto co-founder, the invitation confirmed that the business he and co-founder Logan Woolley began building six years earlier had anticipated where the industry was heading: toward a digital, transparent buying experience designed specifically for electric vehicles.
What started with a single used Tesla parked in a driveway has grown into one of the country’s largest independent used EV retailers, generating nearly $100 million in annual revenue. Both founders’ ambitions extend well beyond used-car sales. Their long-term goal is to build a multibillion-dollar electric vehicle and service business.
This year, EV Auto became the first non-franchise car dealership and first used EV retailer invited to sell through Amazon Autos, placing the Utah company alongside some of the nation’s largest automotive brands.
“It reaffirmed we’re running a business that people trust,” Lawrence says. “They trust it at scale.”
Building a different kind of dealership
The company traces its roots to Woolley’s frustrating experience buying a used Tesla in 2019. Lawrence recalls the conversation that followed.
“He called me and said, ‘Have you ever tried to buy a used Tesla? Well, I just did, and it was really painful.’”
At the time, used EV shoppers often encountered scattered listings, inconsistent vehicle information and salespeople with limited knowledge of electric vehicles. Rather than trying to adapt the traditional dealership model, Lawrence and Woolley built one specifically for EV buyers, emphasizing battery health, vehicle education and transparent pricing.
Unlike many startups, they bootstrapped the company instead of pursuing venture capital.
“We wanted to own all of the company, and we wanted to own our destiny,” Lawrence says. “We were willing to accept the tradeoffs of not having massive venture capital to pull from.”
Instead of relying primarily on traditional paid marketing, EV Auto built an audience across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram by answering common questions about buying and owning electric vehicles. The strategy took years of experimentation, but now generates more than 10 million organic views each month, helping introduce prospective buyers to the company long before they begin shopping. That audience has also translated into measurable business results, with EV Auto estimating that its social media efforts contributed roughly $40 million in revenue last year.
The classroom is part of the job
That emphasis on understanding customers and testing what works is rooted in Lawrence’s background as an entrepreneurship professor at Weber State University, a role he continues today alongside running EV Auto. Lawrence is proof of what he teaches every day, as the classroom and the company constantly feed each other.
He started teaching 15 years ago, under the condition that he could continue building companies while building the future workforce.When he talks to students, he says it sounds something like, “What we’re going to talk about today, I did yesterday. And I did it at scale with tens of thousands of customers or hundreds of employees. Let me show you how we did it and what worked and what didn’t.”He doesn’t need to teach, but he wouldn’t replace the time with anything else. The connections he makes with students matter — so much so that he gives all of them his cell phone number with the invitation to call any time.
“I feel like I get much more out of it than they do, to be quite honest,” Lawrence says.
Lawrence teaches students to test ideas, pay attention to customer behavior, and adjust based on results. He then spends the rest of the week doing the same thing himself.
Growing beyond car sales
Today, EV Auto operates three dealerships in Utah and Tennessee while remaining profitable and largely debt-free, allowing the founders to reinvest the earnings into new services instead of satisfying outside investors.
That kind of growth has come with its share of lessons for Lawrence. He has dealt with the consequences of not hiring fast enough, investing enough or taking big enough risks, but he says those experiences have made him a better leader.
But expanding the business has never been just about adding new locations. Lawrence says educating consumers has remained one of the company’s most powerful growth strategies.
As the company grew and expanded to nearly 100 employees, Lawrence realized selling vehicles alone wouldn’t solve many of the questions new EV owners had. Consumers wanted guidance on charging, maintenance and long-term ownership.
That insight, he believes, reshaped the business.
Under parent company The EV Group, EV Auto has expanded into vehicle servicing, extended warranties, acquisitions and charging infrastructure, creating what Lawrence hopes becomes a complete ownership ecosystem rather than simply a dealership. The additional revenue streams will allow it to stay connected with customers throughout the ownership lifecycle.
The company is also partnering with Tesla to develop nearly 20 Supercharging locations across several states, further expanding its footprint beyond vehicle sales. The charging sites give EV Auto another way to connect with drivers after purchase while expanding the company’s presence beyond traditional dealership operations.
Thinking bigger than Utah
While the Amazon partnership represents a significant milestone, Lawrence says it’s only one piece of a much larger strategy.
The company is expanding into Las Vegas, Dallas, Phoenix and Atlanta over the next year, with Florida expected to follow. Lawrence believes the used EV market remains highly fragmented, leaving room for a nationally recognized brand focused exclusively on electric vehicles.
For Lawrence, reaching that scale won’t come from chasing rapid growth. Instead, he believes it will come from continuing to solve the practical challenges of EV ownership, whether that’s buying a vehicle, servicing it, securing a warranty or finding reliable charging along the way.
Amazon Autos may have introduced EV Auto to a much larger audience, but the company believes its future will be built on something broader: creating an ownership experience designed specifically for the next generation of drivers.
“It kind of feels like this is my Olympics. It’s like I’ve been training for this my whole life. … You live one time,” he says. “See what you’re capable of. Just let it rip.”