UTO makers and dealers are slogging through what will probably be another flat year for domestic sales, even with record sales in August, but on the World Wide Web, they are moving more metal than ever.

As domestic and foreign car companies and their dealers roll out the 2003 models, the Internet is emerging as an important sales channel — if not for completing transactions, then for getting consumers far along in the process. Much of the effort is a recognition that their customers have found that the Web is a way to exert some control over a process that can otherwise be fraught with aggravating surprises.

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Although stories vary by dealer, anecdotal evidence suggests that car sellers can save money online as well, by engaging their customers and remotely executing as much of the transaction as possible before closing the deal in person. That realization has, in turn, pushed both dealers and car makers to advertise heavily on independent car-selling Web sites, thereby lifting the prospects of a number of Internet companies.

"Without question, manufacturers have redoubled their efforts and focus on online activity," said Scott Weitzman, senior director of J. D. Power and Associates, an auto industry research firm. "They've made a quantum leap in the services they provide, and they also see now that the independent sites aren't going to monopolize this business." The manufacturers are working more cooperatively with such businesses as a result.

Mr. Weitzman said that last year, 62 percent of consumers who bought new cars had used the Internet to research, choose or buy the car. Notably, he said, those who used the Web saved $300 to $400 on the price, compared to those who did not.

There is an advantage for the dealers, too, however: they spend significantly less time serving their Web customers, "so they feel as if they're at least not losing money," Mr. Weitzman said. "And dealers regard this as incremental business, so even if it's potentially less profitable, that's still business they wouldn't have gotten."

Mr. Weitzman said that among carmakers, Ford Motor and General Motors have been particularly aggressive online. Both, he said, have Web sites that help consumers choose cars and then enter into discussions with a dealer about prices, options and other issues.

Leo R. Drew, who, among other things, oversees G.M.'s online initiative, said his company works to ensure that there is someone at the dealership who is steeped in the science of online car buying research.

Dealers in training for the "G.M. BuyPower" online selling program must surf every auto Web site that their customers could conceivably have visited before landing at G.M.

"The key is to recognize customers have spent an awful lot of time in research mode, so you don't have to start all over with them," Mr. Drew said.

G.M. delivered more than 100,000 leads to its dealers through the Internet last month, Mr. Drew said. Partly because of the company's training, he said, 30 percent of such prospects end up buying G.M. cars.

While executives of car Web sites say manufacturers have generally been more cooperative, dealerships have been increasingly receptive as well, a result of the leads the Internet sites can deliver. The biggest Web site in this regard is Autobytel.com, which, after its acquisition of AutoWeb last year, is the only publicly held company of its kind.

Jeffrey A. Schwartz, Autobytel's chief executive, said the company was responsible for 600,000 new car purchases last year, which is about 4 percent of the domestic total, and is on pace to help sell 700,000 this year.

Although those are decent numbers, Mr. Schwartz is more interested in the leads his company delivers to dealers, since that is how Autobytel makes money. Dealers pay about $19 each time they get a prospective customer from Autobytel.com. That figure is up from about $13 last year — thanks to price increases — and it has helped push Autobytel to the brink of profit, which Mr. Schwartz expects by the end of the year.

One noteworthy trend among businesses in this category is that they are, like their counterparts in many Internet categories, expanding their activities to attract a wider range of potential customers.

Take CarsDirect.com — which, among the more popular car sites, is the only one on which customers can complete a transaction.

According to Robert N. Brisco, the company's chief executive, CarsDirect is one of many sites that are "moving in the direction of one-stop shopping," where buyers can look at used cars as well as new models, while also sifting through research information like resale values and reviews.

Mr. Brisco said CarsDirect began diversifying its revenue sources last year by, among other things, connecting some consumers to dealers, instead of completing every sale on the dealer's behalf and taking a mark-up from the dealer's price. Half of the site's customers now choose to deal with the dealer directly, he said. Mr. Brisco would not disclose overall sales information, but he said that increasing the number of ways the site can make money on its customers doubled its gross profit margin over the last year.

Mr. Brisco also said advertising on the site from manufacturers "is much higher than it's been previously — to the point where we're selling out significant parts of our inventory."

Reports of brisk advertising activity were echoed by executives across the online auto category — a bit of good news that could buffer the online auto industry from the possible effects of an economic downturn and a slowdown in the growth of online car shoppers. Mr. Weitzman, of J. D. Power, said his company would release data next month showing that the number of people who research new car purchases online is starting to level off.

Microsoft's MSN Carpoint, for one, has a strategy to combat any domestic saturation: it is going global. The site, which generates 60 percent of its revenue from advertising and 40 percent from selling customer leads to dealers, began operating internationally in mid-2001, with business in 13 countries, as part of MSN's overall global strategy. By the end of last year, 15 percent of Carpoint's revenue came from its foreign sites. This year, the number will be 22 percent, said Ryan Hamlin, Carpoint's chief executive.

Auto sites without international ambitions have other hopes for increasing sales should domestic Internet activity slacken or interest rates head north. Mitch Golub, general manager of Cars.com, which is owned by a group of media companies including The New York Times Company, said forthcoming technology would help his site and others show the actual inventory held by dealers. (Analysts said dealers often do not know what they have available.) "It's definitely what consumers want," Mr. Golub said. "We just don't know the timeline yet."

As for the timeline of the online auto industry's rise to relevance, Mr. Golub said few could have predicted it correctly. "I'd be lying if I told you I thought I'd be in Tahiti by now, sipping a drink on the beach," he said. "Instead, I'm slugging it out 12 hours a day as a working stiff. But you know, it's not so bad."