About a third of the 17 million cars expected to be sold in the U.S. this year are leased. The rest of them are purchased. However, there’s a new option for drivers coming in 2018 – car subscriptions. It is addressed to people that do not want to own a car but want to have access to a range of cars whenever they want.
So, by paying a monthly fee to access a variety of vehicles they can change up when they want. The flat fee starts from $400 and gets to as much as $3,700, depending on the company, and most often comes with insurance, maintenance, roadside assistance, pickup and drop-off. And in most cases, the subscription can be ended at any time. Today the vehicle subscription is in the 100,000 to 150,000 range, but it has a potential in the next 12 to 18 months to grow into millions.
More and more car makers start to offer subscriptions, like BMW and Mercedes, both announcing new car subscription pilot programs in Nashville earlier this year. There’s also Care by Volvo which launched nationwide in March for one of its compact vehicles. And there’s a list of others that are starting to adopt this program.
