What best meets your needs, front-wheel drive, or all-wheel drive? At the moment, it’s a decision you need to make (and an expense you need to commit to) once, every time you buy a new car. In a few years, it could be a decision you make whenever you need to, for a fee.
Introduced in a Concept Car
The idea comes as part of a concept car Volkswagen will soon unveil, which it calls Project Trinity. Trinity may come as early as the 2026 model year, VW says. But we should caution that most concept cars with 5-year timelines, if they reach the public at all, are often radically modified.
Trinity is an all-electric sport sedan that promises autonomous driving capability. But, more uniquely, it would push VW into a different business model – one other automakers have been teasing for the last several years. It’s a model that that, VW says, will “generate additional revenue in the usage phase.”
“Future vehicles such as Trinity will be produced with considerably fewer variants,” the company says. Rather than building several trim levels and asking customers to select which they will buy, every Trinity built would “have virtually everything on board and customers will be able to activate desired functions ‘on demand’ at any time via the digital ecosystem in the car.”
Click Here to Rent More Horsepower
That includes even the drive wheels, VW says. Customers could keep the car in front-drive mode when road conditions were normal, then activate all-wheel drive electronically in the colder months, for a fee. Whether that fee would be per-month, per-mile, or some other measure, they didn’t say.
But it’s easy to imagine the idea carried out throughout the car. Rather than choosing between a standard 10-speaker stereo or an upgraded 19-speaker, subwoofer-boosted setup at purchase, you could pay a fee to turn on the extra nine speakers when the mood hit you. Heated seats and steering wheels could be winter-only expenses.
Even performance could be pay-per-mile – driving to the store? Here are 90 horsepower and basic steering. Hitting the open road? How about 320 horsepower, four-wheel steering, and a retuned suspension? You could unlock it all with a credit card for the day.
Cheaper Purchase Prices, Never-Ending Payments?
Volkswagen Brand CEO Ralf Brandstätter explains, “In the future, the individual configuration of the vehicle will no longer be determined by the hardware at the time of purchase. Instead, customers will be able to add functions on demand at any time.”
The idea benefits automakers, who could save money building just one trim level of car, claim more of your monthly income over time, and stop guessing wrong at what feature combinations will sell. And it could theoretically benefit buyers, who might pay a lower purchase price, and add or forego luxuries to fit their evolving financial circumstances.
But it could just as easily eliminate the concept of ever having paid off your car. That “additional revenue during the usage phase” might not go over well. We’ll keep following the story.
