Mercedes Launches Rent-a-Horsepower Subscription

“COMING SOON – Accelerate more powerfully: increase the torque and maximum output of your Mercedes-EQ.”

With those words, a little-noticed Mercedes-Benz website just kicked off a revolution in new car sales — a revolution that car shoppers have been dreading.

Subscriptions to Speed

Mercedes has launched a subscription service for car upgrades. For $1,200 a year, owners of Mercedes electric cars will be able to subscribe to additional performance for their cars.

The annual subscription is available on four all-electric Mercedes models: the EQE sedan, EQE SUV, EQS sedan, and EQS SUV. It knocks a second or less off the 0-60 mph time of each model for that $1,200 annual payment.

The Mercedes online store doesn’t make it clear whether the subscription auto-renews.

The Future: Buy Your Car, Rent Its Seats, and Extra Power

Automakers have been signaling for several years that the future of car shopping will be very different than it is today.

Traditionally, car shoppers configure their new car when they purchase it. We elect which features we’ll buy and decline others, then pay a fixed price for the car, or take on monthly payments that don’t fluctuate. Automakers often bundle features into packages — if you want the premium stereo, you’re paying for a sunroof, too — to simplify their production process.

Related: Hyundai Outlines Future of Pay-As-You-Go Features

But today, automakers often have control over a car long after it leaves the factory. Because many of today’s cars are always connected to the internet, it’s become possible for automakers to build in features but lock them behind paywalls.

Many plan to use that fact to add new revenue streams.

The End of Options and Packages… and Paying Off Your Car

They could, theoretically, build every feature into every car that leaves the factory — dispensing with the idea of options and packages entirely.

Rather than charging a fixed fee for, say, heated seats at the time of purchase, they’d make it a subscription instead.

The concept could even work for horsepower. Many electric cars use software to govern how much power the motors can produce. That could allow automakers to build in gated performance levels — as Mercedes apparently has.

Owners could add or delete the heated steering wheel, extra audio speakers, and even additional horsepower through a website or phone app. But they’d pay a fee for using them.

That fee might be monthly. BMW has experimented with monthly payments for heated seats in some markets.

It might be yearly, as in Mercedes’ electric horsepower boost.

It might even be charged by the mile. Volkswagen executives have mused about releasing self-driving software that charges ticket prices based on where you want it to take you.

Mercedes’ plan is the first we’ve seen in the U.S., though automakers have experimented with everything from heated seat subscriptions to advanced headlights for a monthly fee overseas.

No One Wants This, But It’s Good for Automakers

Shoppers hate the idea. Our research shows that only 25% of drivers are open to it. But if most automakers shift to it, that may not matter.

The change could end the idea of ever paying off your car. You might pay down the balance of the loan you took out to buy it, but the monthly fees for features wouldn’t go away. That’s bad news for your budget but great news for the company that rents you the car’s audio system and other features.

It could even mean an automaker earns revenue on used cars. Right now, if you buy a secondhand Chevrolet, Chevy doesn’t make a dime from you. In the future of pay-as-you-go features, you might buy the car from your cousin but still have to pay monthly to use parts of it.

What Mercedes Is Offering:

Mercedes owners, for now, can rent the following upgrades: