Did you know you can subscribe to cars like you subscribe to Spotify, paying a flat monthly fee to choose whichever car you want to use at the moment? No. No, you didn’t, Volvo says.
The company has ended its Care by Volvo subscription service. The program once let customers pay $650 monthly to subscribe to Volvo, like Hulu. Volvo told the industry publication Automotive News that it has suspended Care by Volvo “for the foreseeable future.”
Related – Should You Pay For A Car Subscription?
Current customers can finish their terms, “after which they will be eligible for a $1,000 credit toward a new Volvo purchase or $500 toward a lease,” AN reports.
One Of Several to Drop the Idea
Car subscriptions will likely go down as a footnote in automotive history. However, automakers – mainly European luxury brands – once thought subscription models might be the future of car ownership.
The terms varied. BMW allowed users to change cars once a year, while Volvo allowed users to change cars every four months.
All of the plans “bundled vehicle use, road hazard coverage, maintenance, and other services into a monthly payment,” AN says.
They let subscribers explore a brand’s lineup and even vary their cars throughout the year – say, all-wheel drive (AWD) for the winter months and something fun for the summer. Most manufacturers limited the programs to a few models. The most exotic and expensive models were not in the rotation.
For dealers, the subscription plans provided a steady flow of lightly used cars for their certified pre-owned vehicle programs and a loyal local customer base that might eventually come in to buy a car and be accustomed to regular dealer service when they did.
One by one, almost all automakers have abandoned the concept. Audi and BMW got out of the subscription business in 2021.
Porsche Holding On
Volvo’s move leaves a lone car subscription service standing: Porsche Drive. Porsche’s subscription is limited in the United States, available only in Arizona, California, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas.
It lets subscribers subscribe to a single Porsche vehicle for $1,800 per month or to multiple cars from the lineup for $4,000 monthly. The price is steep, but it includes as many vehicle swaps as a participant desires each month. The program provides complimentary pickup and dropoff within range of a dealership. The fee includes insurance and covers a surprisingly large portion of the Porsche lineup.
Subscribers can reserve the 718, 911, Cayenne, Macan, Panamera, and electric Taycan.
