Volvo’s new car-subscription service handles everything.
Throughout the new XC40 launch earlier today, executives from resurgent Swedish carmaker Volvo talked at length about ‘subscribing’ to a car, the same way you would subscribe for a mobile telephone service. After a century of traditional car ownership, it’s a little confusing when a car company tells you that you can own the car without having to deal with the pains that come with ownership. What if there was a way to do away with insurance payments, maintenance costs and the like all at once, along with the heady deposit that these schemes always require?
That’s ‘Care by Volvo,’ in a nutshell. Rather than demanding a large downpayment (for a hire-purchase agreement) or a sizeable deposit (for a leasing scheme), Care by Volvo (CbV) offers the convenience and agility of car ownership without the usual responsibilities that come with it.
“In a time where consumers are used to transparent flat-fees for all sorts of services, the traditional process of buying and owning a car can be received as rather complicated. Care by Volvo changes all of that.” — Håkan Sauelsson, President & CEO, Volvo Cars
CbV is dubbed as a ‘premium subscription service,’ designed to take the hassle out of ownership and allow for maximum flexibility. Further, signing up for Care by Volvo doesn’t require a hefty deposit the way traditional leasing schemes demand, instead opting for larger monthly payments. While that might sound daunting at first, it’s worth delving into the mechanics of the scheme to better understand its value.
In a traditional ownership model, after you’ve had all your fun picking the variant, trim, engine, and options, you have to sit down with a dealer to negotiate prices and the terms of a hire-purchase agreement. Assuming you get through this process with minimal fuss (there’s a lot of haggling involved, something that puts off lots of buyers), you are then given a sum that you have to pay every month, after first stumping up whatever the downpayment might be for your new car. While capped-price servicing could be included in the price, things like insurance remain a totally-separate entity, requiring another process in itself.
With Care by Volvo, the Swedish company aims to remove all of that, and add a little bit on top. The monthly payments encompass things like insurance, taxes and the like, and adds value-added services like a concierge service that can fuel and clean your car, car-sharing with friends and family via a digital key functionality, and even the ability to drive something else in the Volvo range for up to 12-days a year should you need it (like for that long-haul trip over the holidays, or an overdue visit to Ikea). And as a subscription service, it means that standard services enjoy a flat-rate regardless of where you live, with add-ons also coming in at fixed prices.
Care by Volvo will launch in the UK in early 2018 alongside with the deliveries of the XC40, though it’ll be limited to the Greater London area for the time being. This should allow for a greater adoption rate of Volvo’s future electric cars, quashing the ‘long-distance drive’ argument in one fell swoop. Think about it: Get an electric XC40 for 90% of the time, and then grab a diesel XC90 for a holiday. What’s not to like?
You can read our launch report of the XC40, which made its debut at the Volvo studio in Milan, here.
For more information on Volvo, check out our Showroom.
