Drive any Cadillac, anytime, for $1,500 a month

[swaltner]

Drive any Cadillac, anytime, for $1,500 a month

GM's new Book by Cadillac service sure is an interesting concept. Kind of a lease, kind of a rental, kind of ownership...

Basically, you pay a flat fee of $1,500/mo and can always drive a brand new car, which can be any vehicle in the whole Cadillac line, all of which get configured maxed out with options. There's a one-time setup fee of $500, but no fee to change out to a new vehicle, which could be done as many as 18 times a year. There are also no long-term commitments required, so you can quit at any time without paying a penalty. The monthly fee includes insurance and regular maintenance. I'm assuming the fee also covers taxes and registration.

For now, the service is available only to people in the New York City while they judge if this is a service to add to new locations.

 

[kort677]

If this program is focused on NYC it doomed to failure. People in NYC, especially Manhattan have little need for a car, in the rest of the city $1500 a month will be a big barrier.

 

[gaswalla]

Interesting concept - including insurance, seems like a fair deal. (Of course, Cadillac stinks though).
Would be very interesting if the car could be shared with other participants, bringing down the monthly fee and also allowing for more swaps of cars

 

[Nosken]

If this rolls out in a lot of cities, for someone that travels a lot, I could see this being viable in place of renting cars in every city.

 

[deonb]

Nice! Hope the concept catches on.

If Tesla offers something like for 2 times a normal P100DL lease payment you can swap between:
Model 3 / Model S / Model X / Model Truck / Roadster 4

18 times per year - and always have the latest model, that starts being very interesting.


It also fixes most of the problems people have with servicing. Need new wipers, and your service center is backed up for a week? Just swap for a new car!

Oh, and I'm also never washing a car again...

 

[gaswalla]

Note - no mileage restrictions.
Seems like they are setting themselves up for adverse selection

 

[MXWing]

The highest end Tesla is like twice the price of the highest end Escalade.

Would people bite at $3000?

For $1500 I think there would be a lot of takers, but I see only the Model 3 that would have a low enough MSRP to maybe hit that price point.

 

[MP3Mike]

The highest end Tesla is like twice the price of the highest end Escalade.

Would people bite at $3000?

For $1500 I think there would be a lot of takers, but I see only the Model 3 that would have a low enough MSRP to maybe hit that price point.

The highest end Escalade is close to $103k while the Model X comes to $169k, so only about 65% more.

And the $1500 Cadillac program includes insurance and maintenance. (And only costs about $430/month more than a 4 year lease on an Escalade.)

Applying the same premium to the Tesla lease would be $2,860/month. (Obviously the Gm leases are a "better" deal.)

I think if people could pay $450/month more than the Tesla lease price where that includes insurance, maintenance, and the ability to swap to a different Tesla 18 times a year they would jump at the chance. (You could get a different Tesla every 21 days, so you always have the fresh new car experience.)

 

[MXWing]

The highest end Escalade is close to $103k while the Model X comes to $169k, so only about 65% more.

And the $1500 Cadillac program includes insurance and maintenance. (And only costs about $430/month more than a 4 year lease on an Escalade.)

Applying the same premium to the Tesla lease would be $2,860/month. (Obviously the Gm leases are a "better" deal.)

I think if people could pay $450/month more than the Tesla lease price where that includes insurance, maintenance, and the ability to swap to a different Tesla 18 times a year they would jump at the chance. (You could get a different Tesla every 21 days, so you always have the fresh new car experience.)

Remember though that any GM vehicle can be had at 20% off MSRP by stacking bonuses and incentives. No such luck on our Teslas.

The scary thing is I bet there are already Tesla owners among us (who can afford it) do car swaps every 6 months.

 

[swaltner]

This is probably the best place to link to this story. Some people complained that they wouldn’t want to do this car subscription service because it was for a Caddy. How about if it was for a Porsche?

Porsche unveils car-swapping program

Unlike the Cadillac service, this one doesn’t seem to have a limit on the number of swaps you are allowed. Also, no fee to make the swap. The Porsche service is only available in Atlanta and costs $2,000 or &3,000 a month depending upon which cars you would like to choose from.

Not cheap, but again an interesting concept....

 

[Evoyager]

Its an alluring alternative concept for potential buyers who want the benefits of owning a car without the hassles of buying, maintaining and selling them. And obviously a growing market....

On Monday, GM announced that Cadillac is expanding the "Book" subscription service to Los Angeles and Dallas. Paying a one-time $500 initiation fee, and a flat monthly fee of $1,800, gets you access to 2017 and 2018 Cadillac models with Platinum and Premium Luxury trim, which can be exchanged up to 18 times yearly.