When you subscribe to a car, you pay a monthly fee to use it. More and more people – especially younger people – are turning to this model of car use: car subscriptions will increase by around 50 percent from 2020 to 2022. And experts expect another strong increase this year.
More and more people are subscribing to a car instead of buying one: The number of car subscriptions rose from around 42,000 in 2020 to 63,000 in 2022, according to an analysis by the Center Automotive Research (CAR) published on Monday . That was a market share of 6.6 percent based on new car registrations for private customers. Car expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer expects 100,000 car subscriptions this year.
“Basically, car subscription customers are younger than the average new car buyer,” explained Dudenhöffer, director at CAR. “That’s also why the car subscription has growth potential.”
Growing models and new platforms also made subscriptions more attractive, explained Dudenhöffer. Despite the supply bottlenecks among car manufacturers, the platforms increased their model offerings from 327 in February 2021 to 621 in November 2022. At the end of 2022, eighteen car subscription platforms were at the start – in 2020 there were only nine providers.
According to the analysis, car subscriptions are now available in all important price classes. In the lower segment (new car price under 30,000 euros) there were 71 different subscription models for which an average monthly rate of 496 euros was due. New cars for 30,000 to 50,000 euros were the most important segment with 176 subscription offers; such a model costs an average of 634 euros per month. There were 116 offers for new cars worth 50,000 to 80,000 euros – the average monthly rate is 983 euros.
When you subscribe to a car, you pay a monthly fee to use it. This includes all costs such as insurance, taxes and maintenance.
According to the analysis, the car subscription market is being driven by the car manufacturer Stellantis with the Opel, Fiat and Peugeot brands. The only major car manufacturer in Germany without its own car subscription service is BMW.
