Oh, Cadillac. Sometimes I feel bad for you, what with your rebadged Impalas, your ATS wasting away on dealer lots for $15,000 under sticker, your XT5 badges that look exactly like XTS badges — it’s enough to make a man pity you.
But then you go and do stupid shit like starting a “Luxury Subscription Service,” and I lose any sympathy I have managed to scrape together. Yes, Cadillac thinks that renting you a car (that nobody wants to buy) for $1,500 a month is a great idea, and it has all the early signs of being something that Cadillac has excelled at recently — being a complete and total failure.
In order to get some sycophantic press for their service, Cadillac enlisted those willing idiots known as “autowriters” to be beta testers for the program. Josh Rubin at Cool Hunting gave a brilliant review of the program, right above his photo gallery of Lululemon’s Men’s fashion (I am not fucking kidding you). Let’s see what Josh had to say:
“Today, BOOK by Cadillac goes live in the NYC metro area with a $1500 monthly service that removes the hassle from car ownership, with added benefits like being able to swap between the brand’s different models (all are the latest models with top level appointments) based on your specific need or whim and having the car delivered when and where you desire, and additional benefits like a concierge to help take care of other things.”
So you get both added benefits and additional benefits? Damn, bro. No wonder it costs $1,500 a month.
“The intent is to allow you to enjoy life’s experiences by eliminating the hassle, cost and inconvenience of owning a car.”
Owning a car? Ermahgerrd, amirite? That’s just, like, so flyover state. Let’s not trigger poor Josh by asking him if he knows anybody who owns a pickup truck.
“The program unveiled today maintains the key points of the pilot we participated in, but with some basic refinements that resulted from insights our twenty-some-odd cohorts offered during the regular feedback sessions we joined.”
Look, guys! I’m so important that they used my feedback to improve a program I couldn’t possibly afford!
“Our pattern was to have a regular car and then swap for special occasions, however other program participants swapped more frequently without playing favorite to one model over another. It’s that seamlessness, combined with the fact that every car we drove felt brand new, that differentiates BOOK from other car sharing services.”
It was so seamless, in fact, that Josh used the word “seamless” three times in his review of the service. Hmm, I wonder where he got the idea to use that particular word. Seamless. Seamless. Seamless. Oh, no, I’ve accidentally summoned…
“To better understand the nuances of what BOOK by Cadillac means for the brand’s business, we sat down with Melody Lee, Director of Global Marketing.”
Okay, Melody, hit us with your millennial-speak. Go!
“BOOK provides all the joy of ownership, but with the flexibility, simplicity and ease of sharing — and it does this through a seamless experience that’s tailored to our members and their needs.”
I knew it! Damn you, Melody Lee, and your seamless speaking!
“The initial New York pilot gave us innumerable insights into the preferences, behaviors and responses of today’s luxury consumer. The insights were incredibly valuable when applied for the next phase of BOOK, whether it was related to operations, marketing or customer experience. The biggest takeaway was that BOOK is not about the car; it’s about what the car can create in possibility for our customers.”
Well, duh. Of course it’s not about the car, because your cars are widely perceived to be trash. Just think of all the car I could actually own for $1,500 a month, which would allow me to buy a $65,000 car over sixty months and insure it to the gills. Here’s a list of just some of the cars I find more desirable than any Cadillac, in alphabetical order:
- Acura MDX
- Alfa Romeo 4C
- Audi A6
- Audi S5
- Audi Q7
- BMW M2
- BMW M3
- BMW X5
- Chevrolet Corvette
- Dodge Challenger/Charger SRT8 (or maybe even HELLCAT)
- Ford Shelby GT350
- Ford Focus RS
- Genesis G80
- Infiniti Q60
- Jaguar F-PACE
- Jaguar F-Type
- Jeep Grand Cherokee
- Land Rover Range Rover Sport
- Lexus RC F
- Lincoln Continental
- Mercedes-Benz E Class
- Mercedes-Benz C Class
- Porsche 718 Boxster/Cayman
- Volvo XC90
For fuck’s sake, Cadillac. Will you just stop it? Stop being gimmicky and hip and trendy and so 2000 and late and just make decent cars. You can’t convince New Yorkers to like your cars. In fact, New Yorkers hate your cars. The only Cadillacs being driven in Manhattan are Escalades driven by limo services. Nobody wants to be mistaken for a livery driver.
I look forward to hearing great things about the launch of this product…and then never hearing about it again, until it is quickly and quietly discontinued.
Yeah, I normally don’t scoff too loudly when Bentley takes an autojournalist who just graduated college two weeks ago and flies him to Scotland for a demo of the company’s new luxobarge…but in this case, it’s really inappropriate to let average journalists test this service. Of course Joe Average is going to think it’s great! But the least Cadillac could do, to maintain any sort of credibility, is find reviewers who would actually *be* in the position to spend $1,500 a month on fixed vehicular expenses.
Such silliness.
$1,500 a month seems like an awful lot for a car you don’t own.
That would buy many miles in the back of an Uber; which includes the added advantages of curbside pickup/dropoff and a gentleman to actually do the driving for me.
But it’s not “a” single car, it’s a…BOOK…of cars. You are paying for a high degree of flexibility. Plus registration, insurance and some guy to deliver the cars to your driveway.
Technically, anyone leasing or financing doesn’t fully own the car on Day 1, the bank does.
I’ll bet a ton of people with $1,500/mo to spend on personal transportation don’t want Uber.
“driveway”
Been to Manhattan? Anyone who can afford a driveway there won’t flinch at the price, they’ll flinch at that cheap a$$ vehicle.
OK fine – driveway OR front door OR parking spot.
I’m curious to see how BOOK works out for Cadillac. I think if you could get away without paying for parking in Manhattan, the cost isn’t that terrible.
Doesn’t cover parking. If it did, it would be immensely more expensive.
FIAT of Manhattan figured out long ago that NYC parking is the problem to moving metal.
They offer a $99 lease on a stick-shift 500 that comes with a parking spot in one of 30 garages.
My good friend who relocated to NYC leased a 500 solely because of this promotion.
fiatusaofmanhattan.com/-99-lease—parking-deal.htm
Now that’s clever.
Bark,
It doesn’t cover parking. However, if the service could replace your need for parking, the $ works.
Let me explain: Lots of NY’ers work downtown or midtown and live upper east or upper west side. They commute via subway, because it’s quicker than any surface transport.
For them, a car is crazy expensive: $600 lease for a nice car, plus $300 insurance and $600 parking, just to drive to the country on weekends. They could do a zip car or Hertz, but they want something a little nicer and a better overall convenience. Everyone has seen that Seinfeld episode where he can’t rent a car in NYC.
For that target market, BOOK could actually work.
VoGo Manhattan actually has the lowest insurance rates out of any Borough. I paid a little less than 200 living in worse parts of Queens.
Also who the fuck would want to drive a Cadillac in Manhattan? 99 percent of Cadillac drivers are Uber/Livery whatever drivers….
I think in certain areas it could work. (the Cadillac brand being the biggest issue). Even when you get outside the city many of the wealthy people don’t have unlimited parking space like many in the midwest. Your house in Greenwich that costs 900,000 but has less then .25 acre and a 2 car garage. Having access to multiple style of cars with delivery to your house seems like a great idea. I remember I had a customer who was annoyed that he had to keep his SUV at a summer house in Watch hill because he couldn’t justify two cars in Manhattan. This would seem to solve that issue. Now will they have enough customers to make an impact on their revenue, that’s more doubtful but I don’t think it’s that dumb an idea.
“cohorts”
what a clown. maybe he should read a book instead of joining BOOK?
I could NOT have opined on this amazingly horrid, latest bad idea by Cadillac’s Melody “What I Wear To Work/Product Doesn’t Matter” Lee (and the rest of the Cadillac “brain trust” – you know who you are, Uwe; maybe even you had some personal input into this, JOHAN!) any better or more particularly well or more fully, with specific, numerous detailed, accurate examples as to why it’s such a horrid idea, and THAT is saying something.
(Thunderous, rousing, sustained applause erupts for Mark, for laying the truth smack-down on Cadi-whack).
Absolutely! Hammer these marketing talking heads (that includes the quoted journalist too) that we have grown sick of hearing, many years ago. Enough!
This article: To be one day featured in a clickbait link entitled “These 27 automotive blog posts are savage AF.”
Seriously though, the gimmicks are getting old.
It may work in NYC, where the cost of living is so high, and a parking space costs you 165,000 dollars (average price in Manhattan). Having a company deliver a car to your door and then pick it up when you’re done with it is not the worst idea in that particular market. Right now, nobody offers anything quite like it. The people who will avail themselves of this service don’t know about cars, don’t care enough about them to own one, and are a tabula rasa of sorts in terms of what they think about GM broadly and Cadillac specifically. They (young, very affluent, living in the epicenter of the business world and therefore likely to be highly influential, if not now, then soon enough) are worth 1000 “ordinary” customers in terms of brand-building. Convincing one 35 year old future oligarch to embrace the brand is more of a coup than putting 1000 geriatrics into their sixth Caddy.
Does that $1,500/month include parking too?
Because the liability in NYC is not owning a car, it’s putting it somewhere.
No, it doesn’t include parking. From the Book website:
” WHAT ABOUT PARKING FEES I INCUR WHILE USING THE VEHICLE?
You are responsible for any driving or parking fees, or violations while in possession of the vehicle.”
This article feels like Deja Vu all over again.
Cadillac’s newest upcoming model is to be called the Deja Vu (aka CT-OU812).
If your need for a car is sparse in Manhattan though, the lack of need for long term parking is a big factor. Yes this “doesn’t cover parking” but if you can plan for extended drive needs and not have to worry about where to put it for the 3 days in between uses, it doesn’t seem that unreasonable.
What would it cost you to lease an S-class and have a permanent (annual) parking place in Manhattan cost you?
The ability to swap to an Escalade to take 4 friends upstate or wherever without having to actually drive something that large in the city every other day is pretty slick.
Is it going to “save” Cadillac? no. Is it going to put a few Cadillacs in a prime market and give some exposure to their target clientele? yes.
You always are in possession of a car. you trade from one to another. if you’re not driving it needs a parking spot. $1500 + parking + tolls + fuel + fines.
Exactly.
The big expense related to vehicles is when they sit idle, parked somewhere, counterintuitive as it seems (unless they are truly rare, appreciating, limited collectibles).
And here’s a basic alternative to this “Book” thingy that further argues against it:
Let’s just do simple math/money schematic – I know, I know, it will be deemed an antiquated notion to even contemplate running the numbers on this because a) everyone has billions and money isn’t a factor in decisions regarding transportation related expenses and b) Cadillac is the equal of Mercedes/Range Rover, if not Bentley.
$1,500 x 120 months (every 10 years, and adjust for constant value of currency) = $180,000.
One could literally buy a truly desirable, lust-worthy vehicle, even one with a genuinely steep depreciation curve, every 4 or 5 years, trade it in on a new, equally truly desirable, lust-worthy vehicle, flush $72,000 to $90,000 in depreciation down the drain over those 4 or 5 years, and be better off for it.
This, in addition to the already discussed range of vehicles that can be leased for $1,000 to $1,500 per month, that are far more appealing (I can think of MANY more appealing vehicles near the $700-$800 per month price point).
So it’s the price AND product.
The Melody Lee & Josh seamless marketing bull$hit spiel just adds salt & lemon juice to the wounds.
I know families around here that lease a new S class etc, which runs around 1200 a month with out property tax reg and insurance with that’s over 1500 a month. One family I know also keeps an escalade (traded in new every 4 years) around solely for the month and a half they spend at their ski house in Vermont. Now if you could convince them to drive a CT6 instead of a S class it would be a pretty big savings for them. Really I know a surprising number of families in the upper middle lower wealthy class that almost always have multiple car payments in the 1k territory each. I could never but these people do exist. The question is how many and how many would go for a caddy.
Seems similar in price to what a rental company might charge for a monthly rental on a “premium car” so assuming you can opt-in/out and not commit to an annual contract it makes sense that it would cost more on a monthly basts than a 3 year lease.
Regarding Parking, it sounds like they deliver and pickup the car each time you want to use it, right? So parking is an only an issue while it’s actually in your posession. Most Nyers use cars to get out of the city so that’s not really an issue.
I own a pickup truck so I don’t know of these things, but how much does an honest to god car service with an actual driver cost per month?
I know plenty of “rich” people in Manhattan that don’t own a car and take car service.
Most of these services have repeat customers who ride in fleets of Escalades, Suburbans and whatever huge suv exists. They take these rides out of state, upstate wherever for a week. The driver/company worries about gas, insurance, parking, tickets and all the BS that comes with owning a car.
When I first saw this item on another car website, I was just waiting for it to hit TTAC so I could read about Deadweight losing his mind. I got a bonus in that Bark also lost his mind. Good reading.
I have to say, when I first saw the article headline on another website, the first thing I thought of was that Cadillac was doing some Detroit auto show press event at the posh Book Cadillac hotel in downtown Detroit. I wonder if any other southeast Michigan residents like myself felt the same way.
The Book Cadillac hotel might’ve been posh back in the 1920s, but sadly it’s just a Westin these days.
Cadillac’s newest attempt to be successful (maybe evening not profitably so) is to compete with Sixt.
Expedia, Orbitz, Hotwire.com & Cheap-O Airfare should allow people to BOOK Cadillac Book.
Travelocity will do those “Deal of the Day! Book Now!” specials where the Cadillac Book program will be seamlessly 50% off if one books it in the next 11 hours and 59 minutes, soon.
Your criticisms of Cadillac are more effective when they are better targeted. Nearly all carmakers have been making deals to transform themselves into mobility providers.
How, specifically, is that working out for them, in general, and by the numbers?
They’d better get on the stick because we’ll all be chauffeured around in fully autonomous hybrid and electric vehicles on a fully automated and fully integrated national grid infrastructure by 2021…or 2025…or sometime soon.
An XTS is no more a re-badged Impala than a Lincoln MKS is a re-Badged Taurus or a MKZ is a re-badged Fusion or a Lexus Es is a Re-badged Avalon/Camry. When are you guys going to get this straight?
As for 1500 bucks for rental you godda be kidding me
They know that, but if they acknowledge that fact then it takes away one of the easier pot shots that they can take.
In fact, I’d argue that the XTS is better differentiated from its platform-mate than are some of those other examples.
Maybe Ms. Lee is stuck with Uber-Camry-Accord-Jetta service and doesn’t understand this little nuance?
“The only Cadillacs being driven in Manhattan are Escalades driven by limo services. Nobody wants to be mistaken for a livery driver.”
Her lack of understanding is highlighted by the fact that they used a black car in the ad photo.
And if I have to park it in Manhattan, isn’t that one of the joys of ownership? Will the Caddys come with bumper guards?
I made a comment on this story but it vanished into the ether. I give up.
I just “booked” a limo to take me 20 blocks in Manhattan in chauffeured S-Class. It was $280 one way. Certainly I could choose to take public transit for a fraction of that. But let’s pretend I am a pampered special friend of a married hedge fund manager, bored to death in my luxury apartment, I and simply must purchase a new purse and matching bag from the latest designer (my monthly expense allowance is burning a hole in my pocket). I just dropped $600 (I should tip the man, shouldn’t I?) for a single round trip shopping excursion. Perhaps $1500 is not such a bad idea. Except I’d have to learn to drive. And get a driver’s license. Plus figure out where things are and how to get there. Who has the time for that?
Isn’t figuring those things out the meaning of life?
Hi Hillary.
Is the feud between mountain trolls and dale trolls still a thing?
The problem with Cadillac isn’t their cars, it’s the use of lower-case letters. From now on, the brand is CADILLAC.
Btw, if your brand is all caps I instantly hate it and must now be convinced not to hate it before even considering your product.
The problem for Cadillac is their brand and related poor resale value, which this program likely won’t fix. If this program proves to be attractive to certain market segments, then Audi, BMW, Jaguar/Range-Rover, Lexus, and Mercedes are going to be able to offer a similar program that is likely to be more profitable to them (because of higher resale values) and more attractive to consumers (more upscale brand image / perhaps lower price due to higher resale values).
Watch zee Germans try this next, except it will work.
My question would be what the tax implications here are. If you were self employed, could you just write off the entire payment as a business expense, as you would with a rental car?
If so, then this might not be such a bad deal.
You could attempt to write off the entire payment but that would raise a major red flag and likely tag you as an audit candidate. The rule is you can only write off the actual business use percentage. 75-85% is generally the acceptable top end range. IRS tends to strictly enforce lease inclusion amounts and without getting to much into the weeds the higher the value of the vehicle (or lease payment) generally the more leeway the IRS grants (for deduction percentage). If you’re pulling high income with fair amount of deductions then getting into low 90’s isn’t impossible but can be bring unwanted audit exposure.
OK, I’ll bite. We in the tech industry have a bit of a motto that goes like this “fail fast and often”. You throw something out there, it’s not successful, you tweak it until it is. Maybe that’s what they’re doing here, maybe not.
And yes, to those of us living in Ohio and Kentucky it seems ridiculous to pay $1500/month for a Cadillac. But that $1500 includes the car, insurance, maintenance, and a concierge. Anyone know how much it costs to carry comprehensive and liability insurance on a $60k vehicle in NYC? Me either, but it’s probably quite a bit more than I pay for my $30k vehicle in Ohio, and that’s before you consider that the insurance via BOOK would likely have much, much, much higher liability limits than what I carry on my cars (owing to the fact that I am not a millionaire). So maybe that $1500/month makes sense for NYC, and if they rolled this out in Columbus it might cost $1000/month.
We’ll have to wait and see, but it does make sense on a certain level. Right now I pay about $550/month for my car and insurance. I would probably be happy to to pay up to $700/month for a service that includes the same insurance levels but lets me switch out my car for a different one every 3 weeks, and I’m just a regular Joe. If I were more affluent and valued convenience more then maybe I’d pay more, though I think that the killer solution here is to not restrict it to a single brand. There’s a lot of cars (even mainstream cars) that I wouldn’t mind getting to drive for a couple of weeks.
This is pretty much it, I doubt people will be lining up for Cadillacs, even with a more convenient “ownership” experience, but how much of a loss will GM take if this fails?
GM takes a loss on the depreciation of unsold vehicles, if you can make 18K a head on something you’re losing anyway you’re getting value from it.
While I would not kick a turbo-four AWD ATS out of bed for eating crackers, even if I had the cash-flow, I would not drop $1500 a month just to borrow whatever Caddy I was feeling like that month. That’s too much coin to blow when you don’t even lease the car.
Has anyone seen what the monthly mileage restrictions are or over-mile charges? There may be some scenarios where someone driving 3000+ miles a month for business could make this work if the miles are unlimited. I’d pay $1500/mo for a new Cadillac if I was getting reimbursed enough for my miles to get close to covering the monthly cost.
Otherwise you’d be better off joining the Emerald Club or #1 Gold Club and just renting a car for the times you need something different or do it the old fashioned way and own your own car.
“I’d pay $1500/mo for a new Cadillac if I was getting reimbursed enough for my miles to get close to covering the monthly cost.”
There’s an angle most people haven’t considered. I knew a guy who took a job doing technical pre-sales. His DD was a little econobox, and he racked up so many miles traveling to client sites that he bought a Challenger R/T Scat Pack for his non-DD and used the mileage reimbursement to make the payments.
I’d take an ATS-V over at least half of that list
The “luxury” of being noncommittal, and being able to swap-around vehicles is worth something. The $1500/mo isn’t a lot of money to plenty of folks. Like any product or service, what’s a stretch for some is a perfectly comfortable expenditure for others.
First, I’m pretty sure that Josh Rubin of Cool Hunting has a pretty comfortable lifestyle doing his blogging thing. The site’s been around for at least 10 years, and it does have some influence among us aging hipsters.
Second, this service already exists in Atlanta and it’s called Clutch: http://www.driveclutch.com/
I tried it last summer when a co-worker recommended it. In brief, for $800/month they gave you a $30k-40k-ish car that you can swap in and out of as often as you like. You can also choose not to have a car at all, but you still pay the flat $800/mo fee. Insurance and maintenance are included.
When I tried it their fleet included at least a BMW 320i, MB C coupe, and Mustang GT convertible. There was a higher tier for like $1200/month that gave access to BMW 5 series, MB M class (now GLE), Porsche 718, etc.
This is either a fantastic deal or an iffy deal, depending on the consumer.
For me living in Atlanta with a 2-car garage, driveway, and free parking on the street right in front, it doesn’t make sense. At $800/mo it’s cheaper to lease a 328i or 340i, and then rent something utilitarian for when it’s necessary. But with a lease comes the obvious liability of having a long-term contract with ramifications for early termination.
The Cadillac deal is obviously worse because it’s nearly double the price and they make you keep a car at all times; the latter has to be a dealbreaker for most, I would think.
The main benefit of this program is same benefit as renting a home as opposed to buying a home: zero unknown / unforeseen risk. This program gives the consumer the peace of mind that, for $1500, he can have a car for a month and there will be zero out of pocket expenses at all beyond fuel and parking.
Valet wrecks the car? Hand it back and get a new one, rather than begin fighting with insurance companies and body shops. Infotainment goes nuts? Hand it back instead of waiting for a dealer service dept to fit you in. Tire gets a flat? Call Cadillac and get a new car as opposed to calling AAA and waiting for someone to install the spare and then going and getting the flat fixed. Get bored of the color? Swap out for a different one. There’s a lot of value in these points, for many people.
That Clutch service is almost exactly what I was hoping for in another comment. Thanks!
I’ll tell you everything I know about Clutch, as soon as my non-disclosure expires.
The best selling Caddie is a Chevrolet surburban. Enough said about what was once a prestige brand 50 years ago. It’s too late now. Cadillac might have turned things around , maybe , had there never been a Roger Smith .
I’ll wait for the Groupon. In a city that isn’t New York or Washington or SFO, that’s just stupid money. I’m guessing mid-June will be the lower priced version to get their Q2 numbers up, and they’ll kill it around October. If you can get a lower price with a contract for a year or two, it could work out OK.
The more I think about the Cadillac program, the more sense it makes. This marketing and outreach effort seems like a fresh approach, in a changing automotive landscape.
Agreed. NYC is not Midwest and the same math doesn’t apply. Even if Cadillac loses a few million it would still be a good marketing exercise, as you cannot get a better visibility than NYC streets.
Now if they can get around to getting the things that matter right in their cars…
If you live in NYC and can afford Caddy-Book, you can also afford to hire UberBlack 24/7/365 or already have a fav. black car service in your call history. And leave the sighing over BQE traffic to your driver.
And live in a pre-war co-op or Greenwich village walk-up? Good luck getting a parking spot next to your home at any price.
Uber from Park Place to Tanglewood and back 2 days later? I don’t think so.
Gotham Dream Cars rents Escalade ESVs for $349 a day. Personally, for Tanglewood I’d go for a convertible – which isn’t on the BOOK menu. Gotham has a Z06s for $495 a day or an SL550 for $449. Arguably more expensive than BOOK, but a wider selection of much better cars. Besides, no one will try to jump into your car when you get to Lenox because they think you’re the livery car they ordered.
I don’t get this service. If all you need is wheels, I have had various monthly rentals from Hertz for about 450 a month for sentras, focus hatches, etc. That’s 1050 a month less…
Sure it’s not a Cadillac, but $1050 a month.
Insurance wouldn’t be included on a monthly rental, though. You’d probably either have to carry your own policy or fork out for Hertz’s very expensive plans.
By that logic, how much does a bus pass run you? Sure, it’s not a car, but you’ll save over $300 per month.
Here’s an economic fact will like even less than no one taking this deal- it may in fact be a great deal for anyone looking to put insane mileage on a car without having to pay for the repair and upkeep.
Another commenters noted that the only Cadillacs in Manhattan are livery services…and nylon of those paying more than 1500 a month on units could save money by switching to “book” with the added benefit that Cadillac has to deal with the puke stained back seat when that intoxicated fare loses his cookies.
This is a stupid idea. Cadillacs were the actual standard off luxury for many decades. As it stands now modern Cadillac’s shitty reputation is devaluing my classic caddy.
Build the Ciel. Build something that makes Bentley look lost. Build something we all want to buy.
I lease an ATS coupe.
I wanted to buy it, and it’s quite nice, especially for the price.
Modern Cadillac makes quite nice cars. It’s a shame that they’re having to dig themselves out of a hole dug before I was even born.
Those who can, do…….build decent cars.
Those who can’t,………..run Cadillac.
Is there a restriction on using the cars to drive for Uber?
With unlimited included mileage, no cost for insurance/maintenance, I can imagine someone thinking this is a clever way to basically always have a brand new luxury car to use for Uber (and the monthly fee would be an easy tax-write off). And the Escalade would let you pick up UberSUV and UberBlack fares, which in a place like NYC can be substantially more expensive.
I’ve liked this idea for a while.
But I’d like a few changes:
1) Cut the price to 1/3rd ($500/mo)
2) Change the brand to a full-line brand like Ford, Chevrolet, Toyota, or Honda.
3) Allow me to use the service when I travel.
Now, from my perspective, it’s awesome. I can use a commuter car or a family car most of the time, but I can trade it out for a pickup truck, towbeast, or a 4×4 on those rare occasions when I want the extra capability. Or I can swap cars just out of curiosity.
I assume the reason this hasn’t worked is because the $500/mo that I’m willing to pay is less than it would cost to run this kind of service. But, still, being able to pull from Ford’s or Chevrolet’s full line would be awesome — there are lots of different vehicles there, and they’re suitable for lots of different situations.
Cadillac’s vehicles are just sedans and and CUVs, which cover about the same variety of situations as the Honda Civic and Mazda5 currently in my driveway.
Escalade ESV is essentially a Suburban and functions almost as a truck minus an open bed.
This MAY work. The naysayers don’t know how NYC works.
The devil is in the details.
$1500 in Manhattan is not a lot of money and certainly not for the kind of customer they want.
The devil is in the details – this kind of service will live or die based on what kind of service they provide and on how good they will be at bending over for every bizarre whim of the kind of customer that they are aiming for.
This kind of customer is “I want you to get me what I was thinking about 5 minutes ago and I want it yesterday, you useless asshole”.
Ok, this has been the weirdest day. I just got back from Joe Louis Arena, the first time I’ve been there for anything other than a hockey game. Real weird seeing the scoreboard tucked all the way up into the rafters.
then I come home to see Bark M. and DeadWeight in total agreement on something.
I think I’ll round it off with breakfast at Milliways tomorrow. I’ll have to dust off my copy of Dr. Dan Streetmentioner’s book to make sure I get my tenses correct.
I like driving a new, premium automobile all the time. This would allow me to always have a top trim level, current model year car at all times. I don’t have to pay for, or deal with, any maintenance that is typically included (like oil changes), or ones that I would normally pay for (like tires). Once a month, I can change cars just to get a clean one in a different colour!
With this program, I would have the convenience of changes based on the season or my particular needs at the time – for example a CTS-V as a daily in the summer, an Escalade for family trips, and a CT6 AWD as a daily in the winter. Despite the fact that I have the convenience of quick access to three fairly different cars that meet different needs, I don’t have to pay to insure all of them. Nor do I have to deal with picking up a “Suburban (or similar)” at Hertz that was reserved a month ago only to find they all they have available is a Dodge Journey with an interior stained with undetermined bodily fluids, bald tires and shaky brakes.
Obviously, $1500/month is a lot of money, but we’re not talking one percenter money. You don’t have to live in Manhattan or SF to have $1500.month available for your car expenses and to still have constraints. In fact, I would suggest that Manhattan may not be the best market, due to the parking issues raised above, and the one percenters having the disposable income to hire car services and work with more premium rental agencies (ie not Hertz/Avis/Budget etc) when transportation is needed.
But I can see this being attractive to senior professionals and business owners in their 40s and 50s who have some disposable income to spend on their cars and may have conflicting family needs, but don’t have the time or space to deal with owning multiple vehicles.
I live in the suburbs, have a 2 car garage and parking for up to another 4 cars in driveway; but I don’t want to play car jockey every day to get cars out of the garage. I don’t want an SUV parked all year for the 3 weeks a year that I might want one. I don’t need an all-wheel drive sedan parked in the driveway all summer when I’d rather drive a rear-wheel drive performance car. In the winter I want to be able to park my winter daily driver in the garage instead of my summer fun car. This program would potentially give me access to all of these cars without the hassles.
I agree that this would be that much more attractive if it gave access to multiple brands, but I think that Cadillac has (just) a broad enough lineup to pull this off. Really, the only two glaring omissions are a convertible and a pickup truck – perhaps they could fill that gap with a Corvette and a GMC Sierra as options?
If the mileage allowance was reasonable and I could do this out here in flyover country, I could see taking an Escalade or a CT6 on a massive 2 week road trip once a year.
Of course, on vacation last year I rented a new Toyota Camry with only 700 miles on it when I picked it up. Turned it in 5 days later with 2,500 miles on it for a very reasonable $275. Nice car for road tripping, I must say.
I like the ATS for this reason: it may be the best handling car I have ever driven. I have owned ’87 325is, ’94 318is, C230K, all regarded as good handling cars. But ATS is better. Sad to me that Cadillac could finally achieve this, and light weight, and still be regarded as crap. The mediocrity of the gauges went unnoticed by me until I learned of it here. What does not go unnoticed is the handling. If I can get new ATS for 25K, I probably will.
Upper West Side of Manhattan: Parking is $600 month/cash, or $900/month “on the books”. The Car is about 6-700 per month. You still need to insure it at NYC rates, or scam an address in NJ, CT or upstate for registration and insurance, so the numbers actually work, kinda. I know this is rental money for a decent living space for humans everywhere else. The Apt that goes with it is $3-5k per month in NYC.
This is only a tiny area and these numbers won’t work elsewhere. This market has infinite choice…at these prices, you can uber everywhere, and join the Manhattan Car Club, (10k/yr to start) which has a much more interesting choice of cars for those weekends at the Hamptons or antiquing in Dutchess County. Street parking is more hostile by the year and making car ownership in Bicycle National Socialist NYC expensive is a feature, not a a bug.
I can see this working but it won’t be any kind of mass market ploy. If the goal is to get Caddy in the hands of the 1%, maybe, but they already have an Escalade for the nanny and children.
The question that they haven’t answered is WHY they are proposing such a strange, risky and potentially embarrassing car rental scheme?
The answer probably is because they can’t sell or lease very many Cadillacs, and have to resort to ideas hatched while taking microdoses of LSD in order to move the metal.
Mary Barra is to Cadillac what Marissa Mayer is to Yahoo.
Coincidentally, dumb-as-a-bag-of-rocks Marissa Mayer “resigned” from Yahoo’s board of directors today, on the day Yahoo changed its name.
What a totally incompetent, clueless, disaster of a CEO, board member and generally totally incompetent person; General Motors should hire her immediately his very high level position.
And it probably IS the case that “Book” is a say to unload unwanted Cadillacs into a fleet controlled by GM, where they can try and mitigate against a growing inventory glut, while reporting the in-service dates as “sales.”
Desperate times call for desperate measures (look for 2 year old low-mileage Cadillacs at 60% off MSRP in 2019).
I owned a nice Eldorado back in the 90s. I’m so glad I don’t won a Cadillac now, although I’d love to try some of their Corvette-based models.
And after reading all this, I’m still glad I’ve never lived in NYC. If you grew u pthat way it would be fine, but I didn’t and it isn’t. :)