Mercedes-Benz subscription service launches with pricing between $1,000 and $3,000 a month
Mercedes-Benz has finally launched its subscription service in Nashville and Philadelphia, and with it comes a slew of details on how much the program costs and what vehicles are available. Three levels of subscription are available, each with a suitably snooty name starting with Signature, and going up to Reserve, and finally Premier. Signature starts at $1,095 per month, Reserve costs $1,595 per month, and Premier rings in at $2,995 per month. All come with an initial $495 fee for becoming a member.
Unsurprisingly, the more money you spend, the fancier the cars available become. The Signature level includes all bodystyles of the C300, the CLA45, the GLC300 in normal SUV and "coupe" SUV forms, and the SLC300 roadster. Reserve comes with the E300 sedan, E400 wagon and coupe, C43 sedan and coupe, GLE350, GLC43, and the SLC43 roadster. The Premier subscription comes with the most impressive cars such as the E63 sedan, C63 sedan and C63 S coupe, S560 sedan, GLE63 S SUV, GLE S "coupe" SUV, GLS550, G550, and the SL550 raodster. If you want to drive something in a higher tier, but don't want to change your subscription, you can pay daily fees for a car over a short term until you change back to a car in your subscription.
In addition to the ability to pick from a wide assortment of vehicles at will, the subscription also includes insurance, maintenance, roadside assistance, and no mileage limits. All that is needed to subscribe is to download the app to your phone, provide a copy of your driver's license, and have your credit checked and approved.
Mercedes is far from the only company experimenting with a subscription model for cars. Volvo offers Care by Volvo with its XC40 crossover. That program features insurance and maintenance with a $500 initial fee and monthly fees of $600 to $700 depending on trim level, but it only provides the subscriber with access to an XC40, whereas the Mercedes plan offers multiple models. Porsche Passport is very similar to the Mercedes program and is priced similarly. The base plan starts at $2,000 per month with four models, but the top $3,000 a month program offers access to 22 variants of Porsches. Like the Mercedes program, there are no mileage limits and it comes with insurance and maintenance covered. At the cheap end of the spectrum is Hyundai, which has a program for the Ioniq Electric with all the bells and whistles of the others, but with a monthly cost of between $275 and $365 per month. It has a steep entry fee of $2,500 though.
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Mercedes-Benz subscription service launches with pricing between $1,000 and $3,000 a month originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 05 Jun 2018 17:20:00 EDT.
