Cadillac is among the many car manufacturers looking at alternate ownership models, and its new Book subscription service is a unique twist on something like a Zipcar or GM’s Maven. With Book, luxury customers who might ordinarily consider buying or leasing one of Cadillac’s vehicles can instead choose to sign up for a $1,500 per month service that provides on-demand delivery of a Cadillac with the carmaker’s top-level trim.
This gives fickle car fans the ability to more widely sample Cadillac’s lineup, instead of having to stick to just one vehicle. The cars available include the XT5, CT6, Escalade and V Series, and each car in the fleet is in the current model year. The price of being a member also covers taxes, insurance and maintenance, and there’s no cap on how many miles you can drive per month with your subscription.
Book reservations are made through a smartphone app, and cars aren’t just parked in designated spots like they are with Zipcar; instead, your vehicle is hand-delivered, with “white glove” service, per Cadillac. Members can trade the cars in or return them whenever they’re through, and can actually keep cars for longer periods, like booking an SUV for use throughout the winter.
It avoids hassles with keeping track of traditional finance options, and for the people who can afford Book, the ability to not have to worry about little things like what to do when you happen to want some more trunk space for a 5th Avenue shopping spree probably makes a lot of sense.
Cadillac’s launching Book first in the New York metropolitan area, with the aim of expanding it to other markets gradually. There’s no set term for the $1,500 per month service, so you can cancel at any time. Honestly, I’d probably use this myself if it was about 10x cheaper, so I’m curious to see what kind of pick-up they get from their higher-end target customers.