Cars already have a recurring “subscription” in the form of fuel, maintenance, repairs, insurance, and cleaning. Unless more companies are pulling a Volvo and offering a comprehensive maintenance subscription that covers all the above via a monthly fee, then they can collectively FOAD.

EDIT: I am keenly aware how cars work and don’t need eSplaining on them. I articulate my point better in a comment deeper in the thread. Apologies for my snark and vitriol over unnecessary and exploitative subscriptions coming off as somehow condoning VW-formulated petrol or Tesla-approved electricity.

Poor comparison, none of these are attached to the manufacturer, you can and usually do get these services from other companies of your choice. You don't need VW-Gas(TM) from VW-Station(TM) in your tank for the car to run.

That’s…that’s literally what my point was. I didn’t think my snark and vitriol was papering over my opinion of subscriptions in vehicles as being awful things or of maintenance items being cheaper outside of dealerships, but instead merely highlighting that the only really acceptable subscription model was something like Volvo offered - a single monthly or yearly price for handling most maintenance and repair items.

I’m never - let me be clear - never going to condone proprietary bullshit like specialized gas or electricity or what-have-you. But if car dealers and makers really want recurring revenue, just take the pain out of maintenance and repairs via subscription. Most people I know of (across multiple income strata) would gladly pay for that peace of mind instead of fretting over a repair bill.

Also you can do maintenance/repairs yourself for the cost of parts, self-insure, and, obviously, clean it yourself. For EVs and hybrids, you can provide the fuel yourself (solar). The manufacturer intentionally making things like repairs difficult would be the only reason you "need" to pay for regular services, though that also doesn't really fit into a subscription model either since it's going to depend on how much you've driven.

That's part of the motivation for them to come up with cockamamie subscription ideas: the car companies and the dealers rely on maintenance revenue, which is significantly reduced in EVs. Tire shops are the only ones happy about EVs.

Fundamentally I don’t care about cars. I want reliable transport available 24/7, ideally for a given price per mile.

The costs of a true per-mile option which I can guarentee is available at 3am is not available where I live (taxis don’t fill this niche), so until then it’s

Capital (for the car amortised over say 3 years - I buy second hand and don’t worry about deprecation)

Time based price (insurance, tax, some maintenence)

Mile price (petrol, some maintenence)

Location price (top road, parking)

This encourages me to use the car more once I have it though, there should be a better way to smooth occasional use (which all travel is - 95% of the time my car sits idle even if I drive an hour a day)