Hyundai Motor Finance is getting set to pilot its subscription service in a second market and is exploring expansion of the year-old service to another vehicle model, Erick Gonzalez, the captive’s national sales director told Auto Finance News.
“We are very close, within weeks — and maybe even in days — in terms of [launching],” he said, though he declined to name the new market. The program, Ioniq Unlimited+, supports the Ioniq Electric vehicle in a month-to-month subscription service that includes unlimited mileage and prepaid maintenance. Reimbursement for vehicle charging costs — another element of the original program — was recently eliminated to make the base lease payment more competitive, Gonzalez said.
The initial launch has served as a “stepping stone” to explore vehicle insurance and to enhance the prepaid maintenance feature, he said. Also, strong demand has prompted Hyundai to plan to expand the service to another vehicle model; already, 80% of all Ioniq cars are being funneled into the subscription service at the 28 participating California dealerships. Additionally, Hyundai is looking at ways to streamline the sales and F&I processes.
“It needs to be digitized and just as seamless as [the moment a customer receives] delivery of the vehicle,” he said, adding that “integration of the digital online contracting and buying experience [throughout] the vehicle ownership experience is hugely critical.”
Meanwhile, Hyundai Motor Finance is in the “second stage” of its e-contracting pilot with DealerTrack and is evaluating ways to integrate e-contracting into the subscription service, Gonzalez said. The initial e-contracting pilot debuted last summer in Arizona and California, and later in Florida; the pilot will expand to another market within 30 days, he said.
