Clutch Expands Porsche Subscription Program to Include Hourly, Weekly Rentals                                   

Following its acquisition of fleet-management company Clutch Technologies, Cox Automotive is broadening its program with Porsche to include hourly and weekly rental rates.

The expansion provides insights into the philosophy of Cox’s Mobility Solutions unit as OEMs and dealerships embrace subscription programs, President Vince Zappa told Auto Finance News.

“When you start to think of the automotive world becoming more fleet-oriented, we tend to take a view that cars are born into this automotive caste system — they’re a new car, they’re a used car, they’re a rental car — and they can only have one use-case at a time from a consumer perspective,” he said. “Our view is that a fleet of cars should be able to be used in any number of ways, whether it’s subscription, on-demand rental, test drives for dealerships, loaner cars. We look at a fleet in a more holistic manner.”

This approach can be seen in the OEM’s newly launched Porsche Drive and Porsche Host programs, extensions of the Porsche Passport luxury subscription program managed through Clutch. Drive and Host allow the luxury OEM to bolster utilization from a single fleet of cars, Zappa explained.

With Porsche Drive, a four-hour rental starts at $269; a weekly rental is $2,909. Porsche Host is a collaboration with Turo, a San Francisco-based company that connects renters with existing Porsche owners willing to put their vehicles into a shared fleet.

“We think there is an interesting opportunity that is deeper than being one specific subscription program,” Zappa said. “If we can put all the unmanaged vehicles into our platform and match consumers to it at their price point, that’s what we want to do.”