The new Citroen C4 Cactus is delivering on its promise to offer a C-Segment car for a B-Segment prices, with base versions starting at just under 14,000 euros – by comparison, its sibling, the C4 hatchback (which is more like a Volkswagen Golf, as opposed to the quirky, pseudo-crossover Cactus) starts at 18,850 euros. But the low price of the Cactus isn’t even the big story here. Instead, Citroen appears to be aping the mobile phone industry with two new innovative pricing plans for the Cactus.
According to Automotive News Europe, Citroen will offer two payment plans that are similar to a mobile phone contract. The first is a flat-rate that costs 199 euros per month for 36 months, which includes the payment on a base C4 Cactus, maintenance, insurance and a 45,000 kilometer mileage allowance. Flat-rate plans will also be offered on higher-spec models, with higher monthly payments, and will function similar to a lease. At the end of the term, consumers can walk away from the car, buy it outright or enter into a new lease.
But the more innovative option is the “pay-per-use” scheme being rolled out in select markets like the UK, Spain and Italy. Pay-per-use customers will pay a lower monthly fee than the flat rate, as well as a fee based on mileage – customers could hypothetically pay nothing if the car for the use of the car if it is not driven at all during the monthly payment period, though the basic monthly payment would be billed.
According to Citroen, this plan is intended to capture buyers who favor access to a car rather than owning it outright. Citroen CEO Frederic Banzet explains it in the context of a car sharing service, stating
“There is a portion of the population that is not willing to buy a car, but willing to buy the use of a car…we are proposing a way to only pay for the use of the car, while still having it at your disposal whenever you want it,”
With Citroen’s plan, users can have their own dedicated form of transportation, while mitigating some of the costs of car ownership that make it unattractive for those who don’t drive often. While car sharing takes care of hassles like parking and fuel costs, the Citroen pay-per-use plan offers a way to have dedicated transportation with minimal financial hassles. By emphasizing access to a car rather than the prospect of being tied to the car via ownership, Citroen is tapping into the heart of a demographic that would like to drive a car and have one at their disposal, but is still understandably wary about the financial commitment that car ownership entails.
According to AN, factors like country-specific legislation, partnering with insurance firms and market demand will be roadblocks for a wider roll-out of pay-per-use contracts. While the first two factors are understandable roadblocks, the pay-per-use plan could become a very popular financing plan for a generation of consumers raised on mobile phones and apprehensive about the automobile.
hmmm……sounds interesting. Wonder what happens with this plan. Would be interested to see what happens.
A taller greenhouse would make this a groovy little ride, not that it will ever matter stateside. Love the ground clearance; with smaller wheels and pudgier tires this would be great for cratered urban streets.
But this access scheme is only appropriate to dense urban areas where commutes are short or infrequent and people have no sense of ownership to begin with. A high tolerance for the stink, gakk and damage from sharing things would also be necessary.
I do see the importance of this offering; stink, gakk, damage and little opportunity of ownership are definitely future realities for Gen Y.
You mean YOU are advocating pudgy tires? Whaaaaa? Never happens!
For decades, most people have not had a problem affording a car, at least in this country. Young people want cars, they just can’t afford them; and that’s been brought up numerous times in this series. If things like this pay-per-use scheme take over, it should be a warning to much bigger problems.
Give me a $30/month flip phone and a $400 car payment. People have their priorities all out of whack.
Correct priorities, but a $9/mo. flip phone and paid-off cars are better.
$35/mo smartphone, no car payment!
I suspect we are of different generations. My Iphone has allowed me to be so much more productive. It is 100% worth the $90 a month.
I’m 28 so I doubt it.
I had a smart phone, around $120+ a month. Had it for a year, I didn’t see the point in it. I don’t need to be wired up 24/7; when somebody needs me, work or personal, they can just call.
Would be nice not to have a car payment at all. But If you got the money, why not. I’d rather have something tangible for my hard work, like a car, or nice guitars, property, decent house, then spending it on nothing every month.
You are not the norm, unless your generation is smarter than those ahead. Avoiding debt will let you be happier and wealthier while making a lot less money. Good for you.
I suspect a LOT of people will love these plans. All companies will likely adopt these programs as soon as they can figure it out. Millions will be made. (By which I think I really mean billions).
Fair enough. Different priorities for different people. I know I will have about 5-10 after work hour emails I need to read/respond to every day. Also, having to go to different locations every other day for work means having access to GPS, site contacts, coworkers contact info, you get the point. In my view my smart phone is a tool.
My wife is a HVAC technician and they all have iphones. She actually hates it compared to her Galaxy, but they use it to send the their jobs, contacts, e-mails, etc. It’s a handy tool for them, that is unquestionable. Which is fine, as she doesn’t have to pay for any of it.
I hear that from people “I need my smart phone for work”, but I feel if it, and the person, were really that important, then it should be provided by the company…. just my opinion.
I don’t need it for work like that, and if anybody needs me they just call.
“I hear that from people “I need my smart phone for work”, but I feel if it, and the person, were really that important, then it should be provided by the company…. just my opinion.”
If you didn’t have a smartphone they’d expect you be in the office. If your boss sends and e-mail and gets a response 5 min later he has no reason to go looking for you.
As for getting a company phone – most companies are moving to BYO with maybe a $75/month toward the cost of the plan.
Companies better at least contribute if there expectation is for you to be online at all hours. Besides that, to set up my phone with the company’s exchange server, I have to grant the admin all kinds of security privileges to my phone. As a result, no way I am using my personal phone for work email. If they want to contribute to the bill, then we can talk.
You just hit on exactly why I haven’t brought either of my laptops in to work, for them to give me remote access.
It is $107/mo for my wife and I to each have an iPhone (plenty of minutes, 2GB data each, 200 messages each). Instant information saves me time and money. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen something in a store and I’ve saved myself 20-50% by simply looking it up on Amazon instead of buying it right there.
Bought my wife her iPhone new for cash (~$400) and then we found a monthly plan for $35 per month. The break even point with the major carriers in this area that roll the cost of the phone and the plan together was 7 months which is 2+ years ago. Phone is doing fine today. I carry a $7 per month phone that I bought outright new for $30. My friends and employer can call me at work or home. Very few have my cellphone number. I share this phone with child #1. No point for both of us to carry a phone at this time.
As for sharing: am never going to be happy renting my vehicle or my home. renting and leasing = same thing.
We’re putting another 175 miles on our ~16 year old CR-V. It crawled out of town on the ice and snow this morn for a 7F commute to our appt. Did fine despite huge miles (283K) , an original clutch and an AWD system that won’t do the tricks of the other brands. ;)
See this car has been paid off for 12 years now. If I rented/leased I would have a perpetual expense greater than buying and driving something I owned. would rather put those big cell phone and car payments into my mortgage or invest it for retirement.
You saw lousy value in smart phones because you were paying too much by at least half. I think they are borderline at $70-80 that most people not with Verizon probably pay. @ $120/month – no way.
I pay $30/month with my current smartphone, which is definitely worth it to me.
It’s not just for youngsters, I am 60 Years old next week, you would have to pry my iphone and ipad mini out of my “cold dead hands”.
$100 / month unlimited text, data,and phone minutes for two phones. Free LTE hot-spotting .
We own both phones outright.
They allow me to book my time but I only have to be in the office 4 days a week because of it. That’s a decent trade-off IMHO.
I see your point, but I don’t want tangible “stuff” for my hard work. I’ll happily drive a cheapo sub-$20K car (paid in full) so that I can spend money on international travel. When it dies, I’ll buy another cheapo car and continue to enjoy vacations abroad, domestic vacations, wine tours, festivals, etc.
Driving a fancier car while being enslaved by a $400/mo payment, but not being able to have a glass of wine after strolling the Plaka in Athens sounds far less fulfilling.
/I’m an X/Y cusper, but my wife is Gen X.
// Also, you won’t pry my iPhone away.
LMAO 90/mo. Ridiculous.
Single plan with unlimited data. Which plan would give you $35 a month? I bet it would not give you a discount for the phone. Reason for edit: hit submit button by mistake and finished the post.
Single plan with unlimited data, $35.
So you’d rather pay more ($55 more!) EVERY month so you can pay less for a phone every TWO+ years.
Virgin Mobile, for the record. I spent maybe $50 more on the phone than I would have at VZW or alternative.
So you spend $1080/yr on service and 300 on phone each two.
Total: $2460
I spend $420/yr on service and 350 on phone each two.
Total: $1190
That’s 206% more you’re spending than I.
Who’s gettin the good deal again?
Math wins again!
I’ll add that you can save even more money buying your own phone since you can get a competent phone for $150. Not great, but competent. $350 will get you into a top-shelf phone like the Nexus 5.
Furthermore, with a subsidized phone and a two year contract, you have to get a new phone every two years – your bill is not going down once the phone is paid off. Keep your old phone past the two year mark and carriers can really clean you out.
Bringing your own phone to a pre-paid plan is the way to go, though you’ll have to pay a little more if you actually talk on the thing and don’t have a landline (my $30/mo plan only has 100 minutes). If you have some tolerance for inconvenience, you can mix in Skype or find other creative ways to not use minutes.
38 and I wouldn’t trade my iPhone but I am in the IT field. I don’t pay close to 120 a month either though, purchased the phone outright and don’t upgrade every 2 years. I keep the phone until there is something that I need it to do that it won’t do. I just got rid of my old iPhone 3g as a result.
I have an iPhone 5S, and it costs me $45/mo.
A smartphone multiplies your effectiveness and productivity several times over. It’s almost impossible to quantify but I’ll try:
– Gas savings from built in free nav
– Coupon savings from dozens of available coupon apps
– Ink savings from printing far less
– Never again buy a calculator, clock radio, slide rule, cookbook, pedometer, Walkman-type device, home phone, pocket camera, camcorder, map, voice recorder, pocket flashlight, dictionary/thesaurus, wristwatch, pager, diary, translator, etc.3
A smartphone enables better quality-of-life on ANY metric that tracks quality of life. Relationships, wealth, health, career… ALL are made better with smartphones. A smartphone is so powerful you can easily scrape up the $60 per month through savings alone.
The position that “a smartphone is too much money [for its value]” became obsolete when it became possible to own one for $99 and pay about $50 a month.
If anyone is still arguing against the near necessity of a smartphone, my reply is this: you better be really mindful and deliberate about excluding the most useful possession the world has ever produced, or you’re naively leaving yourself out of the 21st century.
“A smartphone multiplies your effectiveness and productivity several times over.”
Of what pertinence is that to a federal employee on the cusp of retirement?
And while I’ve loved and garnered computers since the late ’80s, that fondness doesn’t extend to those with screens whose diagonal is shorter than my jimmy.
And speaking of fun pendula, everybody’s smartphone screen inevitably looks like it got fingerpainted with jizz. Same for tablets.
“The most useful possession the world has ever produced” is a bit much – I could easily live without my smartphone (2.50€ monthly plan with unlimited data), but not without some form of personal transport. I’d rate a bicycle over a smartphone.
When my 2 year smartphone contract was complete, instead of re-upping, I kept my (fully adequate) phone and renegotiated my monthly from 95 to 55.
Car payments, ah, I haven’t made a payment in more than 30 years, yet my wife and I have 4 cars between us (one, however is an antique not in regular use).
I couldn’t imagine making car payments … I spend the money traveling in my car.
I’m not even sure if it’s an issue with not being able to afford a car versus not being willing to deal with the massive cost, and given the number of young people in urban areas, the hassle of dealing with a car. $4800 a year (before dealing with gas, insurance, or repairs) buys any number of more interesting, worthwhile things (my wife’s voice in my head says travelling).
Lemme put it this way – I could probably afford a horse. I don’t want to buy a horse.
this is 100% opposite of the daily life of the younger generation in urban areas. they live on their (electronic) social interactions. it’s how they communicate, work, find places to go, people to go with, shop/pay bills.. everything. they get around on transit, but sometimes they want a car. a car they can live mostly without, a full access iphone, not so much. i know a lot of friends from the city i used to live in that get by on car-sharing and love it that way.
living outside the city, yes of course it’s different. but transit in europe covers a lot of bases transit in the US does not. this makes sense.
I know everyone says “if they brought it here, I’d buy it”, but I really would buy a Cactus, on the pay per use plan, if they brought one here. I live in this kind of environment and only wish something like that was offered.
The GTA has superior mass transit though. Unfortunately it’s the opposite case in MOST of the US.
Mass transit relies on lots of people going to the same place at the same time. Works in cities, not nearly so good outside the cities. If there’s not a lot people that want to go from point A to point G at any given time they won’t fill a train, or even a bus. And indeed there is often no direct route from A to G, you often have to make connections at D.
Big difference between being able to to to exactly where you want to go, when you want to go there (and being able to bring plenty of stuff) and hopping a train at a time set by schedule, and when you get off (with whatever you can carry) you still need to get to your destination from the station.
I’ve spent some time in Europe and Japan. IF the train is going WHERE (as in very near) you want to go and at the time you want to go there, it’s great. Otherwise every trip is an arduous affair.
True living in a city, and rarely venturing outside your few square miles means you don’t NEED a car. I would never want to live in a city. Never
I think this would be really interesting if you combined this pay-per-use approach with insurance telematics, like Progressive’s snapshot product. Consumers would pay say $100/month for the vehicle, and then 20-25 cents per mile, including insurance. The rate would depend on their driving record and how likely the telematics black box calculates they are to cause an accident.
This would be especially helpful to people who take jobs where they are reimbursed for their mileage, or anyone who wants to variablize their cost structure.
Considering that I virtually live off my motorcycles during the Apr-Oct period, I’d find this pay-per-use model quite interesting. While I’ve always found a need for a car from time to time during the motorcycle period, the thought of not having to pay for what is sitting under a car cover is quite intriguing.
Please report back on how this works out.
While reading I thought it was a great idea. But not when compared to buying a car. If you buy a car and don’t use it, you are rewarded with a higher resale value when the time comes to get rid of it. So it may work out even or maybe better in that case to buy.
Where it is a benefit would be if you were to lease a car and not drive it. Not having to pay for those months where it mostly sits is a good idea. And I suspect the reward for the company is, like the buyer, that the car has a higher resale value at the end of the lease term to make up for the lower income during the lease period.
Seems like an actual win-win for both the consumer and the company. So, clearly, this idea would not work in a US market.
LOL to your last point.
I’m assuming the actuaries have figured this out, but I’m still confused how a rarely used pay-per-use car is generating revenue. On the back end, does a three year-old car with less than, say, 10,000km really have so much more value than a 45,000km (the max of the traditional lease)? It seems they’d have to set the pay-as-you-go rates pretty high to account for infrequent users.
Like most dealer auto lease/finance products, I’m certain they’ll present the cost comparison to shoppers with ONLY the customer’s best interests in mind…
“I’m still confused how a rarely used pay-per-use car is generating revenue”
There’s still a mandatory monthly payment.
Pay per use is a misnomer.
What they are selling is a patina of simplicity and convenience with supposedly reduced financial risk. On the face of it, it makes sense. You make 4k a month. Add up your bills, figure out a budget and know that you will have transportation for the life of the contract with prices fixed except for fuel. For most signers, it will work that way.
The reality is that there will be all sorts of fine print to keep much of the risk on the consumers side of the ledger while allowing the financiers predictable risk and profit. Some of that is necessary, but for the consumer it will get abused. It may get better over time because the market will wise up or regulators might actually do their jobs right.
The right way to use this deal is to sign up for much less car than you can afford and let them take the hassles while you enjoy convenience that you know you are over paying for but can afford as a luxury. Instead, buyers will mostly use it to buy cars they can’t afford due to the risk because they have no savings (rainy day funds), or simply over pay for the convenience and certainty because they don’t really know the gamble.
I have a hard time seeing how this is desirable for anyone besides the over paid high rise resident. I imagine the rest of us could live on the edge of the big city with a carport, used car paid for (think Fiat Uno or Renault Clio) with a scooter for short trips.
How does the car get to the user?
Sure it’s innovative, and a disruptive revenue model, but what we really want to know, Derek, is: Is it a game changer?
I would still prefer the Cactus in white with brown trims. Citroen always gets my vote on their wheel designs. Unlike other manufacturers, they ACTUALLY put the concept wheels on the production version.
I wonder how this fits into the traditional dealer model. Who is selling the use of the car, the dealer, Citroen or some finance company? If this is cheaper than conventionally buying or leasing a car, the dealers aren’t going to like having to put in the same effort and cost as with normal sales/leasing and getting less in return.
It would have to be the capitive finance company, right? Structure it like a lease.
Thank you Pontiac, for making a memorable flop known as the Aztek, for Nissan to revive and incompetent designers (Chrysler/Citroen) to copy.
Anyway, this “Subscription Service” sounds similar to leasing, I just hope it won’t put Gen Y-ers into anymore debt.
But that still begs the question why age even matters to car sales.
I dunno, I’d rather just buy an older car and enjoy having actual ownership. I’ll buy a new one when I get the money.
I’m never going to “upgrade” my phone though, I’ve tried smartphones, I hated every second of it. Plus I have a computer for my internet browsing.
It’s seems similar to the wet lease of a commercial aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_lease
I recall reading, way back, when Wayne Huizenga had started up AutoNation. Initially, it was thought they could turn car sales here in the U.S. into a similar model. But this isn’t France, and it’s not 20 years ago, either. Maybe it’ll work.
There will not be a true zero cost for lack of use. There will be all sorts of marketing hacks trying to make you believe that, but it’s trickery.
Their likely strategy will be to charge an up front fee that covers depreciation and more. Then, if you don’t drive it for a month, they won’t charge you for the mileage, but you actually paid already to have the car at your disposal.
I also am suspicious insurance companies will change to a per mile fee as I have tried to talk to some insurance VPs of aviation companies about doing this on rental aircraft where it could make them much, much more money and they acted like I was speaking pig latin. They just did not get it.
I think this is absolutely brilliant.
It will provide Citroen with the ability to tap into a huge % of consumers who otherwise HAVE INTENTIONALLY CHOSEN OTHER MODES OF TRANSPORT than automobiles, designing their life’s (from where they have chosen to live and work, to even how they dress and what they carry with their persons at all times, and how they recreate – NOT RE-CREATE).
In other words, this model is likely to CREATE NEW USERS of Citroen automobiles, rather than attempt to conquer existing users of other brands of automobiles.
It provides much more of the benefit of ownership than something like Zipcar, while keeping the experience simple (insurance is included, etc.).
It wouldn’t work for me, but I can see major appeal of a model like this for many people that I know.
It sounds more like an act of desperation. PSA’s market share is falling, and it offers nothing that can compete effectively against the Germans in Europe’s luxury company car market.
There’s a lot of inventory and capacity, and price reductions will only go so far, hence the pressure to slice and dice the depreciation curve into more digestable segments. If times were good for Citroen, this wouldn’t be necessary.
> There’s a lot of inventory and capacity, and price reductions will only go so far, hence the pressure to slice and dice the depreciation curve into more digestable segments.
Whether it’s desperate or not is somewhat beside the point that experimenting with new ideas is good for society.
Unfortunately in this case they don’t employ the newest technology like zipcar to minimize the downtime (ie. pointless depreciation).
As much as you dislike verticals or whatever, like most transportation networks that sort of thing requires scale to work best and a manufacturer might be in a position to do this.
Excess capacity might drive them to do it, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a terrible idea.
It’s not particularly innovative. Just as a lease with a 10,000 mile annual allowance is (or at least should be) cheaper than a lease with a 12,000 mile annual allowance, a lease with a zero-mile allowance with a per-mile add-on is merely pushing the mileage allowance to the lowest level possible.
It’s bundling vs. pay-as-you-go, except unlike a phone or ZipCar, the PAYG option includes a regular monthly base charge that isn’t trivial.
This only make sense if you are doing it for non financial reason (i.e. to hide a subsidies like those 0% APR for 199/mo lease) by the manufacturer’s financing dept.
Look at Zip Car and the like, and you’ll see that it has a market, but you also have to share the cars between different people to increase utilization, and only in a large city, and only after you charge each customer a flat registration fee to “encourage” more return customers once they already pay their registration fee.
Assigning a car to only 1 customer and not charge them anything if they don’t drive will be a financial suicide.
> Look at Zip Car and the like, and you’ll see that it has a market, but you also have to share the cars between different people to increase utilization
Zipcar & co is the future of urban car ownership with the advent of the smartphone because the problem isn’t the driving but the parking. You can almost lease a car for the cost of a space.
I think this works. You notice that both plans have the maintenance built in. That’s huge. That guarantees a large fleet of well-maintained used cars to resell. The margins are pretty good on used cars. The second plan is good too, because it opens car ownership to cash-flow challenged customers but also guarantees that the cars are maintained–the first thing to go for a customer without a lot of cash. This is much better for the manufacturer than selling a new car to a person without good credit and then repossessing the car and selling it for a huge loss. No doubt a few will be repossessed anyway, but mostly the customer parks the car for a couple of months until he gets it together and resumes driving. No harm done.
The built in insurance thing is coming I think. The problem is reassuring the customer that he has some predictability in his rates. That can be solved.
There are considerable expenses that go with car ownership like parking and insurance and a down payment that I think will militate against people buying cars and then never driving them. Besides, that wouldn’t be the end of the world; a very low mileage well-maintained car brings big bucks in the used market. It would be better for the manufacturer than heavily discounting at the outset.
I think this works. You notice that both plans have the maintenance built in. That’s huge. That guarantees a large fleet of well-maintained used cars to resell. The margins are pretty good on used cars. The second plan is good too, because it opens car ownership to cash-flow challenged customers but also guarantees that the cars are maintained–the first thing to go for a customer without a lot of cash.
The built in insurance thing is coming I think. The problem is reassuring the customer that he has some predictability in his rates. That can be solved.
Hi Derek,
Isn’t 199 Euros/month deal sounds like 15k miles/year lease over 3 years? Is vehicle leasing a new concept to Europeans? Curious.
The 199 euro deal is a lease – meh.
The pay per use deal sounds interesting. Would like to get details. Unlikely that they will let depreciate their car in your garage without earning them money
Well, I wouldn’t assume the car parked in a garage and never used would ecessarily be a problem in the aggregate. The meat of the market is going to be the middle of the bell curve. Its a considerable expense to lease one of these things and few will do it without intending to make substantial use. It would take an actuarial calculation to figure it out, but that’s no big deal.
Those who park the car for long periods of time are likely to be the financially challenged who are economizing. That’s an unhappy circumstance for the manufacturer, but it beats the heck out of selling to a poor credit risk repossessing the car and selling at a huge loss. From a financial point of view from the seller’s side, its a “soft” repo. Not good news, but not horrible either. The car continues to be maintained and eventually turns up as a well maintained, very low usage car.
The arrangement should also help save Citroen from up-front discounting. The arrangement could result in some slightly impaired cash flow along the lease, but I would expect the leases to be nominally at full price, with the discounting internal through low usage.
Yes, in reality the arrangement is likely to have so many small-print exploitative features as to make it uneconomic, just like conventional leases. I’m speaking hypothetically here.
Not much information is available on the pay-per-use scheme. There still will be a monthly fee (lower than the regular lease) and usage fees on top of it. When the car is not driven, no usage fee, but the monthly fee needs to be paid.
The author was a bit optiomistic when he said that “customers could hypothetically pay nothing if the car is not driven at all during the monthly payment period.”
See potential. Car is all about convenience right? Private ownership can be iffy.
Yeah the damage/theft etc is on them along with insurance & maintenance not you. Smart phone? How many people do I have to direct lost with their GPS – how productive is that?
What’s with that quilt on the Citroen door?
How about dial a self driving Citroen? Fin – Citroen go home park yourself no charge?
This whole ‘millennials don’t want cars’ is crap. I’m a millennial and the only ones in my circle that do not have cars live in DC, Manhattan/Brooklyn, or SF. And all of them would buy cars if they could afford a dedicated parking spot at or near their buildings.
Even in DC, most of my millennial friends have cars. And my millenial siblings in seattle, la, and boston all have cars.
and there’s a massive country besides those cities that all require cars to live in pretty much.
Mind you, we’re all earning a decent wage….and that’s what it really comes down to. Money.