Former Banker Wants Wealthy Individuals to Share Racing Cars Via New App
The former digital chief of Credit Suisse, Marco Abele, intends to introduce an app allowing wealthy individuals to share ownership of experiential assets — things like vineyards, works of art, and even fine automobiles.
Abele calls the digital service a “blockchain-based investment platform,” which is just a bullshit businessman buzzword way to say there will be a transaction ledger. By keeping things transparent, the group’s owners can ensure nobody gets financially burned when someone drives a shared $300,000 Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo Evo into a barricade.
At any rate, it sounds like communism for rich people.
However, it’s not quite that simple. Abele claims investors should benefit from any value increases as a group and are also able to actually use their shared assets, citing the race cars as an easy-to-grasp example.
“We want all the assets traded to be insured and we want to work with Allianz [Insurance] on this,” Abele told Bloomberg. He claims blockchain technology should enable an efficient and transparent processing of insurance premium payments through the app, which he’s calling TEND. “Our goal would be a ’pay-as-you-use’ solution — the insurer sees how often the luxury car leaves the garage, for example, and can use that information to set the premiums.”
Basically, some rich person decides to buy something and uses TEND to decide how many co-owners they want to bring on board. From there, the company handles the financial assessments and maintenance, using the app as a way to interface with the various owners. For the automobile, that could include scheduling who has it and determining what’s owed.
Were this a sound way to get regular people into high-end sports cars, the program would be easier to support. However, it appears to be little more than a new method for rich people to hedge their bets by sharing financial risks with other rich people. But if anyone out there owns a Koenigsegg Agera and is interested in doing an even-split with 2,000 people, let me know so I can download TEND on my phone when it comes out.
[Image: Koenigsegg]
A staunch consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulation. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied with the corporate world and resentful of having to wear suits everyday, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, that man has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed on the auto industry by national radio broadcasts, driven more rental cars than anyone ever should, participated in amateur rallying events, and received the requisite minimum training as sanctioned by the SCCA. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and managed to get a pizza delivery job before he was legally eligible. He later found himself driving box trucks through Manhattan, guaranteeing future sympathy for actual truckers. He continues to conduct research pertaining to the automotive sector as an independent contractor and has since moved back to his native Michigan, closer to where the cars are born. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer — stating that front and all-wheel drive vehicles cater best to his driving style.
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While I can see this making some sense for assets that one doesn't directly use, like vineyards or race horses, I don't see how this would function for cars. Unless the car was somehow centrally located to the owners, how would the car be moved around for use? Or is this only intended for very rare cars that aren't ever really driven, and are expected to appreciate in value instead of depreciate?
Other than the addition of stupid buzzwords how is this different from fractional jet/boat ownership?