Drivible recently launched our network prices feature where we collate the sales transaction data across all our participating dealers to get a rare insight into the actual sales transactions happening at dealerships across Australia.

Unique to drivible, we can collate actual sales transactions at a retail level and give our dealers unprecedented insight into the car market. Recently, we have been studying the inflation effects on the car market in Australia which has been caused by an undersupply of new vehicles and strong demand.

One example is a used Mitsubishi ASX XC LS MY17 2WD which recently sold at one of our dealer partners for $21,695. This vehicle model sold with 99,441 km’s on the odometer and an identical model about 2 years ago sold for $20,980 with only 28,915 km’s.

Hypothetically, you could have bought this car and travelled over 70,000 km’s and in two years made a profit of $715. When adjusted for kilometres travelled, an ASX LS MY 17 has increased over 3x.   

The bad news is this trend doesn’t look like reversing for some time, the good news is you might already own an ASX.

It ‘s free to access network prices on the drivible platform. Contact us to find out more.

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network prices are obtained from our participating dealers across Australia. drivible prices exclude on road costs

The car subscription model is in its infancy and entrepreneurs, vehicle manufacturers and consumers are just trying to get their head around what the future will look like. The reality is, no one really knows what consumers will embrace. 

As such, lots of different businesses are being launched that attempts to find out ‘will consumers shun car ownership and embrace the subscription of a car?’ But a valid question is; ‘What’s the difference between a car subscription and renting a car?’.

For many new subscription services being launched, very little. The ability to use a car for a short period of time has been available for over 100 years through rental companies. While most people use rental cars for holidays or to complete a specific job, there is no reason why rental car fleets can’t be used for those consumers wanting a bit of variety and also want to avoid commitment. The question should be, why haven’t they?

The downside of rental fleets and some new entrants to the subscription business, is that they often have dated cars with dated technology and with many kilometres of use. 

So, you would have to agree that some new car subscriptions sure do look a lot like renting a car. There is obviously a market for these types of businesses and some consumers will enjoy the ability to have an SUV one month and a convertible the other, but is this just an attempt to re-brand the established rental market?

The challenge will be to offer a car subscription that will give the consumer all the upside of car ownership; huge choice of makes, models, colours, features and accessories that suits their needs and lifestyle. While also eliminating the downsides of car ownership such as depreciation & commitment.  

With the rise of automation, many in the industry believe we are only years away from getting fleets of robo-taxis that will ferry us away to our meetings, parties, workplaces, schools and dinners. The reality is, the technology, infrastructure and regulation all need to change first and this is unlikely to be a mere “few years away”.

But when all the factors line up and cars do have the ability to drive themselves, will everyone just book rides through ride-share apps? There is no doubt that some people who live in inner-city areas will be perfectly happy with ride-share as their only transport method, but large segments of society will still wish to own (or subscribe) to a specific car.

For many people cars aren’t just for getting from A to B, cars are used for storing sunglasses, nappy bags, prams, used coke cans, footballs, shoes, phone charges and mints. They can feel like our second home. If you have kids, are you really going to re-install child seats every time you get into a ride-share?

So the methods by which people have access to cars is going to become more fragmented, some people will 100% ride-share but large numbers of society will need 100% access to a car, 100% of the time.

Perhaps some families will own or subscribe to one car and then use a ride-share service for any other trips, but the complete death of car ownership is greatly exaggerated.