The Porsche Passport program allows customers to pay a subscription rather than buy or lease a new car. The advantage is that members can suspend their membership for periods when they need to travel and can also swap out the car they're driving when they want a change. The Porsche Drive system is essentially a rental service that was spun out of the Porsche Passport program for those that only want occasional access to Porsche cars. Mainly, we suspect, to impress when going on dates or just get out of the city for a weekend.
The programs appear to have been a success so far in Atlanta where Porsche has been road testing them. Now, Porsche has announced the programs will be available in more cities as it expands to Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Diego in the US and Toronto in Canada.
Both plans provide access to 20 current Porsche model variants. Porsche Passport runs as a monthly plan that gives its members unlimited swaps between models. The most inexpensive plan costs a flat monthly fee of $2,100 and offers 8 model variants. The $3,100 plan opens up another 12 higher-performance variants of the models. It requires a $595 activation fee, and membership approval is dependent on background and credit checks.
Porsche Drive allows members to rent a Porsche for a minimum of four hours and prices range from $269 for four hours with a Macan or 718 variant, and raises all the way to $2,909 for weekly usage of a 911. Both services are accessed through the Porsche Passport app and the cars are delivered and collected by a concierge at the customer's preferred location.
The services recognize Porsche customers' requirement for flexibility, as well as a world that's becoming more and more subscription-based.
"Why is Porsche creating new mobility models? Because consumers increasingly want more flexibility, more individual choice, and to have this on their mobile devices," says Klaus Zellmer, President and CEO of Porsche Cars North America, "We want these consumers to have the same superb level of Porsche experience that we provide for our customers who buy or lease."
On the mobility model's success and the reason the programs are expanding, Zellmer says: "In our first year and a half, more than 80% of Passport members in the Atlanta pilot were not previous Porsche owners."