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0 pointssoared4y ago0 comments

Interesting thought. Here’s the math. Toyotas current incentive is zero down, 1.9% apr for 72 months. The typical rav4 costs $33k.

Over the life on the loan (6 years) you’d pay about $1,500 in interest. If you paid $8/mo it would take 15.6 years to have paid a total of $1,500 in monthly fees.

Likely if you pay $8, you also pay for another subscription. So say $16/mo on average makes $1,500 in only 7.3 years.

Monthly subscriptions may be comparable in revenue to what the dealership earns from financing.

This may be way off, I don’t really know how any of this works but I am currently shopping for a Toyota :)

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shostack4y ago

The total value captured isn't just the initial subscription. The LTV calculation should also incorporate, just off the top of my head: sale of valuable customer data, improved targeting of ads for new cars based on that telemetry, upsells to additional subscription services, increases in subscription price, affiliate commissions from other subscription services that get bundled in, etc.

They don't have these things yet necessarily, but hard not to justify it once Pandora's box is opened.

soaredOP4y ago

Auto related data is already huge thing, but dealerships don’t do much in the way of collection and sale. Someone who is shopping for a car is super valuable to advertise to, but after that purchase they lose all their value.

Telemetry data straight from a cars location is not sold, if it even exists. It would be extremely valuable but seems potentially illegal.

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