Cadillac is resurrecting its subscription service

Cadillac is bringing back the fledgling car subscription service that it put on hold in November of last year, executives told Automotive News earlier this week. This time around, though, Cadillac dealers will be way more involved in the process than they were before.

It’s not yet clear how much the new version of the subscription service (dubbed “Book 2.0”) will resemble the original (“Book by Cadillac”). In the original version, customers payed an upfront fee of $500, and then a $1,800 monthly fee that included insurance, maintenance, and more.

One big difference, though, is that Cadillac dealers will be handling far more of the day-to-day interactions with customers. Previously, Cadillac owned the vehicles in the subscription fleet, and dealt with the customers, leaving the nearly 1,000 dealers around the United States somewhat out of the loop

Cadillac’s decision to change that could help the company head off potential legal trouble. Dealers in California recently petitioned the state to stop Volvo’s subscription service, which has been arguably the most successful one in operation in the early going of this new business model. Volvo’s subscription service so closely resembles a typical lease that calling it otherwise (and excluding the dealers from the process) is a “clever, but illegal, marketing ploy,” they argued in the filing.

Another notable change in Book 2.0 is that Cadillac is deemphasizing the ability to swap cars on the fly. In the original version of Cadillac’s subscription service, customers could swap between cars like the XT5, CT6, and Escalade up to 18 times per year, and as often as once per day. “Fewer customers than expected were making such switches,” though, according to Automotive News.

The revamped Cadillac subscription service will relaunch sometime around the end of the first quarter of 2019. “We have some things to work out, but we think will be better all around — from a consumer point of view, from our point of view, from a dealer point of view,” Cadillac president Steve Carlisle said.

Many more automakers beyond Cadillac and Volvo are trialing subscriptions, like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Porsche, Audi, and Jaguar. But Cadillac is the only GM brand to wade into this new territory so far. Perhaps that’s not too surprising; for the most part, the subscription services are pricy compared to lease or loan payments, and Cadillac is GM’s luxury brand. GM is also trying to take Cadillac, which has struggled in recent years, and turn it into its most future-leaning brand. Its cars are the only ones with Super Cruise, GM’s competitor to Tesla’s Autopilot. Plus, GM recently tapped Cadillac to become the “lead electric vehicle brand” in its stable.

“We’ve got one chance. This is it,” GM president Mark Reuss recently told Automotive News. “We will leave nothing on the table, but we’ve got to get there ... We’re going to get there.”