Nov 30th, 2017 News of the Day: Volvo's car subscription service sounds like good way to get the new XC40

author: Lydia   

Volvo's car subscription service sounds like good way to get the new XC40

Volvo has a subscription car service, whereby you can get a new vehicle for a flat monthly fee, including insurance, maintenance and service. It's not the first carmaker to provide this kind of ownership alternative, but it may have the best deal in the business at the moment, with its ‘Care by Volvo' exclusively for the new XC40 SUV.

The deal works thusly: Pay a monthly fee starting $600 per month, and you get the 2019 XC40, with a range of nice options and upgrades available if you're willing to pay a bit more. That subscription price includes everything – vehicle insurance, regular service, and even maintenance fees. You just handle the local taxes, along with any state required registration fees, and you also pay for gas.

Subscription sign-ups are available now at Volvo's website, with the first deliveries set to start early in spring, 2018.

GM links electric vehicle effort to autonomous driving in attempt to compete with Tesla

GM released its autonomous driving investor presentation today – embedded in full below.

One of the biggest takeaways of the presentation is that GM "believes that all autonomous vehicles must be electric vehicles."

Currently, only Tesla has clearly laid out plans to only sell electric and autonomous vehicles and while GM recently elaborates on its electric vehicle plans, it apparently still only plans for EVs to represent a minority of its sales over the next decade.

This new presentation shows that they warming up to the idea of going all-electric and all-autonomous.

New study shows that yes, driving electric is cheaper all across the US

A new study by the Union of Concerned Scientists shows that driving an electric vehicle can save the average American $770 per year.  The study focused on the 50 largest cities in the US and found a range of annual savings between $443 and $1,077 per year, depending on local gasoline and electricity costs, with a median of $770.

Among other findings, it also showed that electricity prices are more stable than gas prices, that EV purchase prices are going down as the industry matures, and that EVs can often be cheaper to maintain than comparable gas vehicles.

SK Innovation to build its own electric car battery gigafactory in Hungary

Korean energy company SK Innovation announced today that they will build a gigafactory to manufacture electric car battery cells in Hungary in order to support the electric vehicle plans of European automakers.

It would apply to this new plant since SK Innovation is planning for a capacity of 7.5 GWh per year (via Reuters) – making it one of the biggest battery factory in the world.

The new factory would have more than twice the capacity of the company's main battery cell factory in Korea, which was producing 1.9 GWh of batteries for vehicles like the Kia Soul EV and other low volume EV.

Lydia

Lydia is the project manager of audience development and social media at Futurecar. Lydia started her career in Tokyo at a Fortune Global 500 company before moving to Silicon Valley. Lydia put her bilingual skills to the test by covering the automobile industry and entrepreneurship. Her other journalism experience includes a sports reporting internship at Titan Media and numerous freelance writing gigs. Her professional skills include content optimization, business innovation, and working with industry trends in technology sectors. Lydia holds an M.A in Public Policy from Hitotsubashi University and B.A. in Arts Journalism from Fudan University.