Book by Cadillac writes its last chapter -- for now
The program might be gone by year's end, but that doesn't mean it'll stay gone forever.
Despite running for a short period of time in just three markets, it appears the stars were not aligned for Cadillac's subscription service, at least not in its current form.
The Book by Cadillac subscription service will shutter by year's end, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing sources and subsequent confirmation from a General Motors spokesperson. Cadillac did not immediately return a request for additional information.
Book by Cadillac's premise was straightforward -- for $1,800 per month, users could access a fleet of vehicles, which would be delivered to a person's door with maintenance and insurance taken care of. Users could swap into different vehicles up to 18 times per year. The fleet featured both stately rides and performers from Cadillac's fleet, including the CTS-V , CT6, Escalade and XT5 .
The Wall Street Journal's sources said that matters behind the scenes were tumultuous. "Snags with the back-end technology used to support the service made some customer-service functions tedious and time-consuming, adding costs for the company," WSJ writes. Book by Cadillac's rate started out at $1,600 per month, but it quickly jumped another $200. According to the report, Book users will be sent notifications, requiring them to return the vehicles within 30 days of receiving said notification.
If Cadillac's subscription plan appealed to you, fear not -- a GM spokesperson told WSJ that it could very well return, but only after the company applied the lessons it learned from its three-market deployment. If not, there are still plenty of other subscription services to peruse, although most are market-limited at the moment. Roadshow has a full rundown of all the current car-subscription programs on the other side of this link.
