Vehicle-as-a-Service is an idea that mimics the now-ubiquitous Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. Most of us are familiar with the way SaaS works, even if we don’t know that’s the name for it. It’s a subscription model wherein you gain access to a piece of software for as long as you’re paying the subscription. Including access to all upgrades and versions as they appear.
It’s an idea that revolutionized software development because it allows somewhat cheaper and/or easier access for regular users while guaranteeing income for the company that makes the programs. Car washes are now often part of a similar strategy, as I mentioned in an exposé a while back.
I’m personally only partially a fan of SaaS. I can see how it made publishing and development houses less risky for their investors and employees, but it also took away ownership from software users who now must pay regularly for access. I see it the same way I see music streaming services: I want to own it and have physical copies of it (even if it’s just MP3s on a stick) because those subscriptions sometimes change or dry up. With software, however, it’s become almost impossible to avoid SaaS models. Everything uses that now.
Eventually, we’ll have VaaS as a subscription model for cars. That’s already a quasi-thing with the way leasing versus buying a car works. It will just keep going that direction. To the point where, I predict, most people will not own a car and will instead have shares in one with others or just basically Uber all the time. The cars themselves will be owned by fleets, dealers, or the manufacturers. Depending on how that model fleshes out.
Manufacturers are already (slowly) moving away from making cars as their primary business model. Software and data are becoming more and more important and the making of cars is becoming less so. Eventually there will be a fulcrum point where the balance shifts from the making of into the servicing/upgrading/management of.
One of the big shifts will be when we go from cars that are primarily driven by us humans to cars that are primarily driving themselves. Without that, VaaS makes a lot less sense for most people.
It’s probably a thing that will happen a long way hence. Probably not in my lifetime (I’m over 50). But it’s coming. We’ll likely have VaaS before we have flying cars as a common thing, to be honest. I’d rather have a flying car. But that’s the way she goes.
This article originally published on the AaronOnAutos Substack.
