BMW experimenting with BMW Access car subscription service

It’s called the “subscription economy,” and BMW is about to join it. Bloomberg reports that the luxury automaker will launch its Access by BMW subscription service April 2 at a dealership in Nashville, Tennessee. BMW’s U.S. boss said the brand was looking at launching such an initiative sometime this year, but wouldn’t divulge details on precise timing or location.

Bloomberg‘s source for the information asked to remain confidential, but we can confirm part of the information: BMW applied for a trademark for “Access by BMW” on March 20, 2018. The use case covers “Vehicle rental services featuring a monthly subscription service providing vehicles to members for their personal use; vehicle delivery services namely, delivering vehicles to members of a monthly subscription service.”

That BMW would choose Nashville for a test location comes as a surprise. Porsche unveiled its Passport service in Atlanta, GA, site of the company’s U.S. headquarters. Cadillac rolled out its Book service in New York — the carmaker’s HQ — Dallas, and Los Angeles. Volvo‘s Care by Volvo program runs nationwide, and it sounds like Mercedes-Benz will go for broad coverage when its Flexperience scheme debuts at some point this year.

The Bloomberg report said Access by BMW would “be offered by a local BMW dealership in Nashville,” but there’s only one: BMW of Nashville. That location earned BMW’s Center of Excellence award for 2016. Otherwise, we can’t find an obvious reason to nominate Tennessee. And that might be the point — working with a single dealer in a contained, manageable market. Assuming Access by BMW launches this week, we should get a lot more details, such as available vehicles and pricing, shortly.

Related Video: