Be the man of your street - for $1,395 a month

Photo: Audi

Members of the Audi select service will be able to feast their eyes on two new cars with the recognisable four circles on the grille that will stand in front of their garage every month.

After BMW and Mercedes-Benz, Audi, the third major German luxury car maker, also decided to join in with the membership programmes. For the pilot project, it selected the US state of Texas, in particular Fort Worth, which lays to the west of Dallas, a town that rising Slovenian basketball star Luka Doncic took by storm.

When Doncic played for Real Madrid, he was also a sworn enthusiast of Audi, and today, their number is increasing in the streets of Fort Worth, the 15th largest city in the US with more than seven million inhabitants.

Photo: Audi

Audi Select is not the first subscription model attempt by Audi, which started its innovative approaches in 2016 with the Audi on demand service. In San Francisco, members were then able to rent an Audi A5 for $200 a day for a maximum of 28 days. They could also sit behind the steering wheel of the prestigious sports car, the R8 Spyder, which was personally delivered to the member by an assigned Audi employee, but this privilege cost them a staggering $1,285 a day.

The new version of the Audi vision of a mobile life per month does not include such an elite treatment of its members. For $1,395 per month (i.e. $110 more than the price of the mentioned daily rental of a luxury model R8 in San Francisco), they can select from six different popular Audi models. 

Besides six Audi models, Audi Select members are entitled to 24 days of free car rental at Silvercar rent-a-car service.

Their offer stretches from the least expensive A4 Saloon to the luxury Q7 SUV. In addition, Audi Select members can choose an A5 Cabriolet, S5 Coupe, Audi Q5, or high-end A6 Saloon.

They can swap »their« Audi for up to two times a month at their nearest authorised dealer, and they can use each car for a maximum of six months. The monthly membership fee does not include fuel, but covers all other costs that are normally the responsibility of the owner of the car - from registration, insurance and servicing, to the purchase and replacement of tyres.

Photo: Audi

Audi Select is an excellent choice for anyone with a varied lifestyle. Is your silver Audi A4 too small for a couple of days camping with your family? A spacious Q7 is waiting for you in the carpark of your nearest Audi dealer. During the week, with mostly movements from home to work and back, with some in-between tasks, it is sensible to drive a car with a low fuel consumption, while it is wiser to take a more powerful and spacious vehicle for a short holiday. Audi Select makes this possible.

Audi offers an additional service to all those who, while reading this, thought that only two car swaps a month is not enough for this lifestyle. Audi Select members, who, by the way, don’t have to pay for the first month if they subscribe to the membership for more than three months, can, in addition to six Audi models, be entitled to 24 days of free car rental at Silvercar rent-a-car service, which Audi took over at the beginning of 2017.

Audi members pay their fuel costs, while other expenses, such as registration, insurance and servicing, are covered by the membership fee.

With the Audi Select service, Audi is strongly entering the subscription economy, which is already a successful business model proven by the aforementioned giants, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, as well as Porsche, Volvo, Jeep and some other players in the automotive industry. 

And the only disadvantage of life per month with Audi Select? The fact that it is still only available to residents of the Texas city of Fort Worth. But it seems that Audi already has expansion in mind.