Autonomy, an electric vehicle subscription service using Tesla vehicles, announced that it is adding Tesla Model Y to its fleet and is now taking delivery of about 200 Tesla vehicles per week.
It is also about to expand to other EVs with an order of 23,000 EVs that will include EVs from Rivian, Lucid, Ford, and more.
We first reported on Autonomy, which was founded by Scott Painter, the founder of TrueCar, back in January when they first launched their EV subscription service using Tesla Model 3 vehicles.
At the time, they disclosed having 100 Model 3 vehicles and planned to have 10,000 by the end of the year.
The subscription service works entirely through an app to apply, take delivery, and manage your subscription. Service starts at $490 a month, with $4,900 down and with a three-month minimum. With a sliding scale, you can go up to $1,000 a month with only $1,000 down.
Today, Electrek sat down with Painter to get an update on the business as they are adding Tesla Model Y to the fleet and placing a large order for 23,000 electric vehicles with many automakers.
Painter said that Autonomy now has about 1,000 Tesla vehicles in its fleet (most of them Model 3s and a few Model Ys now) and about half of their clients chose the lower monthly payment options and the other half go for $1,000 a month and only $1,000 down.
The CEO said that, at any given time, the company has a backlog of about 1,000 people waiting for cars, and it generally takes five to six days for them to receive the vehicle as it takes delivery of about 200-300 Tesla vehicles per week.
Painter explained that, unlike Hertz, which also placed a large order of Tesla vehicles for its rental fleet, Autonomy doesn’t just order base Model 3 vehicles in white, but it takes pretty much everything it can get – including inventory vehicles like customer cars that ended up being canceled.
Autonomy sees strong demand and plans to ramp up to about 3,000 Tesla vehicles by September, but it has revised its goal of having 10,000 Tesla vehicles by the end of the year to having about 6,000 – though it sounds like that’s more about Tesla’s limitation than Autonomy’s.
While its Tesla fleet is not going as fast as it first anticipated, the company is expanding rapidly to other vehicles with a new partnership with Auto Nation that is going to result in an order of 23,000 electric vehicles.
Auto Nation dealers are going to become Autonomy’s partner dealers for delivery and service, and they will also help them build a relationship with the legacy automakers who still use the dealership models.
The full order, one of the biggest of its kind for electric vehicles, is going to be published in full next month, but Painter gave Electrek a preview and said that it will include vehicles from newcomers like Rivian, Lucid, Polestar, and Canoo.
As previously mentioned, Autonomy is also buying EVs from established OEMs – like GM, the Cadillac Lyriq, Chevy Silverado EV, Equinox EV, and Blazer EV were all mentioned, the latter in the thousands of units – said Painter.
Ford is also going to be on the list with the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning.
Subscribe to Electrek on YouTube for exclusive videos and subscribe to the podcast.
Author: Fred Lambert
Source: Electrek
