:Dribe ogles at 18% Belgians interested in monthly car subscription

Newmobility.news reported before that Danish car subscription start-up :Dribe is ogling Belgium to export its fully digital platform to the rest of Europe. Now, the Danish say about one in five (18%) Belgians would consider a car subscription instead of ownership.

The latter might have been spurred by the success of Swedish-Chinese Lynk & Co in countries like the Netherlands and Belgium, the brainchild of its former CEO, Belgian Alain Visser. It looks like :Drive is seeing the momentum and preparing the next move while still holding their cards against their chest.

Belgians devoted to ICE

The figures :Dribe is referring to come from the 2024 Global Automotive Consumer Study, a survey conducted among more than 25,000 consumers in more than 25 countries, of which 1,000 Belgians, from global consultancy firm Deloitte.

They concluded in February 2024 that Belgians still prefer vehicles with an internal combustion engine, and only 12% are considering a battery-electric vehicle (BEV) as their next car. “While the corporate vehicle market is moving toward an electric mobility future, private consumers are not yet convinced,” Deloitte concluded.

Does owning a car still make sense?

“The high up-front purchase price of BEVs is the most significant barrier for private individuals in Belgium, more so than in any other European country. 70% of consumers planning to buy a gasoline/diesel car expect to pay less than 30k EUR, while only 48% of those buying a BEV can say the same.”

Otherwise, Deloitte sees that a third of Belgian consumers question whether owning a car still makes sense given the rise of shared mobility options. “Although this is yet to translate into a significant change in buying behavior in the market.”

“Nearly one in five consumers (18%), especially young people, are interested in subscribing to a car-subscription service. Cost control (42%), ease of use (42%), and flexibility (32%) are the main driving forces.” Still, compared to other countries surveyed by Deloitte, younger people elsewhere are even more sensible about subscribing than owning.

“On the other hand, vehicle availability (45%), missing the sense of ownership (35%), and fear of higher costs (34%) are the main concerns consumers have regarding car-sharing subscription services.” And that’s pretty comparable with the results from other countries.

Still, the Danish are convinced that offering 30-day subscriptions and the freedom to switch cars when needed, a concept of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) that goes beyond any car leasing platform, is well-suited for Belgium.

Dynamic Belgian urban lifestyle

“Belgium is a dynamic and densely populated country with around 11.7 million inhabitants. :Dribe is now focusing on the dynamic urban lifestyle in Belgium by offering easy and flexible access to cars,” the company stated in April 2024 and is looking to do this in a partnership with “a car distributor closest to the Belgian market.”

Jesper Hill-Kjærsgaard, CEO of :Dribe, sees an increasing interest among Belgian dealerships in implementing car subscriptions in their business model. “We are often approached by car dealerships, especially from larger urban areas, who are afraid of losing market share if they don’t adapt to the growing demand for car subscriptions,” says Jesper Hill-Kjærsgaard.

Volkswagen dealerships

Which dealerships the Danish are talking to, Hill-Kjærsgaard didn’t say. Being itself a daughter of Denmark’s most significant car importer, Semler Gruppen, which specializes in all Volkswagen brands, it looks like its peer in Belgium, D’Ieteren, could be a perfect match.

The first to take the bait in Europe for :Dribe’s expansion was the Greek car distributor Kosmocar. Kosmocar is the official importer of Volkswagen in Greece, with brands like Audi, Skoda, Bentley, Lamborghini, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, and Ducati motorcycles in Greece and Cyprus.

Visser paving the way

Belgian Alain Visser, co-founder and CEO of Lynk & Co and former Vice President of Marketing at Volvo, paved the way for start-ups like :Drive to get people used to the idea that you don’t need to own a car. You can get it anytime you want with a subscription. Visser envisioned it as similar to subscribing to a streaming service instead of buying music or movies.

The idea, first launched in Sweden and the Netherlands just after the coronavirus pandemic and later extended to Belgium, Germany, Italy, and France, initially caught on more than envisioned. To an extent, the brand became a victim of its success while dealing with shortages and long delivery times like every other brand in the sector.

That and the slowdown due to the coronavirus crisis eroded the patience of the Chinese financiers in seeing the profitability achieved, and Visser was unexpectedly forced to leave his brainchild “to pursue other opportunities outside the company,” according to a press release surfacing in December 2023.

Comeback with Big Bang?

After eight months of silence, Alain Visser suddenly reappears in the picture with a statement on his LinkedIn page. “After nearly eight years, I recently left my brainchild, Lynk & Co. Now, alongside a few brilliant minds from various backgrounds, I’m setting up a new venture that will push sustainable mobility as a service to the next level.”

“If you thought we made waves with Lynk & Co, “you ain’t seen nothing yet. Stay tuned…,” Vissers ends. Who knows whether the Danish found a fellow combatant or a competitor in Visser?