Purchasing a luxury car used to be all about the vehicle, but in 2016, it’s about the experience. This is the philosophy behind Volvo’s new pilot concierge program, which is launching this month in San Francisco.
Offered to owners of the XC90 SUV and S90 sedan, the program lets Volvo owners hand nearly all of their day-to-day upkeep responsibilities back to the automaker. This includes fueling, maintenance, and cleaning services, and Volvo’s concierge will even move the customer’s vehicle to another location if desired.
“Imagine parking your car in the morning at work and when you head home your car has been serviced, cleaned, and refueled,” said Björn Annwall, Volvo’s Senior Vice President of Global Consumer Experience. “These are the kind of services we want to deliver to our customers. Our research shows that people spend hours every week doing these small errands — we want to give that time back to Volvo drivers, so they can do something more valuable instead.”
The pilot program will roll out to just 300 Volvo owners in San Francisco for now, but eventually, the brand hopes to integrate these services into the Volvo On Call mobile platform.
“Our approach is a simple one — we aim to make life easier by employing the latest connected technology in an easy-to-use smartphone app,” said Anders Tylman-Mikiewicz, Volvo’s Vice President of Consumer Connectivity Services. “We are taking an open and agile approach to this and welcome collaboration with partners with new and innovative service offers. This is just the beginning.”
Clearly this is something consumers want. According to the automaker’s research, 70 percent of its customers would opt for on-demand fueling, 56 percent want their car picked up for maintenance services, and 49 percent would like the option of having their car moved to another location when desired. With this type of convenience at their fingertips, who could blame them?
BYD has launched the third-generation Qin Plus DM-i in China, and the first thing that caught my eye is its price. According to CarNewsChina, the plug-in hybrid sedan starts at 79,900 yuan, which is about $11,980. That’s an incredibly low price for a brand-new car, especially by US standards.
What’s even more impressive is the range. The Qin Plus DM-i can drive up to 137 miles on electricity alone, which should cover most people’s daily commutes without using a drop of gas. Once the battery runs out, the 1.5-liter engine takes over. Thanks to its 17-gallon tank and roughly 91 mpg with a drained battery, the combined range reaches up to 1,423 miles.
Apple won the PC market’s worst quarter, but that’s not the entire story. It won the race by stumbling less than everyone else.
PC makers shipped just 57 million computers worldwide in Q3, which might look good, but it’s a 21% year-over-year plunge (via Counterpoint Research). And despite Apple’s Mac shipments falling by 11%, to 5.6 million, its market share rose from 8.7% to 9.8%. How did that happen?
Update (October 22 23:54 PT): In response to our query, GM clarified that offline recording support is already available on eligible vehicles. Like Tesla's Sentry Mode, it requires owners to connect a USB drive to save incident recordings, which can be viewed on the vehicle's infotainment screen. The upcoming Connected Cameras feature will build on this by giving owners remote access to these recordings via the revamped OnStar app, allowing them to check footage without walking out to their car.
General Motors has announced plans to add a new Connected Cameras feature to its OnStar service starting next year, giving drivers a way to monitor parked vehicles remotely and capture footage of certain incidents.