For years, analysts, journalists and even the occasional car company executive have floated the notion of a "transportation contract" as a smart way of doing business in the future.
In essence, a transportation contract would deliver the same type of car to a customer no matter where she or he was in Canada or, indeed, anywhere else in the world, in exchange for a certain amount of money. So if you contracted with Jaguar Canada for, say, an S-Type, you would get one in your home city and be entitled to vitually the same model of car pretty much anywhere you go in the world.
The logistics of this arrangement would be considerable, to put it mildly, and that is likely what's kept anyone from trying out a transportation contract so far. But then comes Dr. Wolfgang Rietzle at the auto show in LA, making a transportation contract sound like a very sensible idea indeed. And as the boss of Ford's Premier Automotive Group (PAG), which designs and sells Aston-Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lincoln and Volvo around the world, he is ideally suited to make this notion work.
Rietzle suggested that Ford and its many marque would "define ourselves more as mobility enterprises and no more as car companies. What I mean with this is that, in the future, it must not only be that we sell cars. You can buy mobility from us."
Rietzle said that, "If you are a consultant or a journalist running around the world and you need a car anywhere, you could, for example, purchase for $50,000 a mobility package from us. If you give us 24-hours' notice, we will provide you wherever you go in the world a car, a car out of a certain selection of your choice."