Mahindra and Mahindra on Thursday announced a tie-up with self-drive car rental company Revv to offer its passenger vehicles on a subscription model. This comes at a time when an increasing number of working professionals are preferring an asset-light lifestyle.“With the changing era, the millennials want to experience brands in a different way with avoiding long-term commitment in terms of time or capital investment,” said Veejay Nakra, chief of sales and marketing at Mahindra.The upfront cost of new vehicles has gone up sharply in the past years as it became mandatory to buy a three-year third-party insurance cover when purchasing new cars. Meanwhile, access to financing has become difficult too.Nakra said that while providing commitment-free ownership, the subscription model overcomes these challenges too as insurance cost is subsumed into the monthly fee and a customer’s credit rating is not factored.Seven of the Mumbai-based carmaker’s vehicles, including the XUV 300 and Marazzo, will be available for subscription through Revv’s ‘Open’ model. Customers can subscribe to a car for a period of 12 to 48 months for a monthly fee which will be inclusive of insurance, road tax and routine maintenance costs. There is no down-payment, but customers will have to pay a safety deposit ranging between Rs 15,000 and Rs 50,000 depending on the choice of vehicle, Nakra said.The tie-up is not an exclusive arrangement and vehicles from seven other manufacturers, including Hyundai and Maruti Suzuki, are already available for subscription through Revv. Upon getting an order, the company purchases a vehicle from manufacturers by making an upfront payment and then lends them to its subscribers, Nakra explained.Zoomcar, another car rental company, in which Mahindra is also a strategic investor, also offers Mahindra’s vehicles on subscription through its ZAP Subscribe service. At Zoomcar, however, customers can also rent their vehicles to other people on days when they are not using them, thus partially offsetting their monthly fee.On its part, Mahindra has been offering its vehicles on a leasing model through its tie-ups with Orix and ALD Automotive for a year now and has sold close to 2,500 vehicles through this route, as per Nakra.Explaining the difference between leasing and subscription, Nakra said that the former is meant for people who want to rent a vehicle for a longer duration, usually three to four years, and who may consider purchasing the vehicle at the end of lease. Subscription is for users who want to rent cars for a shorter duration.Subscription cars are registered under a commercial license and sport a black registration plate with yellow letters, Nakra said, while cars under the leasing model come with a private registration and sport a white registration plate with black letters.