Kinto One renames Toyota’s fleet leasing operations and looks to expand the company’s full servicing lease package, which it currently offers in Spain, France, Italy and the UK.
“That’s the primary focus to start with and then very quickly we will build the other services,” Toyota Europe’s head of sales and marketing, Matt Harrison, told Automotive News Europe.
“What that means for us is that we are losing control of the relationship with the customer,” Harrison said. “Once the leasing companies get the customer, frankly we’re just a supplier. Kinto is partly defensive.”
“We can activate a lot more additional revenue streams than we can do today,” Harrison said, citing the ability to offer tailored servicing or insurance.
Toyota has invested a “substantial amount” in Kinto, Toyota’s head of mobility, Tom Fux, said at the launch of the service in Amsterdam on Jan. 15. He did not disclose the investment.
“We believe that in the future a significant proportion of future revenue will be delivered by mobility services,” Fux said. “It won’t replace our core business but will be an add-on.”
Fux was previously head of the now renamed Toyota Fleet Mobility before being promoted in December.
Leasing will give Toyota crucial experience for when autonomous technology makes self-driving cars viable.
“We need to know how to manage fleets, so when we have robotaxis we have the in-house ability to manage those fleets,” Fux said.
Toyota will deploy its E-Palette autonomous shuttle for limited journeys at this summer’s Olympic games in Tokyo.
Toyota Europe CEO Johan van Zyl said leasing requires a big financial commitment. Cars that are leased are not sold, “so you need to finance those costs until you have recovered your money, so you need a very strong balance sheet in the future to be able to cover this,” he told Automotive News Europe in an interview in November last year. “The cash-to-cash cycle is just getting longer and longer.”
Toyota expects that its Kinto services will eventually be offered within a single app, allowing customers to choose different modes of transport or take advantage of offers.
Toyota is already trialing short-term rentals under its Yuko brand in Dublin, Venice, Copenhagen and Madrid. It will be renamed Kinto Share.
The company is also trialing subscription sales, which is a more comprehensive form of full-service leasing that allows customers to lease cars over more flexible time periods, and car pooling. Car pooling will now fall under Kinto Join and subscriptions come under Kinto Flex.
Toyota said it was also evaluating whether to offer ride-hailing services.
The Kinto name is also used by Toyota in Japan, where the company last year began offering car leasing via Kinto One and a more premium offering call Kinto Select, which allows customers to drive six Lexus vehicles over a three-year period.
Font: Automotive News Europe
