Ford Selling Canvas Vehicle Subscription Service To Fair

By Noah Long ● Sep 15, 2019
  • Fair announced it is going to be acquiring monthly vehicle subscription service Canvas from Ford. These are the details about the deal.

Fair is going to be acquiring a monthly vehicle subscription service from Ford called Canvas. The terms of the deal were undisclosed. Ford’s move to offload Fair comes as part of an $11 billion restructuring plan, according to CNBC.

Fair allows you to shop for vehicles by monthly payment. You can choose from more than 40 makes or models or get a rideshare-ready car and pay by the week. Plus you can pick the style, color, and brand you want and drive a car with no long-term commitment.

The monthly cost includes the car, insurance, and maintenance rather than having a long-term lease. And the cost ranges from a couple of hundred dollars per month to over $1,000 for a luxury vehicle.

Since being founded in 2016, Fair raised around $1.6 billion. Investors in Fair include SoftBank, BMW i Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, and Ally Financial. Earlier this year, Fair also announced it partnered with Uber to provide drivers with a vehicle at a low cost per month.

Fair founder and CEO Scott Painter pointed out that the acquisition will nearly double the company’s engineering capabilities and provide rapid expansion for operation in San Francisco and its overall customer base.

“We just became a much bigger, more dominant platform,” said Painter in an interview with CNBC. “This is really a reflection of the scale of where we’re operating.” And Canvas CEO Ned Ryan pointed out that the sale is a “natural fit” for both companies.

Ford had purchased Canvas (previously known as Breeze) through the Ford Credit arm in 2016. Breeze switched to the name Canvas in May 2017 and offered variable term leases with flexible payments to residents in San Francisco followed by an expansion to Los Angeles.

Ford Credit EVP of Strategy Sam Smith explained that the company had learned a lot about subscription services and fleet management from Canvas.

Fair will be buying Canvas’ assets and hire nearly 100 employees from the company. Around 20% or less of Canvas’ staff had either left Fair or were let go. And Canvas’ subscribers will have an option to join Fair at the end of their current vehicle subscription.

This is not the only mobility unit that Ford offloaded this year. Ford shut down the operations of its shuttle ride-sharing service called Chariot in March. Ford paid about $65 million to buy Chariot in September 2016.

Fair has tens of thousands of users in about 20 states. And the company is also working with thousands of car dealerships to help those businesses generate revenue for vehicles on their lots.