Calcutta: Borrow a brand new car, drive it and rent it out when idle. Sounds too good to be true? A rental company for self-driven cars is soon going to offer customers the option of subscribing to cars.

Zoomcar Associate Programme (ZAP) will allow customers to subscribe to factory fresh cars on payment of a refundable security deposit and a monthly subscription fee.

"The subscriber can have a new car at his disposal without having to pay a hefty price, road tax or insurance. There will be no maintenance charges either," Greg Moran, the CEO of Zoomcar, told Metro. The road tax and insurance fee will be paid by Zoomcar.

The duration of the subscription will be flexible - six, 12 or 24 months. "The subscription fee will vary according to the model of the car. For a compact car, it is Rs 20,000, and it can go up to Rs 35,000 for an SUV," Moran said.

ZAP has already garnered 10,000 subscribers across the country, 1,000 of them in Calcutta. "Cars will be delivered from March," Moran said.

What makes the proposal even more attractive is that the subscriber can earn some money back by renting out the subscribed car on the Zoomcar platform when not using it.

"A subscriber can earn 75 per cent of the revenue generated from the car while it is on the Zoomcar platform while we get to keep 25 per cent," Moran said.

For instance, a subscriber can keep the car for one weekend and put it on the rental platform for the remaining weekends of the month. During the week, the subscriber can keep the car for four to five days and rent it out for one or two weekdays. "On an average, a subscriber can earn anything between Rs 5,000 and Rs 12,000," the CEO said.

There might, however, be some restrictions on usage and even periodic inspections. "We give our subscribers a limit of 8,000km per month so for a six-month subscription, one gets to drive 48,000km, which is practically unlimited," a company spokesperson said.

Car subscription is an idea already in vogue in the US. Volvo offers a programme called Care and Cadillac has Book by Cadillac.

With a fleet of 3,000 cars all over India, and 100 in Calcutta, Zoomcar plans to put 50 per cent of its fleet on ZAP. It has cars from the stables of Tata, Maruti, Ford, Mahindra and Hyundai. "We will increase our fleet depending on the response to ZAP," Moran said.