Porsche's app-based car subscriptions come to four more cities

You no longer have to live in Atlanta to try Porsche's alternatives to car ownership. The automaker is expanding its app-based Passport subscriptions and Drive rentals to four more North American cities, including Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Diego and Toronto. The fundamentals for each remain the same. Passport lets you drive and swap cars as much as you like starting at $2,100 per month, with your only added cost being fuel. Drive, meanwhile, is closer to traditional rentals with options to drive a car for stints between four hours and a week. In both case, concierges both drop off and pick up your ride.

The new cities also gave Porsche an opportunity to shed light on Passport users' habits -- yes, people do take advantage of it. They tend to swap cars about 2.5 times a month (say, a Cayenne for commuting and a 911 for the weekend), switching at home more than 50 percent of the time and 30 percent at work. And yes, Passport has apparently reeled in converts. Over 80 percent of Atlanta members had never owned a Porsche before.

That data likely explains why Passport and Drive are expanding. In addition to helping Porsche adjust to an era of reduced car ownership, it also serves as a headache-free (if expensive) entry point for the Porsche universe. While you won't have the pride of ownership, you also won't have to deal with maintenance, obsolescence or protecting your resale value -- you can focus on enjoying the car.