In the 2000s, for example, the US arm of Ford made more money by selling loans for cars than by selling the cars themselves. Ford sped up the car’s transition from physical product to financial commodity by pioneering the Personal Contract Plan (PCP), which allowed a ‘buyer’ to pay monthly instalments that only covered the predicted depreciation, and trade up to a new model after two or three years rather than pay off the balance (thus resulting in a higher loan amount than the new car’s price).
