General Motors is one of the oldest car manufacturers in the world with brands like Chevrolet under its belt. It may be best known for making cars but that’s not what it only wants to be known for in the future, which is why it’s investing in next-generation transportation technologies. It has even launched a car-sharing service called Maven that’s quite like Zipcar.
GM expects that more than 30 million people are going to start using car-sharing services over the next ten years, services which allow them to rent a shared car at an hourly rate, which is why it thinks now is the time to come out with Maven, it’s very own car-sharing service.
Maven is only going to be available in Ann Arbor, Michigan for now however GM confirms that the service will be expanded to other cities across the country in the next few months. The company’s cars will be located in 21 spots around Ann Arbor and they can be rented out for $6 per hour. It differentiates itself from the likes of ZipCar and Car2Go by not charging any membership fees.
Customers will access the car using their smartphone, they’ll even be able to turn it on remotely and set the heating or cooling as per their preferences before even stepping inside the car. Maven’s fleet with include Chevy Spark and also the Chevy Bolt when it arrives later this year. All cars will have 4G LTE aside from support for Android Auto, CarPlay and SiriusXM.
General Motors really wants to be a big player in the auto industry of the future, no wonder the company has invested $500 million in Lyft to develop self-driving cars and has even purchased failed Uber rival SideCar, several team members that came over from SideCar are actually in the Maven team. All of this goes to show where GM wants to position itself in the years to come, and that it’s not going to let its rivals have all the fun.
Filed in . Read more about Chevrolet Bolt and General Motors. Source: wired