Following on from a US$500 million investment in ride-sharing service Lyft earlier this month, General Motors has announced the launch of a car-sharing service under a new personal mobility brand called Maven. Maven will provide city, residential, peer-to-peer and campus services.
"With the launch of our car-sharing service through Maven, the strategic alliance with ride-sharing company Lyft, and building on our decades of leadership in vehicle connectivity through OnStar, we are uniquely positioned to provide the high level of personalized mobility services our customers expect today and in the future," says Ammann.
GM's aim for Maven is to provide highly personalized, on-demand mobility services. It already already has 40 dedicated employees recruited from the likes of the connected car tech industry and the ride- and car-sharing industries.
Maven's city services will allow users to search for and reserve vehicles by location or car type using a mobile app and to unlock their chosen vehicle with a smartphone. The app will provide remote functions like starting the engine and operating the heating or cooling, while Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, OnStar, SiriusXM radio and 4GLTE wireless functionalities will also be available. City services have launched in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and are due to roll out more widely across the US throughout this year.
GM says the residential offering will provide car-sharing with on-demand access to vehicles and preferred parking options. An existing residential scheme in New York will be expanded, while the first new residential scheme will launch in Chicago before April.
Existing peer-to-peer car-sharing schemes have been running in Germany since the middle of last year, while various campus programs are already running in the US, Germany and China and will be used to to refine and test future Maven commercial offerings.
The video below provides an introduction to Maven.
Source: General Motors, Maven
