Ferrari 488 Pista
Just when we think Ferrari has hit the performance ceiling, the company goes and does something like this . . .
Thanks to new technology, the way people use cars is beginning to change, with much more disruption to traditional transportation models on the way in the near future.
One of the more interesting examples is the partnership between Maven Gig and General Motors. Maven Gig, from San Francisco, Calif., provides rental vehicles on a weekly basis for drivers who want to work for ridehailing services such as Uber and Lyft, but don’t own a car. The program soon expanded to include package, grocery and food-delivery drivers. The motto is “Our Car. Your Hustle.”
“We started by providing vehicles to ride-sharing drivers — basically independent contractors who were between jobs or just looking to find a different kind of work with a lot of flexibility,” Peter Kosak, GM’s executive director of urban mobility, told the Detroit News daily newspaper. “We’re now opening the platform up to a transportation network company or a delivery company, whether it’s groceries or finished meals like Grubhub.”
Maven’s smartphone app, which is available for iPhone and Android users, allows drivers to see car availabilities, with pricing and locations, and lets them schedule pickup times. The app can be downloaded for Apple in the App Store and for Android in the Google Play Store.
Basically, drivers pay a US $20 application fee to join the Maven Gig program and then rent cars for flat weekly rates. Prices start at US $189 per week for a Chevrolet Cruze, and all rentals include maintenance, insurance and unlimited miles.
Maven Gig has partnerships with GrubHub, Instacart, Roadie and a ride service for transporting kids called HopSkipDrive.
Already, Maven Gig has expanded to Los Angeles and San Diego, Calif., with Boston, Mass., Phoenix, Ariz., and Washington, D.C., set to come online in the fall. Baltimore, Md., and Detroit, Mich., will come on stream after that.
Where General Motors fits into the equation is in the cars Maven Gig offers, specifically a range of GM products. The most popular of these is the new Chevrolet Bolt EV.
According to Maven, there are 100 Bolts in Los Angeles already, with that number scheduled to double by the end of the year, and another 125 Bolts slated to be in the San Francisco fleet by the end of the year.
“We are committed to bringing Bolt EVs to all Maven Gig markets. Drivers want the Bolt EV because of cost savings as well as helping with energy and environmental goals,” said Rachel Bhattacharya, Chief Growth Officer for Maven.
“Los Angeles is a very important market for us, because it provides all of the unique mobility challenges that a city can have,” Julia Steyn, vice-president of General Motors Urban Mobility and Maven, told the Los Angeles Times. “And it’s a very fertile ground to introduce an allelectric vehicle.”
Maven’s statistics show that Maven Gig Bolts have driven 1.4 million all-electric miles (2.2 million kilometres) in California since February 2017 and have saved an estimated 50,000 gallons (193,000 litres) of gasoline, with more than 130,000 rides.
Maven Gig is one of several options under the Maven umbrella. Maven City lets users rent GM vehicles for hourly or daily rates in 17 cities in the United States and Canada, while Maven Homes is a “24/7 access car-sharing program at partner residential communities in San Francisco and Washington, D.C.”
Maven City, which competes with services such as Zipcar, says 79 per cent of its customers are millennials — loosely defined as people born in the early 1980s, onward — who on average drive 77 miles (123 kilometres) per trip and keep their cars on average 14 hours.
On-demand short-term rentals are great for people who don’t want long-term commitments to operate and insure and park a car of their own, especially in urban environments, but traditional leasing might be considerably cheaper in some situations.
Still, companies like Maven show how much things are changing in the transportation space. And it’s still way early in the game.