General Motors has unveiled its car sharing service, Maven in Los Angeles. The service is already operational in cities such as Boston, New York City, and Ann Arbor.
Initially, the company will deploy only 60 vehicles across 24 locations in the city. Some of these locations are South Park, Little Tokyo, and downtown Los Angeles.
The service will require customers to register and use the app to reserve vehicles of their choice. The rent for the cars has been fixed at $8 per hour. This covers both insurance and fuel. The fleet consists of various General Motors cars such as Chevrolet Cruze, Volt, Malibu, and the GMC Acadia. It also has Cadillac such as Escalade, ATS, and CT6.
The service is likely to provide strong competition to existing car sharing companies including CityCarShare and ZipCar.
Julia Steyn, vice president of Urban Mobility and Maven, said that Los Angeles has 'incredible appetite' for cars and hence is a good choice for General Motors. She added that General Motors enhances the car sharing experience through its luxury cars and electric vehicles.
General Motors is planning to diversify its business to include car-sharing. It is not limiting its reach to the US as recently, the company bought a stake in Yi Wei Xing Technology Co., a Chinese car-sharing company. The Chinese company runs Feezu, a timeshare car rental service. General Motors expects to gain insights about the Chinese market through this alliance.