Maven to expand peer-to-peer car-sharing service to 10 cities

UPDATE: Oct. 24, 2018: General Motors' (GM) personal mobility brand Maven announced Tuesday its peer-to-peer car-sharing service will expand to 10 U.S. cities by the end of 2018. The Peer service enables Maven users to list their personal vehicles for rent on the Maven app, as opposed to the traditional Maven service which allows users to rent from GM's fleets of vehicles.

The Peer service currently exists in Detroit, Chicago and Ann Arbor, MI, following a July beta test. The new cities will include Baltimore, Boston, DC, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Jersey City, NJ.

Dive Brief:

General Motors-owned car-sharing service Maven has launched a new peer-to-peer pilot program dubbed Peer Cars.
Vehicle owners and eligible lessees who have a 2015 or newer model Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac can rent their personal vehicle to others for cash.
The pilot is currently operating in Detroit, Chicago and Ann Arbor, MI, with plans to expand to additional markets this fall based on insights it collects during the initial pilot.

Dive Insight:

Up until now, Maven operated like a modern, digital car rental service and customers rented Maven's vehicles. The new peer-to-peer service plays off of the convenience of the original concept, but the cars are owned by the public, not Maven.

Peer Cars benefits vehicle owners because they can make money when their personal vehicle is not in use instead of letting it sit idle. It also benefits Maven because the company can expand service without continuously adding more of its own vehicles to the mix.

The Peer Cars operating model is not new, with competitors like Turo and Getaround having been established since 2009. It is different, though, in its strict limitations on which personal vehicles can be included in the program. It will be interesting to see if the limited vehicle selection will hinder the program from being competitive in the current markets or if enough demand exists for it to thrive. It could also end up adding other models to the program in the future.

"Maven is a platform designed for sharing and we’ve proven demand exists," Julia Steyn, vice president of General Motors Urban Mobility and Maven, said in a statement.