General Motors' Maven is entering Toronto’s crowded car sharing market
Maven moves into Toronto’s crowded car sharing market
General Motors startup enters Canadian market hoping to carve out a piece of the car-sharing pie.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/0 ... arket.html
General Motors startup enters Canadian market hoping to carve out a piece of the car-sharing pie.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/0 ... arket.html
Anyone use car-sharing services?Maven, a General Motors company already operating in the U.S. and Kitchener-Waterloo, will join the likes of Car2Go, ZipCar and Enterprise CarShare in Toronto.
Maven and its competitors allow drivers to borrow a vehicle for a few hours at a time.
“(Car sharing) really was created as an alternative to car ownership, because cars largely sit unused 98 per cent of the time when they’re owned in a private capacity — so they’re not in a fleet setting where they could get higher usage rates,” said Susan Shaheen, co-director of the University of California — Berkeley’s Transportation Sustainability Research Centre.
Ken Greenberg, former director of urban design and architecture for the City of Toronto and author of Walking Home, called car sharing “a logical and inevitable step in the evolution from where we are now to where we have to get to.”
“As we move away from the fixation with individuals owning vehicles, we’re certainly in my view, for many people, moving away from the idea that your personal identity is tied up with the kind of car you drive, notwithstanding what the auto makers would have us believe,” Greenberg said. “This is a very liberating thing.”
Maven will kick off with about 10 models, 50 cars and designated parking spaces in 14 neighbourhoods like Liberty Village, Leslieville and the Financial District. Maven cars can be used for as low as $9 an hour.