GM car-sharing program reportedly expanding with Airbnb-like car rentals
General Motors is staying tight-lipped about a new Bloomberg report that suggests the company's Maven car-sharing program will soon allow GM car owners to rent out their vehicles to strangers for brief periods of time through the app.
GM's existing Maven car-sharing program already offers cars on-demand, so people can rent a Chevy Volt or other vehicles in the company's fleet for a few hours to run errands. But according to the latest Bloomberg story, GM car owners will soon be able to rent their cars to other individuals through the same Maven app.
A company spokesperson said there was nothing to announce at this time about peer-to-peer rentals, but didn't entirely reject the possibility either, instead saying, "Maven is always looking for ways to remove barriers to sharing."
Unnamed sources told Bloomberg the expanded car-sharing pilot program will begin in early summer. If it's deemed successful it would eventually become part of Maven.
Maven has already expanded its offerings since its 2016 launch, with implementations such as the Gig tool for ride-hailing drivers to rent or lease GM cars. Whether this new peer-to-peer car rental feature ever rolls out remains to be seen -- but it's easy to imagine this being useful to young city-dwellers who don't own a car and occasionally need one to run errands or simply escape the city.
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
