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GM gets serious about car-sharing with new 'Maven' service
Move over, Zipcar. General Motors just announced the launch of Maven, a new car-sharing service meant to ease personal transport woes. Public transit is great (when it works anyway), but some situations just call for cars and GM's eager to try filling in gaps its competitors have left wide open. This isn't the first time GM has experimented with car-sharing — it launched a similar service called Let's Drive NYC for tenants of one apartment building last October. With Maven's launch, GM is no longer a company that looks at cars purely as products; they're a service now, too.
White House teams with Uber and Lyft on free rides for veterans
Uber and Lyft are doing a rare team-up to offer "tens of thousands" of free rides to veterans who need transportation to seek work, according to a message from the White House. Uber pledged to donate 10,000 rides worth around $125,000, while Lyft told Techcrunch that it's giving away "thousands of rides" in total. The White House pointed out that the rides will be particularly beneficial to the estimated 50,000 homeless veterans, two-thirds of whom don't have access to transportation. In addition, Uber will today offer riders a chance to donate $5, which it'll use to offer additional rides.
Lyft partners with Hertz to offer its drivers affordable rental rates
If you've been trying to become a driver for Lyft, but your car doesn't meet the minimum requirements (like having four doors), the company has a solution. It's partnered with Hertz car rentals for what it's calling "affordable" daily, weekly, and monthly rates. In addition to giving new drivers a chance to earn some extra cash, the partnership is also meant to help current drivers stay on the road when their vehicle is in the shop or is otherwise unavailable. A pilot program has already launched in Las Vegas. At the driver event this morning, the ride-sharing platform also announced a partnership with Shell for a cents-per-gallon gas rewards program. Drivers get a unique PIN code that offers fuel discounts depending on how often they fill up. The more gas they use, the cheaper the fuel. Power drivers could earn free gasoline with the system. It's launching in San Francisco, Chicago and Boston and will be available at all Shell stations nationwide by the end of the year.
Sound Off! What apps do you use to cash in on your car?
When you live in a crowded city, having a vehicle can sometimes feel more like a burden than a luxury. Finding parking, paying for insurance, dealing with the occasional fender bender – managing all of these things could drive even the most serene among us to the brink. But hey, it's 2014, so of course a handful of smart folks have come up with ways to make your car work for you instead: Lyft, Getaround and... what are we missing? Tell us in the Engadget forums! Or if you think it's better to ditch a car completely -- how would you go about selling it online? Sound off, people.
French Uber users face 15-minute delay starting next year
To the surprise of virtually everyone in France, the government has just passed a law requiring car services like Uber to wait 15 minutes before picking up passengers. The bill is designed to help regular taxi drivers, who feel threatened by recently introduced companies like Uber, SnapCar and LeCab. Cabbies in the Gallic nation require formidable time and expense to get their permits and see the new services -- which lack such onerous requirements -- as direct competitors. The legislation managed to pass through parliament despite reservations from the French competition authority, which deemed it ill-thought-out. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the private services called the new law "absurd, unjust and incomprehensible" and vowed to attack it. One SnapCar rep even told TechCrunch it would never leave a customer on a rainy street, and pointing to the French Minister responsible, said "what would Manuel Valls want for his mother?"
BMW DriveNow EV car sharing comes to San Francisco Bay Area, ParkNow follows suit
BMW kicked off its DriveNow car sharing service in its home country last year to see if urban EV rentals would catch on. Something must have clicked in Germany, as the automaker is exporting the concept to the San Francisco Bay Area as of September. DriveNow's initial fleet of 70 ActiveE vehicles will rely on a different business model after getting its American visa: the service drops the strictly by-the-minute model of the German operation in favor of a $12 base fee for a half-hour's trip, with a 32 cents per minute rate kicking in only during longer drives. Travelers will have to drop off the cars at specified stations, too. There's a consolation for the trouble through a ParkNow reservation service, which locks in a parking space at a guaranteed rate and navigates there through an iPhone app or the web. Just be aware that those spaces will be limited -- only eight DriveNow stations and 14 ParkNow lots are active, which doesn't afford a lot of free roaming even after discounting the lack of immediate plans for other US cities. We're nonetheless glad that Bay Area locals without their own ride will have an easier time staying green for their cross-city jaunts.
OnStar seals partnership with RelayRides, makes renting out your car even easier (hands-on video)
Remember that partnership between OnStar and RelayRides we wrote about last March? Well it's finally coming to fruition today, with the peer-to-peer car sharing service launching support for remote door unlocking via OnStar's proprietary API. As a result, RelayRides members with OnStar-enabled vehicles no longer have to exchange keys in person if they so choose. Another benefit is that participants can list their automobile on RelayRides directly from their OnStar account -- renters then benefit from the added safety and security that comes with OnStar. We had the chance to test an early version of the functionality on a Chevy Volt at SXSW a few months ago and it worked pretty much as advertised. There was a bit of a delay between the time we sent the unlock command from RelayRides' website on the demo iPad and the moment the doors actually unlocked on the car, but we're told this has been significantly improved since our hands-on. Of course, RelayRides also supports remote unlocking via text message. Take a look at the galleries below then hit the break for our hands-on video, RelayRides' video and OnStar's PR.%Gallery-160469% %Gallery-160496%
RelayRides hooks up with GM, opens P2P car sharing to OnStar subs
Usually when a stranger gets behind the wheel of your car, it's more a situation for the authorities than General Motors. But with the impending nationwide rollout of RelayRides' P2P car sharing program, owners of GM vehicles will soon be actively looking for complete strangers to take a spin at their wheels in exchange for cash. The startup, backed by venture capital from Google, launched its unique rental service two years ago in Boston and San Francisco and is now poised to expand that reach to about six million OnStar subs with an upcoming smartphone app. Admittedly, it's a bizarre, though potentially lucrative concept, as those who opt-in and open their driver-side doors to randoms could net anywhere from $250 to $1000 per month, while renters only have to cough up about $5 to $10 per hour. It's a tough sell when compared up to the more traditional, well-established likes of, say, ZipCar, but if you're keen on sniffing that previously-owned car smell, this should be right up your alley.
Car2go brings North America's first all-electric carsharing program to San Diego
When we tried out car2go's carsharing program earlier this year, we knew it was only a matter of time before the service rolled out to other parts of the country. Little did we know, however, that it would be doing so atop a flotilla of EVs. Yesterday, the Daimler subsidiary announced that San Diego will be the next city to adopt car2go, making it the first in North America to boast a completely electric carsharing system. The program will kick off sometime before the end of this year, when 300 Smart Fortwo plug-ins storm the city, each powered by a 30 kW electric propulsion system and a lithium ion battery that promises to last for up to 84 miles on a single charge. Whenever the cars run out of juice, drivers will be able to recharge at any of the 1,000 Blink EV charging stations (due to be installed by the end of 2011), before heading off to windsail, buy white linen pants, or whatever people do under perennial sunshine. Curiosity piqued? Steer past the break for the full press release.
Getaround app takes car sharing peer-to-peer on the iPhone
Getaround is a brand new app launching today on the App Store that is designed to be a "peer-to-peer car rental marketplace." The idea is that it's like a Zipcar sort of service, but run peer-to-peer style, so anyone can rent their cars for just a few bucks an hour. If you need a car for a limited amount of time, you can load up the app, do a quick search in your area, and then find a car and an owner renting it just long enough to take a trip to the grocery store or pick up a piece of furniture. And if you want to be an owner, you can sign up with the service online, and Getaround will cover the insurance after an eligibility screening, and even provides a special carkit that lets users unlock and lock their cars straight through the iPhone app (just like the official Zipcar app). It seems like a great service, both for people who want to make a few bucks renting cars, and for current car sharing users looking for a cheaper or closer service than they're currently using. If you live in an urban area and could make use of a shared car, give it a look.
Hertz launches hourly EV rentals in London, self-satisfaction comes free
Contract-free cellphones, declining marriage rates and car-sharing services all tell us you're a bunch of commitmentphobes. Lucky for you the world is willing to oblige your wishy-washy ways, and for those who also happen to have a bit of a green streak, Connect by Hertz offers hourly rentals on electric cars. After launching its EV rental program here in New York last year, Hertz promised to expand to several other cities and countries by the end of 2011, with London being the next to go online this Friday. British urbanites averse to car ownership will be able to pick from a fleet of vehicles including the iMieV, Nissan LEAF and Renault Kangoo, range anxiety diminished thanks to the city's 16 charging stations. It's not exactly the Jetsons, but if this is the future of transportation, we're ok with that -- we're thinking Mother Earth is too.
BMW launches DriveNow, the 'premium' car sharing service with a Dell Streak on every dash (video)
If you liked the idea of the Car2go service we profiled a few weeks back, Smart fortwos available for rent by the minute with and some pretty fancy tracking apps to help you find them, but maybe you wanted to drive something a little bit bigger, BMW has you covered. Well, assuming "you" are German or at least living in Germany. The company has launched its own car sharing service it calls DriveNow. This one is billed as a "premium" -- though curiously none of the company's truly premium models will be offered. That said, the Minis and 1 Series autos that make up the initial fleet are hardly low-rent, and we'd be utterly shocked if the upcoming i3 didn't get added to the mix down the road too. Usage details are still a little bit scarce, but we do know that each car will have a dash-mounted Dell Streak through which users will log in after unlocking the car doors with an RFID-equipped membership card or even a suitably endowed drivers license. Renting a car costs 29 cents per minute, up to €14.90 (about $21) per hour, and there will be 300 cars available at first starting in the Munich area. If you're not in Munich it's tough cookies for now, but BMW is hoping to have one million members worldwide by 2020. Maybe one of them will be you.
Car2go test drive: RFID, GPS, and mobile apps make for a smarter Smart
As you read this (assuming you're reading this sometime before March 20th) zillions of music, movie, and tech mavens and moguls have descended on Austin, Texas for SXSW. We made a run through the city just before festivities kicked off, stopping by to check out the Car2Go carsharing service that launched last summer and that, as of March 19th, will expand its coverage area to include 52 square miles worth of the heart of Texas. We took one of the company's customized Smart Fortwos for a ride and also test drove the new iPad app that makes finding cars as easy as pie. Pie, as it turns out, is also quite easy to find in Austin. %Gallery-119036%
RelayRides P2P car sharing service now available in the Bay Area
Got a car sittin' 'round, clutterin' up your driveway? Love the idea of handing over the keys to strangers? RelayRides, a recent beneficiary of some Google Ventures cash, has just brought its peer-to-peer car-sharing service to the San Francisco Bay Area. Already available in Boston, the service is sort of a "social bikes-meets-Zip Car." The idea is to let customers rent privately owned (and in some cases, leased) vehicles by the hour: owners receive sixty-five percent of the rental fee, and they're protected by a million dollar insurance policy (drivers have to pay a $500 deductible, which should be large enough to keep people on good behavior). RelayRides is unclear on the exact nature of the keyless entry system (which gets installed gratis when your whip enters the program), but we're guessing it's either RFID or NFC. It also contains a GPS, which is used to track the car's movements and mileage. Interested? Hit the source link to get started.
