GM shuttered its Maven vehicle share program this week.
The Maven vehicle share program had been in operation in limited markets for four years and had a customer list of nearly a quarter-million users. Katlynn Downey, Maven spokesperson, told the press, “We won’t be accepting any new reservations. We looked at Maven as a business as well as the car-sharing industry. It’s a high investment business and operational costs are high. We felt it was best to focus our business in other areas where there’s greater potential for profitability and growth.”
GM spokesman Stuart Fowle told CNBC, “We took the suspension period to critically look at our business and have made the tough decision to transition our resources, capabilities, and technology to other GM businesses where there is greater potential for profit and growth.”
“We’ve gained extremely valuable insights from operating our own car-sharing business,” Pamela Fletcher, GM vice president of Global Innovation, said in an emailed statement. “Our learnings and developments from Maven will go on to benefit and accelerate the growth of other areas of GM business.”
Maven was a bit different than Uber and Lyft. Rather than a quasi-private taxi service, it was a short-term car rental program with rates as low as $8 per hour.
Maven’s operations had been quiet as of late. The last press release from the company was July of 2018.
Source Note: The Maven quotation in this story was obtained from the Detriot Free Press. The other quotes were courtesy of CNBC.