GM’s Maven Car-Sharing Service is Convenient, but We’re Not Giving Up Our Keys

Digital Trends – June 14, 2018

Even for those who love driving, owning a car can be a pain. Gas, maintenance, and insurance costs can add up quickly and, if you live in a crowded city, finding a parking space can be difficult. These annoyances have created a profitable niche for car-sharing services, which give customers access to cars only when they need them. Seeing an opportunity, General Motors launched its Maven “personal mobility” brand in 2016 to offer car sharing in multiple North American cities. But is it really better to rent a car from GM than to just buy one?

Advertisements

Scooters, Ubers and Beyond: A New Group Wants to Explore How Transportation Options Fit Together

State Scoop – June 13, 2018

The proliferation of new modes of transportation — from e-scooters to Ubers — has presented city planners with a lot of new questions and not many answers. But a new initiative announced last week by San Francisco-based transportation analytics company Streetlight Data could soon lend a precise view of how these new technologies are changing communities.

New ‘Turo Go’ Gives Car Sharing Consumers Ability to Book, Unlock Cars Instantly

The Drive – June 12, 2018

Car sharing marketplace Turo has had a busy 2018. In May, The Drive broke news of its introduction of the Deluxe and Super Deluxe classes allowing customers to get behind the wheel of high-class exotic cars. April, brought the option of renting a hot tub boats. May, gave way to the Extras feature allowing customers to add add-ons to any rental. And now, the company offers a new feature to potentially supplement all of the cars available for rent through its service: Turo Go. Turo Go is a feature which will allow customers to book and unlock cars instantly via Turo’s mobile application.

It’s Cheaper to Uber Than to Own a Car in These 4 Large Cities

Skyline – June 12, 2018

Uber really has changed the transportation world as we know it. Since its formation in 2009, it has launched many different programs that have made an impact on our daily lives. The first is its taxi service. While many people may think that paying for an Uber every day is more expensive than owning a car, that actually isn’t always the case.

What Mobility as a Service (MaaS) means for the transportation industry

GreenBiz – June 11, 2018

In late March, two rivals that have battled for market share in a competitive industry for nearly a century announced an unexpected partnership to blend their respective market strengths and gain an advantage in a landscape that is fundamentally changing. We are not talking about a telecom or banking merger; we are talking about a milestone in “new mobility.” On March 28, auto giants Daimler and BMW announced the merger of their mobility services divisions, signaling the significance of the ongoing global shift to Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and how this shift is drastically affecting the transportation sector.

Uber’s AI Tool to Identify Drunk Riders May Be Too Little, Too Late

Observer – June 8, 2018

Uber is taking a big risk on artificial intelligence. The ride-sharing company wants to use AI to identify drunk passengers and tailor rides to their needs. Uber revealed its plans in a patent application, written by its trust & safety team and published online yesterday. According to the document, the AI tool would monitor users’ normal behavior when requesting Ubers, including frequency of typos, precision of clicks and how long it takes the customer to request a ride.

Uber Fails to Disrupt the Concept of Full-Time Work

CityLab – June 8, 2018

Despite the gig-economy hype, the share of independent workers in the U.S. has dropped over the last decade. And Uber itself has a smaller role as an employer. That’s the big takeaway from a new report out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics that reveals that gig work makes up only 6.9 percent of the U.S. workforce. Not only is this a modest number, it’s getting smaller.

Parking Space-Sharing Startup Looks to Expand in Tucson

Inside Tucson Business – June 8, 2018

AirGarage, a service that allows users to rent parking spaces around college campuses, plans to expand to the University of Arizona area in the coming months. Founded in 2016 by Arizona State University students Jonathon Barkl and Scott Fitsimones, AirGarage works similarly to other “sharing economy” services: people list a personal parking space, then renters pay to occupy the spot for a chosen period of time.

Lyft Redesigns Its App — and Strategy — for the Age of Sharing

Wired – June 7, 2018

Lyft just unveiled an app redesign that tries, very hard, to convince users to grow up and share. To go with the revamp, which will be rolled out in all markets throughout the month, Lyft has a new goal: By 2020, it wants 50 percent of its trips to be shared.

Uber is Launching Its Bike-Share Company Jump in Europe

The Verge – June 6, 2018

In the two months since Uber bought bike-share startup Jump, the company’s bright red bikes have already rolled out across a few US cities — and now they’re coming to Europe. Onstage at today’s NOAH Conference in Berlin, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced that the company would be expanding beyond its traditional taxi rides with plans to roll out electric bike rentals in the German capital by the end of the summer, with more European cities to come.