GM plans Airbnb type car rental scheme

14/03/2018

GM plans Airbnb type car rental scheme

Bloomberg reports that General Motors is planning to start trials of a car rental scheme in the same vein as Airbnb.

Although the plans aren't public, it is reported that GM vehicle owners will be able to register their cars on GM's Maven car-sharing platform in order that other drivers can rent them, with the revenue split with GM.

GM already rents vehicles to individuals through its Maven unit but it has always owned the vehicles involved, but the proposed scheme would see the number of vehicles available to rent increase with no extra outlay from GM.

There are already companies running similar schemes: Startups Turo (with around 200,000 car listings) and Getaround are two of the biggest companies to do this, but if GM's trial becomes formalised as a business, GM would be bigger than both of those with its market value of almost $53bn.

Alexandre Marian, a director in the automotive and industrial practice at consultant AlixPartners LLP said, 'Carmakers are preparing for disruption, so they are experimenting with different models.'