Uber is partnering with General Motors’ car-sharing service, called Maven, for a 90-day car rental pilot program, the companies announced on Tuesday.
Uber is partnering with GM’s mobility arm on a car rental program for drivers
The pilot program with Maven, which looks a lot like Lyft’s partnership with Maven, will only be available in San Francisco for 90 days.
Carl Court / Getty Images
Through Maven, Uber drivers in San Francisco will be able to rent a GM vehicle that qualifies to be on the platform for $179 a week plus additional taxes and fees.
It’s a new addition to the existing suite of partnerships that include companies like rental car business Enterprise and a leasing program under Uber that caters to drivers who have been rejected by other lenders. As part of Uber’s partnership with Enterprise, drivers pay $215 a week to rent a vehicle.
“We want options that fit around [drivers’] lives,” Rachel Holt, Uber’s GM of the U.S. and Canada, told reporters during a press call.
The pilot itself isn’t significant — it’s only 90 days and will only be available in San Francisco. But GM’s decision to partner with a company competing with Lyft, in which the automaker invested $500 million, is a bit odd.
As part of its investment in the younger ride-hail company, GM agreed to supply vehicles for Lyft’s Express Drive program — a service similar to Uber and GM’s pilot except there is no end date and Lyft charges a fee for personal use of the vehicle unless drivers give 65 or more rides a week, in which case the rental fee is waived.
Lyft’s program is also available in Boston, Chicago, Washington D.C., Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Jose.
But GM isn’t the only vehicle supplier in Lyft’s Express Drive program. Lyft is also working with Hertz — which is why the company says Maven’s collaboration with Uber isn’t a threat.
“Maven’s supply channels do not impact our programs with GM,” a Lyft spokesperson told Recode in a statement. “We continue to work together to shape the future of mobility.”
For Maven, it’s simply a means to broaden their car rental platform.
“Only 10 months after launching Maven, we have implemented viable business-to-business platforms that GM can leverage to manage residual values for ex-lease and fleet vehicles,” Julia Steyn, GM vice president of Urban Mobility, said in a statement.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
