Automotive News Canada - May 2018 - 15

* MAY 2018

General Motors' Maven is off to a strong start, but
still has only a 40-car fleet. One of its competitors,
car-rental giant Avis Budget Group, has about
500 in its Zipcar unit in Toronto.
P H O T O S : M AV E N , Z I P C A R

LETTING IT RIDE
Maven jumps into
Toronto market, but
several competitors are
already well-established

By JOHN IRWIN
TORONTO BUREAU

TORONTO - THE ARRIVAL
of Maven in Toronto earlier this
year was a significant moment
for General Motors' shortterm-rental service as it
expanded outside of the
United States for the first
time.
But while GM sees

SHORT-TERM PAIN
Magna CFO Vince
Galifi told financial analysts on a call in March
that revenues from the
Lyft deal are not expected to be material in the
short term, but that
there's "significant"
potential for revenues in
the long term, according
to Reuters.
The Lyft deal came
just several months
after Magna joined the
consortium with BMW,
Intel and Mobileye in
October. As with Lyft,
Magna will provide the

the service growing in the city at a
faster clip than it originally anticipated, it faces an uphill climb to
catch established services such as
Enterprise CarShare and Daimler's
car2go.
Mark Latchford, Maven's general manager for Toronto, said the
service has about 4,000 approved
members who are able to rent one
of 40 vehicles scattered throughout
the area.
"That's well above what we were
expecting for Toronto, which is
fantastic," he said. "The
diversity, the culture
and the growth of the
city is in many ways
perfect for car sharing.
So I think it's going to
be fantastic for us."
Still, the service lags
far behind many competitors in terms of membership numbers and fleet
size. Car2go, which
launched in 2012, has a
fleet of 370 vehicles in
the city, while Enterprise
CarShare has about 400
vehicles.

consortium's autonomous-driving platform
with the various sensors it needs. The companies have said they plan
to allow all companies,
not just those within it,
to use its "flexible" platform on their own autonomous vehicles.
"Many of the autonomy challenges the
industry is facing can't
be handled in isolation," Magna Chief
Technology Officer
Swamy Kotagiri said in
a statement at the time.
- ANC

Whether Maven will catch its
rivals in terms of size could depend
in large part on how Maven separates itself from the pack - and on
whether the various short-termrental services get what they view
as adequate support from local government.
Here's what the competitive
landscape looks like.

CAR2GO EXAMINES OPTIONS
Car2go threatened in February
to leave Toronto because the city
delayed a vote on a proposal to sell
2,000 parking permits to the shortterm rental services and make them
exempt from parking time limits. It's
a threat that still stands, according to
car2go spokeswoman Kendell Kelton.
"As we told our members in
February, we're currently taking
our time to re-examine our operations in Toronto and will provide an update when we have one
to share," she wrote in an email to
Automotive News Canada.
Exiting the Toronto market
would be a major blow to the shortterm-rental service, as Kelton said
the city is the "most active" among

the 26 markets car2go operates in
worldwide. Kelton said the service
has 75,000 members in Toronto,
with a fleet of 370 vehicles that
includes the Mercedes-Benz GLA
small utility vehicle, MercedesBenz CLA sedan and the Smart
fortwo city car.

RENTAL GIANTS
Maven also faces direct competition from Enterprise Rent-A-Car and
Avis Budget Group, which have been
established in Toronto for years.
Avis's Zipcar launched in
Toronto in 2006 and has a fleet of
about 500 cars in the city, according to Zipcar. Enterprise CarShare,
meanwhile, has about 400 vehicles
in the city, mostly located in the
downtown core and along subway
lines, the company said.
Zipcar and CarShare said their
companies have recently been
focused on expanding to colleges
and universities in the area. Shortterm-rental services often target
younger people who might not be
interested in owning a vehicle.

MAVEN
Latchford said he anticipates
Maven's growth to continue into
the summer as more users travel
out of the city on vacation. But he
declined to say when Maven might
be looking to expand.
"We're still looking at our numbers to determine when is the perfect time to add to the fleet." - ANC

It's difficult to imagine
that one day we'll
wake up and there
are full fleets of
autonomous vehicles
on the streets.
BORIS SHULKIN
The technology Magna will deploy with Lyft can be ported
to vehicles needing lower levels of autonomy. P H O T O : LY F T

Magna

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive News Canada - May 2018