Kitchener to be first Canadian recipient of GM car sharing service

December 6th, 2016  |  Auto

At the beginning of 2016, GM announced that it would soon be rolling out a car sharing brand called Maven. With 2016 about to come to a close, Maven is finally making its way to Canada.

Kitchener, which is situated relatively close to GM’s main headquarters in Detroit, will be the first Canadian city to feature this particular car sharing service. The development was finalized last night when Kitchener’s city council approved a plan to rent five downtown parking spots to the auto manufacturing giant. More could be on the way if the arrangement goes smoothly.

With a population of approximately 220,000 Kitchener is by no means one of Canada’s largest cities. But when factoring in the rest of the surrounding Waterloo and Cambridge region, Kitchener is one of the top-10 largest metropolitan areas in Canada. Paul McCormick, the city’s manager of parking enterprise, believes that car sharing could potentially alleviate some of the municipality’s traffic by providing a more efficient means of internal transportation for professionals who commute into Kitchener by transit.

It appears that the vehicles GM will initially be providing the city with are fairly high-end automobiles. They feature leather seats and satellite radio. The service itself is facilitated entirely through a mobile phone. This includes the actual unlocking and engine-starting of the car.