GM also stressed on the connectivity features that will make this ride-sharing facility different from other competitors, as it will offer the customers the chance to sync their respective digital life with the vehicle on hire through an array of connectivity features like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto paired with 4GLTE wireless internet.
"We believe there will be more change in the next five years than our industry has seen in the last 50 years", Ammann said.
Maven is only going to be available in Ann Arbor, Michigan for now however GM confirms that the service will be expanded to other cities across the country in the next few months. Now they have launched their own car-sharing service, which is being piloted in MI.
Maven will expand in the first quarter of 2016 to residential areas, starting with car-sharing services for Chicago residents.
Users in Ann Arbor who download the Maven app can select a vehicle or pick-up location at rates beginning at $6 per hour for the Chevrolet Volt or Spark and topping out at $12 per hour for the Chevrolet Tahoe. Maven is vehicle sharing, and is distinct from the ridesharing business.
GM or General Motors has been in the news quite a bit lately. All of the automaker's car-sharing endeavors will be wrapped into a new brand labeled Maven, evoking the Yiddish word for an expert.
Ann Arbor users will also be able to contact Maven team members, including Steyn, via the messaging app WhatsApp to share ideas and thoughts about the service.
GM is hoping Maven - selected for its meaning as an expert or connoisseur - will differentiate from other car-sharing services by offering customers an easy-to-use, "highly personalized, on-demand mobility services".
The Detroit company announced two mobility deals earlier this month - it invested 0 million in ride-hailing company Lyft and bought the technology and most assets of defunct ride-hailing company Sidecar. But he emphasized the company is running it as a commercial operation and that vehicle sharing offers benefits such as being used more often than traditional ownership models where cars sit idle about 95 percent of the time.
More importantly, Maven lays important groundwork for a future in which cars drive themselves, as Wired's Alex Davies points out.
The automaker is trying to catch up to companies such as as Uber and Zipcar that have found a fast-growing business in on- demand transportation that could replace the need for some people to buy cars.
BMW AG operates its own car-sharing service, DriveNow, in nine European cities.
Maven's staff reportedly includes former Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL), ZipCar and Sidecar employees. According to GM's head of Urban Mobility Programs, Julia Steyn, more than 25 million people around the world are projected to use some form of shared mobility by 2020.
US Navy sailors released unharmed by Iran in less than a day
The sailors were later flown ashore by Navy aircraft, while other crews took charge of the boats and continued toward Bahrain. Several news sources said the sailors and their patrol boats were from Coastal Riverine Group 1 based in San Diego.
