Clever Carsharing with Maven

Opel is taking the next step to becoming a mobility service provider as well as a carmaker. The company is launching Maven, the General Motors mobility brand, in Europe next year. Opel hosted a kick-off event in Berlin, Germany, which was attended by lifestyle journalists, Julia Steyn (Vice President of Maven), and Tina Müller (Head of Marketing at Opel). “The focus will soon shift from simply selling as many cars as possible. Instead, we want to encourage our customers to travel with us, in our cars, as much as possible,” says Tina Müller. To this end, Opel is launching Maven, the clever carsharing concept, in large cities in Germany. Maven will first be introduced to selected hotels, residence complexes, and student accommodation buildings that have a Maven Home. This means, for example, that guests at a Meininger hotel, residents at the Oskar Residence in the district of Ostend in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and students at the Akademia Residenz student accommodation building in Berlin can use an app to lease a vehicle from the on-site station – easily, simply, and at any time. In other words, Opel is bringing cars to the people, which is a service that no other carsharing portal offers.

Julia Steyn is Vice President, Urban Mobility Programs at General Motors. She is introducing the new personal mobility brand and is coordinating the different mobility programs from GM as part of a single brand.

Maven customers do not drive around with large-scale advertising banners on the car. Instead, the logo is placed in a much more subtle manner on the rear side-window.

Julia Steyn, Vice President Urban Mobility and Maven at GM, travelled from the U.S. specifically to attend the first networking dinner, which was attended by 20 prominent lifestyle, finance, and marketing journalists. The Maven experts and editors of magazines such as Bunte, Elle, and Die Zeit shared ideas about the future of mobility at Grill Royal, a local restaurant. Since Maven represents an urban, networked, and independent lifestyle, the event was aimed particularly at members of the media writing about lifestyle trends. “We are already seeing changes in our customers’ attitudes towards mobility. This is why car and ridesharing offers will be essential pillars of our future mobility strategy,” says Julia Steyn.

Around 14,000 people are now using the Maven car-leasing service in 15 cities in the U.S., where the project was launched in the spring of 2016.

Maven Pro, a campus solution for companies, will soon also be on offer in addition to Maven Home. The rollout of the new solution will first take place at Opel itself. Up to 12,000 Opel employees will be able to access a pool of around 2,000 company-owned vehicles via an app. This will allow Opel to optimize the use of its own vehicle fleet and reduce costs. Meanwhile, the importance of connectivity was also a hot topic at the Maven kick-off event in Berlin. This is because Opel vehicles are better connected than any other vehicles, thanks to the personal online and service assistant OnStar – which features a high-performance Wi-Fi hotspot – as well as the IntelliLink-Infotainment systems that include Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Customers in Maven vehicles powered by Opel are always digitally connected to the outside world. This is perfectly in keeping with the brand motto: “You can also be mobile. #BeThere, wherever you want to be!”