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Freelance workers comprise an ever-growing portion of the overall job market, and General Motors wants to rent them cars that they can make money by driving.
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The company launched a new program last week called Gig. It allows freelance drivers to rent all-electric Chevrolet Bolt vehicles at $ 229 per week and use the cars for a range of ride-hailing and delivery services. Operated within the company’s Maven car-sharing brand, the Gig program aims to provide more flexibility to freelance drivers who currently rent or lease vehicles from companies including Uber and Lyft.
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It’s common knowledge that many drivers work for both services, but that can get complicated for those who rent or lease rather than use their own cars. Drivers who want to use Lyft’s Express Drive or Uber’s Vehicle Solutions programs often need to log a minimum number of weekly rides or hours spent in drive mode to qualify for those rental programs, and time spent working for a competing service doesn’t count.
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By offering rentals at $ 229 per week—a rate that includes maintenance, insurance, and free electric charging at EVgo stations—Maven aims to make life easier for freelancers who’d like to take on driving jobs that complement rather than compete with each other.
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“Uber and Lyft are great for getting into the sharing economy, but when the drivers graduate, so to speak, and want to drive for more than one, it’s a bit stuck right now,” said Rachel Bhattacharya, director of commercial mobility programs at Maven. “So the concept with Gig is to take the learning and partnerships to the next level.”
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Those partnerships include arrangements with ride-sharing services and food and package delivery companies GrubHub, Instacart, and Roadie. GrubHub helps users order delivery from more than 50,000 restaurants, Instacart provides grocery delivery, and app-based Roadie connects people with packages or documents to send with drivers heading in the right direction, so it’s essentially carpooling for packages. Maven executives intend to add more services to the list of eligible partners.
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GM’s research shows demand is greater for ride-hailing services at different times of day than it is for delivery services, so the company believes Gig can be a way for drivers to maximize their earnings and stay busy throughout their desired work period. Further, the program’s weekly rates can help drivers schedule vacations or other time off without having to commit to a rental vehicle for an extended period of time.
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“They’re not stuck with a lease payment,” Bhattacharya said. “It’s de-risking. There [are] risks in this work, and some of those risks are a fixed car payment or insurance that goes up. Our goal was to alleviate those pain points for this particular group of customers.”
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That’s a growing potential base. Even with the U.S. recording its lowest unemployment rate in a decade last month at 4.4 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the proportion of workers who work on a contingent basis in the “gig economy” has been on the rise.
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It’s been difficult for researchers to peg a number on that rise because of widely varying definitions of contingent workers; a 2014 report from the Government Accountability Office found that a core group made up 7.9 percent of the employed labor force in 2010. A year later, a report from the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan leadership think tank, said a core of self-employed workers made up 10 percent of the workforce in July 2015 but that 40.4 percent of the overall workforce had some sort of side hustle. Sara Horowitz, founder of the Freelancers Union, said nearly one in three working Americans is independent at least part of the time.
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GM’s pursuit of these workers shows not only how the company is attempting to keep pace with changing transportation trends but how it is using its Maven brand as an incubator of sorts to develop new programs.
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-– Rachel Bhattacharya, Maven
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Launched in January 2016 as the company’s car-sharing brand in select cities, Maven started by offering hourly rates on vehicles ranging from the compact Chevrolet Spark to the large Chevy Tahoe SUV. Since that launch, Maven has been used to accelerate the rollout of the new Bolt EV and as a test bed for a program that permits monthly rentals.
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- Maven, General Motors’ Foray into Car Sharing, Shows Early Promise
- All-Electric Chevy Bolt Joins GM Car-Sharing Fleet
- GM’s Car-Sharing Brand Expands into Long-Term Rentals
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“By virtue of getting out there and being that guinea pig, in some ways we trip across challenges and questions and new areas that need to be thought about,” Bhattacharya said. “That allows us to be a learning lab not just for ourselves but the broader enterprise. How we think about insurance or public-private partnerships—many of those questions will be highly relevant as core automotive transforms. So it’s great to get in front of it now.”
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Gig launched last week in San Diego, and Bhattacharya said Gig will start operations soon in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Overall, Maven’s car-sharing program operates in 17 U.S. markets, and more are expected.
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