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The Maven service launched in Toronto in February of 2018.John F. Martin

What’s the most you’d pay for a few hours at IKEA?

For me that number is anything south of $50. On a recent Sunday the round trip in a 2018 Chevrolet Cruze set me back $38.34, plus the cost of a set of shelves, a tablecloth, some cat toys and, of course, a hearty meatball lunch at the Swedish retailer’s famous cafeteria. The $38 fee, which I consider a pretty good deal, was paid to Maven, the latest in a growing number app-based car sharing options available in Canadian cities. For an urban, smartphone-toting millennial like myself, Maven and its ilk have become essential means of getting from A to B, and the only way I travel to IKEA.

I live in Toronto and do not own a car. Sitting in traffic drives me crazy, finding street parking stresses me out and, in any case, none of the downtown apartments I’ve lived in the last decade have had a driveway or a parking spot.

As a result, I walk and I bike places whenever possible and take public transit or taxis the rest of the time. Admittedly, working from home makes this much more feasible than if I had a long daily commute. On occasions when I do need a vehicle, however, say for a shopping trip to a suburban big-box store, I book a car-share.

For the IKEA trip, which involved lugging a bunch of flatpacks and giant blue tote bags home, my only other option was a taxi (and by taxi I mean an Uber or a Lyft—did I mention I’m a millennial?) which would cost about $20 each way, plus tip. Depending on how much loot I want to cram in (and how big the car is) this could work. Part of the fun of going to IKEA, however, is buying a bunch of stuff you didn’t plan on buying, and having to upgrade to an UberXL or Lyft XL to accommodate these impulse purchases could easily push the round-trip fare north of $80. That’s a lot of meatballs.

In Toronto, aside from the recently launched Maven, other carshare options include Zipcar, Enterprise CarShare, and, until very recently car2go, who packed up their blue and white Smart Fortwos in May following a dispute with the city over parking permits. Car2Go’s lack of monthly fees, reasonable hourly rates, and park-anywhere vehicles made it my previous service of choice, and its departure left me looking for an alternative. I found my replacement when a couple of Maven cars appeared in my local supermarket parking lot, three of the approximately 55 vehicles the company has rolled out across Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo since opening shop here in February 2018.

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The Maven app finds and reserves a vehicle by location or car type. The car can be unlocked, cooled or warmed through the app.Steve Fecht

Maven is GM’s answer to car2go which is owned by Daimler AG, parent company to Mercedes-Benz. It offers a diverse lineup of Chevrolets, GMCs and Cadillacs for hourly or daily rentals. Much like other services, Maven works via a smartphone app, through which users can book vehicles and unlock them remotely to begin their rentals. Insurance and gas are included and there’s no monthly subscription fee, a distinction from ZipCar and Enterprise Carshare, who ask for monthly or annual dues. In addition to the Cruze I drove, Maven also offers GMC Tahoe SUVs, Cadillac XT5 crossovers and a handful of Volt and Bolt electrics. Beta testing is also underway in Detroit and Chicago for peer-to-peer car sharing service for GM owners, which could expand Maven’s offerings exponentially.

Trips to IKEA aside, carshares like Maven are also competitively priced for day-long or multi-day road trips, previously exclusively the domain of traditional car rental agencies. Maven’s daily rates range from $105 plus tax for the Cruze, to $175 per day for the Tahoe. Looking for a ride to the Aberfoyle antiques market near Guelph, the best deal I could find for a full day’s rental from a downtown rental agency came to $102.75 for a midsize sedan. Add insurance and gas and the total would easily top $150. Considering the lack of additional fees, not to mention the convenience of being able to pick up the car near home, the savings are significant—particularly on holiday weekends when demand and prices spike.

Despite all of the convenience of booking a car share via your smartphone, Maven isn’t without its flaws and annoyances. For one thing, its technology sometimes doesn’t work, which I learned the morning of our planned antiques market jaunt. When the vehicle I had booked refused to unlock, and Maven’s customer service team were unable to offer anything more than a dispassionate shrug by way of solution, we were forced to abandon our plans for the day.

There’s also a relatively small Toronto fleet, which necessitates advanced booking if you want a particular vehicle from a favourite location (assuming you can get into said vehicle in the first place). Cancellations must also be made within 24 hours of a reservation’s start time. If not, as I discovered when my wife woke up under the weather one morning and 86′d our plans for the day, you’ll be on the hook for the entire amount whether you use the car or not. This was frustrating to say the least.

After all, if I wanted to pay for a car to sit around unused in a downtown parking lot, I’d buy my own. In the mean time, sharing remains a more attractive offer.

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