Bolt EVs for Maven Gig in Austin Texas

[WadeTyhon]

Looking for a temporary ride in Austin to use for work? Maven Gig has launched in the city with a small fleet of Bolt EVs... and nothing else!

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/maven-gig-austin-texas-chevrolet-bolt-evs/

$229 / week includes the car, car insurance, public charging, unlimited mileage and maintenance.

That's about $900 a month. Yikes!

After insurance, lease payment and home electricity I pay a little over $600 a month. But I don't have unlimited mileage and my lease requires I don't use it as a work vehicle.

But compared to usual rental car pricing for a 40,000 vehicle this isn't terribly unreasonable. And other rental cars will not include the cost of gas.

So maybe $900 ain't so bad under certain circumstances. Anyone think this will be a successful program? I'm skeptical based on the pricing, but I can see situations where it could work for someone.

 

[Domenick]

Looking for a temporary ride in Austin to use for work? Maven Gig has launched in the city with a small fleet of Bolt EVs... and nothing else!

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/maven-gig-austin-texas-chevrolet-bolt-evs/

$229 / week includes the car, car insurance, public charging, unlimited mileage and maintenance.

That's about $900 a month. Yikes!

After insurance, lease payment and home electricity I pay a little over $600 a month. But I don't have unlimited mileage and my lease requires I don't use it as a work vehicle.

But compared to usual rental car pricing for a 40,000 vehicle this isn't terribly unreasonable. And other rental cars will not include the cost of gas.

So maybe $900 ain't so bad under certain circumstances. Anyone think this will be a successful program? I'm skeptical based on the pricing, but I can see situations where it could work for someone.

Yeah, that sounds like way too much. Pretty sure none of these "gig economy" gigs (Uber/Lyft/food delivery) pays well enough to afford to rent a car.

Curious how they cover the fuel cost, though. If you plug it in at your house overnight, do they reimburse you at your residential rate? Or, do they just let you access charging networks that you probably wouldn't want to use anyway?

Weekly rentals here for a compact car are certainly a lot less. Perhaps if you burned through a tank of gas or so a day, it might come close.

 

[WadeTyhon]

Yeah, that sounds like way too much. Pretty sure none of these "gig economy" gigs (Uber/Lyft/food delivery) pays well enough to afford to rent a car.

Curious how they cover the fuel cost, though. If you plug it in at your house overnight, do they reimburse you at your residential rate? Or, do they just let you access charging networks that you probably wouldn't want to use anyway?

Weekly rentals here for a compact car are certainly a lot less. Perhaps if you burned through a tank of gas or so a day, it might come close.

Agree, I'm sure there are some use cases, but you would need to drive a heck of a lot of miles to break even!

Comparing it to "luxury" rental cars, the price is similar. But I don't know how many people would be cross shopping the Bolt with a BMW or Cadillac rental.

I can see this mostly working for short term rentals while a fleet vehicle might be down or if you are out of town on business and prefer to drive green.

It can be really hard to rent an electric vehicle from a Hertz or equivalent. Maven usually has at least a few Volts or Bolts available. But so far Maven is only available in a few dozen cities.