Is GM jumping on the urban mobility segment?

Auto maker GM which had gone ahead and invested $500m in the ride aggregator company Lyft at $5.5b valuation has now acquired the failed Uber and Lyft competitor, Sidecar. The auto maker intends to use this investment as a launchpad for its own mobility services under the brand name Maven which maybe intended to be used as a platform to enable ride-sharing by owners of GM vehicles.

“Logo of General Motors” by The original uploader was CoolKid1993 at English Wikipedia. – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons. ([1]). Licensed under Public Domain via Commons.

With this acquisition it is clear that GM intends to have much more close involvement in the ride sharing and related technology but also at the same time use this to study passenger behaviour which will end up providing very important data for its future projects. Many other companies have tied up with the likes of Uber and others in order to promote their brands and also bring in more vehicle sales which makes sense but this is taking it a step further and may prove to be a game changer. Does this mean that we will get to see more discounts on our rides or maybe automated/driver-less cars coming to pick us up?

Conclusion:

The competition is heating up in the urban mobility segment and everyone seems to want a piece of the pie but how they intend to make some money really remains to be seen. Do you look forward to the driverless car future that GM and others are envisioning?