Earlier this week, we brought you the story of Bay Area startups Lyft and SideCar, who are bringing taxi-like services to the masses. In that piece, we mentioned other startups that let individual car owners turn their unused vehicles into a short-term rental service, like Getaround.
But now, it seems that one large firm wants to get in on the growing social transportation game: General Motors.
Through its subsidiary, OnStar, GM announced Tuesday that it would let its 6 million customers participate in RelayRides, vastly expanding that peer-to-peer car-sharing service. OnStar is a subscription service that provides customer support, turn-by-turn directions, emergency services, and more to GM cars equipped with the hardware. While the OnStar service is probably useful for most, it has definitely raised some privacy eyebrows over customer tracking and remote stopping.
Because the on-board setup includes a cell modem to communicate back with its servers, the service seems poised to also be used as a way to remotely lock and unlock vehicles. This is exactly what RelayRides hopes to do. By using the OnStar system, RelayRides allows car owners and renters to avoid having to exchange keys or install extra hardware.
Earlier this year, OnStar said that it would be opening up its API to developers—RelayRides is the first company to take advantage of this. The car-sharing startup first launched in Boston and San Francisco, then expanded to the entire country in March 2012.
"Using the OnStar API to access GM vehicles empowers RelayRides to make car sharing even safer and more convenient," said Shelby Clark, RelayRides founder, in a statement. "The sheer number of vehicles eligible for the program allows us to greatly expand across the US and introduce the economic, environmental and community benefits of car sharing to regions that car sharing services have previously been unable to serve."
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