GM announced yesterday that it has partnered up with San Francisco-based RelayRides, a pioneer in peer-to-peer carsharing. RelayRides is like a decentralized Zipcar. Instead of owning its own fleet of vehicles, it enables individual car owners to rent out their idle vehicles for short periods to other individuals in their community — for example, an apartment complex or subdivision.

RelayRides has created the online systems that allow for this peer-to-peer transaction to take place, and it supplies/installs the in-vehicle device that allows strangers who have booked a car through the system to gain access at their scheduled times. This model isn’t permitted in every jurisdiction, as changes in insurance regulations — or clarity — is often required first, but RelayRides is starting in San Francisco and Boston, and plans to expand as regulations permit and demand for the service builds. I recently wrote about peer-to-peer carsharing and the whole trend of collaborative consumption in a previous post.

The GM partnership is important for the following reason: GM’s six million OnStar customers can potentially participate in RelayRides (at least the ones in San Francisco and Boston for now) without having to install a special device. That’s because the OnStar service already allows for remote entry into vehicles, so GM is working with RelayRides to allow those renting another individual’s OnStar-equipped car to access the car remotely through their mobile phones. “The integration makes all eligible OnStar vehicles immediately ‘RelayRides ready’ without having to install additional hardware,” according to a GM press release.

“RelayRides has always worked toward providing the safest, most advanced, peer-to-peer carsharing marketplace, where neighbors can help out one another by making their frequently unused car available to those who live nearby,” said RelayRides Chief Executive Officer André Haddad. “With the new GM relationship, RelayRides can leverage the OnStar technology to make carsharing even more convenient, with nothing more than a mobile app. Carsharing has never been easier.”

Does this represent a significant boost to the fledgling peer-to-peer carshare model? I think so. GM’s announcement brings credibility to the concept, and I fully expect the momentum to continue. Peer-to-peer carsharing — or sharing of any physical asset, for that matter — isn’t an easy model to perfect. It’s not like sharing music or movies or other digital files. These are real objects that other people can damage, crash, stink up, mess up, and return late. Clearly, carsharing won’t be for everyone and those who do participate are going to have to be realistic about how their vehicle may be treated by others. But for a certain segment of the population — and I would argue it’s not a small segment — this could be a very exciting development.

Why oh why is General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson pulling dinosaur Bob Lutz out of retirement and reinstating him as vice-chairman? Let’s ignore the fact that Lutz doesn’t believe man is responsible for global warming and calls talk of climate action as “a crock of shit.” But has it occurred to Fritz that Lutz, like former CEO Rick Wagoner, was one of the most powerful executives at GM during its demise into bankruptcy? Hell, why not bring back Wagoner then?

Lutz will be “responsible for all creative elements of products and customer relationships,” according to a GM release. “GM’s brands, marketing, advertising, and communications will report to Lutz for consistent messaging and results.”

No disrespect to Lutz, who certainly has a skills set that could be of some use to GM. He was the driving force behind GM’s Volt, though only pursued it with vigour after Tesla Motors came on the scene. But he’s also a guy who has dissed hybrids as making no sense, and most of his past projects have been about building more powerful, gas-guzzling vehicles, not smaller more fuel-efficient models. Lutz, 77, is arguably out of touch with the new generation of car-buyers that the new GM must tap if it hopes to regain its footing in the automotive marketplace.

By bringing Bob Lutz back, GM risks falling into the same trap that put it in hot water and eventually plunged it into bankruptcy. Since the U.S. government owns a majority of GM, I wonder what its position is on the rehiring of Lutz. What GM needs is some youth in the driver’s seat and executives that have the vision necessary to reinvent the company, not a climate-change denying auto-industry dinosaur that may end up doing more harm than good.

Personally, I’m looking forward to Magna International’s entry into the electric-car market, including its partnership with Ford and future partnerships that could bring electric-vehicle manufacturing to Canada.

It’s called the PUMA, and it’s expected in 2012 as part of a partnership between GM and Segway. Now, I’m sure every blog and newspaper on the planet has written about this, but I just wanted an excuse to post the picture — this thing is cool. It will have a range of up to 60 kilometres and a speed of between 50 and 60 kilometres an hour, so it’s basically a hybrid between an electric scooter, a Segway Human Transporter, and a low-speed vehicle like the kind ZENN offers. Low-speed vehicles have been a niche market, but GM and Segway could bring brand power at a time when municipalities and their citizens are looking for ways to ease congestion and urban pollution. This is ideal for the household that’s looking to ditch the second gas guzzler in exchange for a fuel-efficient urban two-seater.

Hopefully by 2012 Ontario will finally agree to let LSVs on city streets. The PUMA, it should be pointed out, doesn’t appear designed to tolerate Canadian winters. Perhaps an enclosed version is in the works.

Over at the GM-Volt blog there’s a report that General Motors, according to the headline, “Admits to a Working Relationship with EEStor.”

Well, not exactly if you go on to read the post. Unless, of course, having EEStor send information in the mail counts as “working relationship.” That said, the admission by Denise Gray, GM’s director of advanced batteries, that the auto giant has been in touch with EEStor is interesting enough.

Asked whether she’s seen an EESU prototype, Gray backed off a bit. “I probably shouldn’t say if I’ve received parts or not, that’s kind of confidential. But we are in touch with them and we are continuing to encourage them to develop the technology. Because we need as much help as we can possibly get to get the costs down of our battery solution and get the reliability up.”

Man, I can only imagine the kind of non-disclosure agreements these people have to sign. Obviously, EEStor is in discussions with a number of potential partners and customers, yet information about the company still dangles in the territory of rumour and speculation.

My personal prediction: a major announcement from EEStor in March.

GM’s Rob Peterson told MarketWatch that getting the Volt launched by 2010 is still a “top-priority program” for General Motors, which is staring bankruptcy in the face and is pleading — along with Ford and Chrysler — for a multibillion-dollar bailout from Washington. This is reassuring, and of course it makes loads of sense. If GM has any chance of getting more bailout money it has to convince U.S. Congress that it’s serious about changing its ways by producing vehicles that are more efficient and will help wean the United States from foreign oil. To cut back on the Volt wouldn’t send the right message to Washington, so the Volt in many ways is the only thing that GM has going for it. There’s also the fact that most of GM’s main competitors also have plans for plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles by 2010 or shortly after, so to stay competitive it really has no choice. (more…)