The concept of ride sharing and the basis for Maven is pretty sweet. Do you live in a big city and need your own whip for a day? Maven’s got you. Are you a college student that needs to take a trip off campus for the day? Well, you’re covered too. It’s not a bad setup. Use an app to choose a car, then use your phone to unlock the car, start the engine, and take your trip – as long as you return the car in the same condition in which you received it, it’s a pretty viable option if you really just need a car for the day. Now, Maven has launched a new program called “Maven Gig.” This program works by allowing you to rent a vehicle for a week at a time, and you can even use it for your side gigs – that means freelance jobs like food delivery services and even Uber. And, it has just added the Chevy Bolt as the initial offering for this program. So, what’s the catch? Well, if you use it more than once in a great while, you’re an idiot.

Seriously, I’m not trying to be rude, but the pricing for a week’s rental for a Chevy Bolt EV comes out to be $229. That’s really not bad if you’re in a jam because your car is broken down or otherwise indisposed of at the moment. But, if it’s something that you use frequently, you’re just spending way too much money. If you do the math, that computes to an average of $992 a month or $11,908 a year. That’s for the use of a car that you can buy, at the time of this writing, for $29,995 after a federal tax credit. In fairness, that weekly rental charge of $229 includes insurance, maintenance, and unlimited miles. We haven’t sat down and computed what it would cost to buy a Bolt EV and insure it at the same time, but something tells us that it’s not going to set you back nearly $1,000 to do so.

It’s Okay in a Jam

Now, I’ve obviously knocked Maven’s new program pretty harshly, but the reason for doing it is that there are people out there that will rent these things over and over again without even thinking of how much it really costs them. Sure, if you’re someone who drives a lot doing food deliveries or Uber, for instance, you may be better off if you use the service instead of leasing a car, but in the end, you might as well just buy your own and suck up the maintenance costs associated with owning a car – it’ll still turn out to be cheaper than shelling out $229 each week in the long run. It’s not a bad idea if your primary car is in for repair or something of that nature, but you’re seriously ripping yourself off if you use the program regularly. So, in fairness, the Maven Gig program isn’t without its merits, but tread lightly – if you make it a habit, you’re not going to have a good time. At least, not financially, anyway.