KITCHENER — In the near future, you will be able to use your smartphone to unlock a fully loaded General Motors vehicle, tap the screen to start the engine and drive away from a parking lot in downtown Kitchener.

The only catch is that you must be a member of Maven, the car sharing service that GM rolled out last year in a few cities in the United States and a couple more in Germany.

Maven will make its first Canadian appearance in downtown Kitchener.

General Motors will rent five parking spaces for Maven in the city-owned parking lot at Charles and Water streets — about a two-minute walk from the Communitech Hub, where the automaker set up an innovation lab in November 2015.

Kitchener city council approved the proposal to rent the spaces in the lot at 28 Water St. S. on Monday.

George Saratlic, lead manager of product, brand and technology communications at General Motors Canada, said the move to rent the parking spaces is closely connected to the work GM is doing with Communitech.

"What we originally signed up to do at Communitech, which is continually investigate and research and explore mobility solutions, this is part of that," Saratlic said in an interview.

GM's research in the lab is driven by its view that the future of the car industry is going to be about electric, autonomous and shared vehicles.

"It is exciting times," Saratlic said of work being done in the lab. "It comes down to urban mobility solutions."

The lab is "great for pilot program type scenarios, to test market and potentially see how you could deploy further," he said.

The GM vehicles used in Maven are unlocked and started using a smartphone app. Members of the car sharing service do not have to return the vehicle to the same location.

GM launched Maven in January 2016 in Ann Arbor, Mich., Chicago, New York City, Frankfurt and Berlin. It has since expanded to Washington, D.C., Boston and Los Angeles.

Maven's launch followed a US$500-million investment by GM in the ridesharing company Lyft.

GM is determined to be at the forefront of the changes in the industry, Saratlic said.

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He asked, "Is there are future where GM is not all about selling cars as we are today? And is it about selling time in a car, or a portion of a car, or an app that lets you share a car?"

"You've got to look at that or else you become a dinosaur in the industry and you get left behind," he said.