Car Rentals Go Hybrid in New York TOO

A few years ago, it was nearly
impossible to rent a hybrid gas-electric car. That's
beginning to change.

In case you haven’t looked at a
newspaper, magazine or television show in the last year, the
American business world is currently caught up in a game of
environmental one-upmanship. The big car rental companies
have joined the competition—and rental customers seeking
greener alternatives will eventually be the winners.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Hertz, and
Avis-Budget have all recently added a few thousand hybrids
to their fleets. By the end of the year, Enterprise—the
world’s largest automobile fleet in the world with nearly
700,000 vehicles—will have ordered about 4,500 Priuses.
Hertz is aiming to have 3,500 hybrids in their fleet by the
end of 2008, and Avis-Budget is not far behind, having just
announced the purchase of 1,000 Priuses and 500 Nissan
Altima Hybrids.

“That’s a drop in the bucket,” said
Chris Brown, editor of Auto Rental News, a publication which
monitors the car rental industry. Certainly, converting 1
percent of available rental cars to hybrids will have little
effect on global climate change, but it’s one more small
sign that going green and efficient is becoming a business
imperative. “Let’s face it. The customer is driving this
cart. Nobody wants to rent SUVs anymore,” said Brown. “The
car rental companies have no choice, so they’re becoming
proactive.”

Enterprise Rent-A-Car

Hybrid
fleet: 3,000 hybrids, with another 1,500
Priuses order due in the fall. (National and Alamo, now
owned by Enterprise, have 650 Priuses and 400 Camry
Hybrids.)

Hybrid locations:
Throughout the United States.


Hybrid reservations: Reservations by class
only. Local offices will make an effort to accommodate
hybrid requests, but it’s not guaranteed.



Premium: Hybrids may cost $5 - $10 more than
conventional cars in class. Varies by region.

Hertz

Hybrid
fleet: Approximately 1,200 hybrids (including
1,000 Priuses), with 2,400 more hybrids on order for
2008.

Hybrid locations: Top
50 airports throughout the United States, and other
various locations.

Hybrid reservations:
Guaranteed reservations available for Prius only.

Premium: Hybrids may
cost an additional $5 per day, depending on location.

Avis-Budget

Hybrid
fleet: 1,000 Priuses, and 500 Nissan Altima
Hybrids in California. Hybrid locations: Throughout
California; Seattle, Wash.; Portland, Ore.;

Washington, D.C.; Plans for Boston, Chicago, Dallas,
New York City and Philadelphia.

Hybrid reservations:
Priuses and Altima Hybrids are available with guaranteed
reservation.

Brooklyn Car Rentals Hybrid Car Rentals - Green Cars Rentals - Rent Environmental Safe cars

Hybrid fleet: 50 Priuses, and 25 Nissan Altima Hybrids in New York. New York City and
Philadelphia.

Hybrid reservations: Priuses and Altima Hybrids are available with guaranteed
reservation.

Even if the rental companies wanted to quickly hybridize their fleets, they
would face a number of logistical challenges. Toyota, the
world’s leader in hybrids, allots only so many vehicles to
fleets. In 2007, less than 5 percent of Toyota’s hybrids
sales will go to fleets—and those are divided between
government, corporate, and car rental companies. The rental
industry will also need to change business practices to
allow customers to reserve specific vehicles, rather than a
vehicle class such as compact, midsize, or SUV. And it
remains to be seen if fuel-conscious customers will simply
downsize to a smaller vehicle to save on gas, rather than
rent a hybrid—which can come with a premium based on its
more expensive purchase price getting passed to the rental
customer.

Enterprise and the other
rental companies face
similar challenges with its push for vehicles using E85, an
85 percent blend of ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. The
company recently designated its downtown

Washington, D.C. location as an “E85/Flexfuel branch,”
where half the vehicles can use E85. Unfortunately, there is
only one filling station in the Washington area that sells
E85—about three miles from the E85/Flexfuel branch.
Enterprise uses E85 to refuel vehicles rented at this
location.

The more telling statistic for the
rental companies is the average fuel efficiency of their
entire fleets. In that regard, the race looks like a dead
heat, with all the major car companies reporting that nearly
half of their vehicles have fuel efficiency ratings of 28
mpg or higher—a figure which is almost identical to the
average fuel economy of all new cars. The tie for greenest
car rental agency may be broken by the company’s broader
environmental programs. For example, Enterprise is
underwriting the planting of 50 million trees, or 1 million
trees a year over the next 50 years in national forests
around the country. In a one-year program ending June 2008,
Hertz is donating $1 to the National Park Foundation for
every rental from