Agencies are reporting more and more hybrids on their lots. But this growth story is being countered

A couple of weeks ago, Sean O Neill of Budget Travel pinged me with some news of more hybrid rental cars hitting los angeles rent cars the lots: Enterprise was adding 5000 hybrids los angeles rent cars to its fleet (totaling 7000 nationally), and sister company Alamo/National was bumping their hybrid fleet to 2000 vehicles.
Agencies are reporting more and more hybrids on their lots. But this growth story is being countered los angeles rent cars by reader reports that they weren t able to actually rent the hybrid they reserved. Reader Steve reported that his reservation los angeles rent cars for a hybrid (at Hertz ) was substituted for a different class when he showed los angeles rent cars up at the airports (two separate airports in California).
Then Tyler Colman los angeles rent cars of Dr. Vino , when renting from Fox Rent A Car at Oakland Airport, was told that hybrids were being cut back at the company because the transmissions kept dying at 30,000 miles. Hmm. Seems fishy.
Why are there so few hybrid rentals? I posed that question to Neil Abrams, president los angeles rent cars of the rental car consulting and research firm Abrams Consulting. He explained that rental car companies do not have an advantage with volume pricing buying power. Hybrids los angeles rent cars are so popular that car dealerships can get bigger margins los angeles rent cars selling los angeles rent cars directly to retail customers instead of rental car companies. Meanwhile, automakers are willing to offload lots of standard engine cars and below-market prices los angeles rent cars to rental car companies— to clear their inventories. So a rental car company can buy (to pick a random example) a Mercury los angeles rent cars Sable for, say, roughly $12,000. They can rent it for a year. Then they can re-sell it as a used car, and make money off the resale. los angeles rent cars This is far more profitable to them than buying a hybrid car, which might cost $20,000. They ll have to charge far higher daily rates to customers to try to recoup the cost. But in an era of under-$2-a-gallon gas, not enough customers may rent the hybrids at the premium prices.
Indeed. And that s more likely the better explanation for hybrid shortages at California airports. In this climate, it s frankly surprising that any rental car company is adding hybrids to the fleet, period.
I, personally, hope more rental agencies add hybrids to their rental fleets. For some of us, renting hybrids is more of a moral choice than anything los angeles rent cars else as we want to do everything in our power to help the environment. It is just a different way of looking at the situation, I guess.
I ve rented from Hertz at TPA 3 times over the past 2/3 months. I got a Prius each time, though I never actually requested it. I think I was upgraded to it. It s pretty cool to return the car after putting less than 2 gallons of gas to top it off!