Car rental

  • Scenes from Yellowstone National Park, May 2015   [photo: John C. Briggs]

    Carbon guilt weighed heavily on my mind as I approached the car rental counter at the Salt Lake City Airport. The book I was reading on the plane (Sustainable Energy, by David JC Mackay) suggested that my portion of the energy for the round-trip plane ride from Boston and back would amount to roughly 12,000 kilowatt-hours. That is roughly equal to a full year’s electricity use for the average American home--or three years' usage in an energy-efficient home like mine. DON'T MISS: 2016 Ford Fusion Hybrid & Energi Models To Get $900 Price Cut That's a lot of consumption for one...

  • Hertz electric-car rental press event, New York City, September 2010
    Hertz Rental-Car Fleet Gets Greener, With Higher Average Fuel Economy

    Rental firm Hertz has released figures detailing the fuel efficiency of its fleet--and it's now the most fuel-efficient in the rental industry. Along with efforts to introduce hybrid and electric vehicles to the company's rental fleet, Hertz is benefiting from general increases in new vehicle fuel...

  • 2014 Tesla Model S
    Want To Rent A Tesla Model S P85? It'll Cost You $900...A Day

    A California exotic-car rental company has a Tesla Model S electric car in its fleet.

  • Vukee Car Tesla Model S car-sharing service
    Startup Vukee Hopes To Crowd-Fund Tesla Car Sharing Service

    Not everyone can afford a Tesla Model S, but if you had the opportunity to drive one whenever you wanted, that might be a pleasing alternative to ownership. Startup Vukee Car hopes to offer a service that lets you do just that, and is crowd-funding to raise cash to offer Model S car-sharing. ALSO...

  • Hertz electric-car rental press event, New York City, September 2010
    Want To Rent An Electric Car? You Probably Won't For Long

    Over the last few years, several large rental firms have helped the electric car cause by adding plug-in vehicles to their rental fleets. In theory, it's the ideal people to get people into electric cars in general--some seat time is usually enough to convince people that EVs are the way to go. The...

  • Greetings from Florida
    New Effort: Electric-Car Rentals And Charging For Orlando, Florida

    What's the best way to persuade people that electric cars are a viable alternative to gasoline cars? Get "butts in seats." And what's one of the largest car-rental markets in the United States? That woud be Orlando, Florida. Now a new initiative, Drive Electric Orlando (DEO), is coordinating rental...

  • Nissan New Mobility Concept (Twizy) on the island of Teshima, Japan (Image: Nissan EV on Facebook)

    When we first drove Renault's tiny Twizy electric car on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza, we got the impression it'd be at its best in some of Europe's warmer climates. In fact, it could be the ideal vacation island rental car. Simple to operate, economical to use, that wind-in-your-hair feeling... bliss. Someone in Japan obviously agrees, as you can now rent the Nissan New Mobility Concept--a rebadged Twizy--on the Japanese island of Teshima, in the Kagawa Prefecture. The island is only 11 miles in circumference, and its main road a mere 6.2 miles. Even with some of the island's steep...

  • Cambio Autodelen TV ad for electric car rental [screen capture]
    Is Belgian Granny Sex Rap The Key To Selling Electric Cars? (Video)

    Take one very small Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric minicar with a flower decal on the side. Fold in three severe Belgian elderly ladies with disapproving looks. Incorporate one blatantly obvious occurrence of plumber butt in public. Then add one young motorcycle police officer to the resulting mix...

  • 2013 Renault Zoe electric car
    Electric Car Sales In Europe: Most Going To Rental Fleets?

    Europe has been the source of some excitement over electric cars in recent months, as several new models have all hit the market in quick succession. The third-generation Smart Electric Drive arrived at the end of last year, and the last few months have seen the new Renault Zoe and 2013 Nissan Leaf...

  • Zipcar
    Avis Buys Zipcar: Car Sharing Becomes Big Business

    How important is car sharing to the future of personal transportation? Enough for car rental giant Avis to spend $500 million on car sharing company Zipcar--that's how important. The two companies have announced (via our sister site, TheCarConnection) that the Avis Budget Group has agreed to...

  • Smart Electric Drive at Hertz Global EV rental launch, New York City, December 2010
    Hertz Asks New Yorkers Where They Should Rent Electric Cars

    New Yorkers are reputedly never shy to offer opinions, whether or not they've been asked for. Now Hertz is partnering with a NYC government outreach program to ask residents where they'd like to see electric cars located for short-term rentals through its Hertz On Demand EV program. The Mission...

  • car2go - Washington, D.C.
    Renting Electric, Hybrid And Green Cars: What Are Your Options?

    If you drive an electric car, hybrid, diesel or other green vehicle day-to-day, you might like to know that you can rent similar when you go abroad, or even when you fly across country to visit relatives. Luckily, many rental and car-sharing firms offer green vehicles on their fleets, and some even...

  • Hertz electric-car rental press event, New York City, September 2010

    Does electric car rental work as a business proposition? That might depend on who you ask. Because despite popular rental company Hertz having massive success with the format, backed up by other popular schemes like Car2Go, things aren't so rosy for Enterprise. According to the New York Times (via The Car Connection), customers haven't really taken to Enterprise's fleet of 350 all-electric Nissan Leafs. That seems odd, given that Enterprise isn't only making efforts to educate customers--just as it did when the company first started offering hybrid vehicles--but it's even making the cars...

  • Zipcar Facebook app
    Renting By The Hours: Enterprise Follows Zipcar, Hertz

    Zipcar, it appears, has uncovered a niche that’s no longer ignorable by large rental car firms scrambling for market share and sales growth. Hourly car rentals have grown into an estimated $1.8 billion business in the U.S., which represents nearly six-percent of the $30.5 billion U.S. rental...

  • daimler smart car2go 001
    New European Trend: Renting Tiny Cars...By The Minute

    We're all familiar with daily car rental. Even hourly car rental is becoming a growing trend, with car-sharing services allowing you to pick up a car somewhere in a city and deposit it somewhere else, paying for the hours in between. In Europe, things are taken one step further, with rental by the...

  • Hertz Tests Evatran Wireless Electric Car Charging
    Hertz Tests Wireless Charging For Electric-Car Rentals

    Over the past year we’ve seen car rental firms like Hertz and Enterprise launch new schemes designed to give customers a hassle-free way of renting a plug-in car instead of a gasoline one if they so wish. Now Hertz is helping Virginia-based Evatran test its wireless charging technology -- a...

  • Hertz electric-car rental press event, New York City, September 2010
    Hertz Says 'We Need More Electric Cars' After Year Of Rentals

    Hertz has now been renting electric and plug-in cars for almost a year, and the company has learned some lessons along the way. Among them: "We need more electric cars!" Specifically, "We've got about 50 electric cars in our fleets now, and we could use another 2,000 to 3,000 if we could just get...

  • pininfarina bluecar geneva 004
    Pininfarina BlueCar Makes Debut In Paris Rental Scheme

    Whether electric cars are suitable for the wider market yet is still a topic undergoing heated debate, but several companies have found a use to which they're very much suited - inner city rental. This is the case for French billionaire entrepreneur Vincent Bolloré. Having commissioned the...

  • Hertz electric-car rental press event, New York City, September 2010

    Popular airport rental car firm Hertz has been working alongside Hotel chain Marriott for 30 years to unite weary travelers with a set of wheels while they’re away from home -- but now visitors to San Francisco can opt to rent an electric car from the San Francisco Airport Marriott Waterfront any time of the day or night. In a partnership which it says is the first of its kind in San Francisco, Hertz will be offering by-the hour electric car rentals using its Hertz On Demand service both at the Marriott Waterfront and its downtown Mason Street location. As an incentive, guests at the...

  • Oil cap
    Recycling Used Oil Into Fresh, Clean Oil: Enterprise Signs On

    Over the years, the norms around what to do with used oil have changed. Used to be you tossed it down the nearest drain. Then came recycling. As energy prices soared, using old oil as heating fuel in special-purpose space heaters arrived. Now, the loop has closed, and used oil can be considered...

  • Hertz electric vehicle rental
    Renting an Electric Car: When Is It Smart, When Is It Dumb?

    One way for potential buyers to get familiar with electric cars is to rent one. Several rental companies, among them Enterprise, have announced plans to rent 2011 Nissan Leaf and other electric models at selected locations. Renting an electric car lets you spend far more time in one than the...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt Z-Spec
    Enterprise Offers Another Way to Drive The 2011 Chevy Volt: Rental

    If you’re like us and find yourself flying too much you probably feel pretty guilty about that gas-guzzling rental car you have to use at your destination. But thanks to Enterprise Rent-a-Car, another option is now available to customers in Ontario, California: the 2011 Chevrolet Volt...

  • Getaround car sharing Tesla Roadster Sport
    Rent A Tesla For $25/Hour, Just Plan Your Charging Carefully

    The all-electric Tesla Roadster is probably the world's best advertisement for electric cars. While crude, cramped, and expensive, its 0-to-60-mph time of 3.9 seconds will make a convert out of any electric skeptic. But thus far, Tesla Motors has built only 1,500 Roadsters, and the car was always...

  • Smart Electric Drive at Hertz Global EV rental launch, New York City, December 2010
    Hertz To Launch Electric-Car Rentals in NYC, Add Smart To Fleet

    As it gears up to offer electric cars in selected rental fleets across the country, Hertz has dribbled out details of how its Global EV program will actually work. Today we learn that New York City will be the first region to receive the electric and plug-in hybrid rental cars, with rentals to...

News First Drives Electric Cars Hybrids Guides Green Life