Fewer SUVs being rented despite discounts, free upgrades
Even with discounted rates for SUVs and free upgrades to SUVs when smaller vehicles are unavailable, national rental car companies are sitting on their SUV stocks this year, according to an article in the News and Observer of North Carolina. Hertz, Alamo and Enterprise Rent-A-Car all offer various special deals, to little avail. Thrifty Rent A Car of Ohio has 75 percent fewer SUVs in its fleet than this time last year. One rental car official quoted in the story said that people are saying no the free upgrades to SUVs because of the high price of gas. Overall, SUV rentals are down 1 percent. On the other side of the mileage spectrum, compact car rentals are up 7.8 percent and mid-size vehicles are up 9.6 percent.
[Source: News and Observer]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Phil L. 6:52AM (7/11/2006)
The autoblog.com article linking to this item claims "rental car companies literally can't give away SUV's...". And SUV rentals are down only 1%? C'mon, it's no surprise: $3+ gas will cause at least one percent of renters to choose a more economical vehicle.
But is this really news? Methinks newsworthiness suffers a bit when entries like this are trumpeted.
Real news? How about this: How have rental car company fleet *purchase* patterns changed in the past year?
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Schneegz 8:51AM (7/11/2006)
Rising gasoline prices cause a decrease in demand for gas-guzzling vehicles.
You mean the law of supply and demand really does work? Imagine that!
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Sebastian 9:32AM (7/11/2006)
Phil,
I wrote that they can't give them away because that's exactly what happened. The companies offer customers a free upgrade to SUVs and the customers said "no". Also, about your fleet question, one company mentioned sold or otherwise got rid of 75% of its SUVs since last year.
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Richard 1:57PM (7/11/2006)
SUV rentals are down a whopping 1%. BFD, the article also stated that there are fewer SUV's available for rent.
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M1EK 10:59AM (7/12/2006)
Two times over the last year (50% of my car rentals), I was forcibly upgraded to an SUV from a compact or midsize car. (IE, they didn't have the car I reserved; so I could either wait until one came in, or leave now with a big honkin' SUV). I wonder if situations like that are why the decline is only 1%?
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Real Estate People 4:37AM (10/25/2006)
I think it not that SUV rentals are just down 1 percent. At the same compact car rentals are up 7.8 percent and mid-size vehicles are up 9.6 percent. If the other cars showed no change and SUV went down 1 percent this would be a smaller overall change. The important thing to look at is market share.
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