EV Rental making bank off of renting hybrids
EV Rental, a smallish rental agency on the West Coast that rents nothing but hybrids, is doing quite well for itself. EV Rental has 425 hybrids and the cars are rented out 90 percent of the time (compared with 80 to 85 percent for most rental agencies). EV Rental can also charge about $10 more a day than other agencies' comparable non-hybrid vehicles. The company turned a profit last year, and the EV Rental CEO told the Wall Street Journal that this year should be even better. The Journal writes that while things are looking rosy now, the future is uncertain. Gas prices could go down, the paper says (we say, "Huh?") or the larger rental agencies could invest in hybrids when more are available from the automakers. For now, the larger agencies don't see many hybrids in their fleets' futures.
[Source: The Wall Street Journal via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Howard Lee Harkness 7:16AM (7/13/2006)
Ah, we get a glimpse (if not the full picture) of some of the economics of hybrids. An extra $10 a day times the 90% rental level yields about $3400/year extra for each vehicle. That'll cover the battery replacement in about 3 years, so they're doing ok. Still need info on the average fleet mileage and some other details to get the equivalence numbers to compare with the ICE.
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