Hertz launches car sharing service: Connect
Following the lead of ZipCar, Hertz is launching its own car sharing service under the "Connect by Hertz" brand. Hertz is starting with a slow roll out in New York City, Park Ridge, NJ, London and Paris. The initial fleet of 35 cars in New York includes MINIs, Camrys and Priuses. All of the Connect by Hertz cars are equipped with GPS systems, bluetooth and EZ-Pass for getting through toll booths. Hertz is offering a number of rate plans ranging from $50 a year to $125 per month (yes, you read that right. The plans are quite different). Hourly rental fees start from $8.50 for a Prius and, like ZipCar and other services, gas, insurance and maintenance are included in the rates.
[Source: New York Times]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
YsE 9:49PM (12/18/2008)
Hertz competition should counter with programs & names like these:
EV Pass
EV Lane
ZE Ride Zero-Emission Ride
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noz 1:49AM (12/19/2008)
Perhaps I'm not understand this correctly...but let's say I rent a car for 3 days (72 hours) with Connect 125....
So that's 72*$8.50 = $612 + my monthly bill?
How is this any good? This is basically for people who don't want to own a car at all and perhaps rent one for an hour a month.
Kind of stupid if you ask me.
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Sam Abuelsamid 8:07AM (12/19/2008)
That's precisely what it's for. In places like Manhattan there are many people who don't own or need to own cars full time. This provides an alternative. If you need a car for three days you just get a standard rental car.
noz 7:18PM (12/19/2008)
Well...interesting but I'm not sure if I'd ever need a car in a place like Manhattan.
I'd really have to crunch the numbers to see if it would make sense for me. I wonder if the service requires you to drop off the car from where you picked it up.
JL 10:53AM (12/19/2008)
noz,
They have daily caps at 7 hours, so if you use a car for a day it would cost around $70, which inlcudes gas, insurance. Compare that to the cost of renting a car in NYC with gas and insurance. Do the math it's a great deal, even cheaper with those connect plans that include driving credits.
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Jeff 12:26PM (12/19/2008)
kind of funny that they use a green logo considering the big E and their sister company National already use that color.
Like Hertz Local Edition, they will fail to be competitive in the marketplace.
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