Green machines: Finding eco-friendly rental cars

Avis features cars that are SmartWay Certified by the EPA.

By Mark Chesnut

As hybrid vehicles find their way into more and more driveways, car rental companies are gradually adding eco-friendly options to their fleets as well.

Hertz offers the Green Collection, which includes Toyota Prius and Camry hybrids. National has a “standard hybrid” and an “SUV hybrid” car category. Enterprise has hybrid vehicles but, according to rental terms, cannot guarantee the model until you arrive at the counter.

Indeed, most rental car companies only have hybrids in limited locations — if at all. “We have very little demand either from consumers or companies for hybrids or electric cars at this time,” said John R. Barrows, vice president of communications at Avis Budget Group, “and so as a result we have virtually no electric vehicles and only a very small quantity of gas/electric hybrids available for rent.”

The reason for the lack of options, Barrows explained, is “simple economics. Manufacturers still charge relatively high prices for hybrids compared with standard vehicles.”  And consumers, he added, don’t usually want to pay the higher prices that rental car companies must charge to make these hybrid fleets viable.

So how to satisfy your eco-friendly conscience when there is no hybrid in the lot? “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency runs a program called SmartWay Certification, which is designed to help consumers determine which vehicles are better environmental performers,” Barrows noted. “For Avis and Budget, 100 percent of the cars in our Class A subcompact, Class B compact and Class C intermediate car classes are EPA SmartWay Certified. This makes it very easy for any of our customers to drive away from any location in a green vehicle.”

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Mark Chesnut is a travel writer, editor and publisher of LatinFlyerBlog.com, which focuses on business and leisure travel to Latin America.

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