To restrain customers coming despite high gas and airline costs, rental car companies are offering more fuel-efficient cars

by Jim Henry

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Vacation travelers worried in various places high gas prices will find a lot greater degree of import brands at the car rental counter this summer. Toyota ™, Mazda (MZDAF), Hyundai, Kia, and others for the most section get better aeriform fluid mileage than big, domestic cars and SUVs.

A very limited affix a number to of gasoline-electric hybrids are also take advantage of at airport locations for travelers who are really determined to gather upon gas. Hertz (HTZ), for instance, bought 3,400 Toyota Prius models to say further to its so-called "Green Collection" of cars that get an EPA-estimated 28 mpg on the highway or improvement.

Enterprise Rent-a-Car, that also owns the Alamo and National brands, says that in its mass fleet of 1.1 million vehicles, it has about 4,000 hybrids; about 73,000 flex-fuel vehicles that have power to mark out on 85% ethanol; and almost 450,000 vehicles that get at least 28 mpg. The Avis Budget Group (CAR) also offers hybrids and other fuel-efficient vehicles.

Many tourist destinations have local businesses that disrupture so-called NEVs, or neighborhood marked by electricity vehicles. Especially at put aground destinations where traffic is restricted, the low-speed, battery-powered NEVs can be a practical habitude to have encircling. By law, NEVs can’t excel 25 mph. They’ve been sighted in Tybee Island and Jekyll Island off the Georgia coast; Key West, Fla.; Maui; and many overseas destinations in the Caribbean and Europe.

"No need to worry all over expensive gas," says the Sunshine Key West Rentals Web site. Like a lot of similar operations on all sides the country, Sunshine Rentals offers NEVs built through Global Electric Motors, a Chrysler subsidiary based in Fargo, N.D. GEM sells with respect to 4,000 NEVs annually.

As gas prices passed $3 per gallon and then $4, domestic automakers in the last 90 days saw a disastrous acceleration in the trend away from big pickups and SUVs, and toward small cars and crossovers. Rental fleets are experiencing somewhat higher demand for fuel-efficient vehicles, but it’s not approximately as pronounced as in the new-car market, the rental companies said.

So far, vacationers who need room for passengers and luggage are not switching to smaller vehicles in large numbers, said Laura Bryant, a spokeswoman for privately held National Rent-a-Car, based in St. Louis. "Our customers are definitely impressible to [gas prices], but they’re not renting fewer full-size cars and SUVs. They require room on vacation notwithstanding luggage," she said in a phone interview.

Joe Nothwang, Hertz executive vice-president, made a similar notice in a May 28 conference call with industry analysts. "People solution of continuity cars because of the specific functionality of the vehicle they’re going to rent. If you’ve got two couples going to Hilton Head to play golf, a Ford Focus just isn’t going to hackney it, so they go with the sport-utility," he said.

Nor are the rental companies experiencing a sharp drop in demand overall, unlike the Detroit Three automakers. Despite expensive elastic fluid, a troubled U.S. economy, and worries that business and vacation expedition could suffer, revenues were up in the first quarter for the two big, publicly traded rental companies, Hertz and the Avis Budget Group.