Enterprise Rent a Car’s new fleet of hybrid cars will be made up of Saturn VUES. Initially the hybrid car fleet will be small — 160 cars — in comparison to Enterprise’s over fleet of nearly 800,000 cars. Availability of these environmentally sound hybrids is also limited to just three cities in California. At the time of the announcement, there were no plans to expand the avalability of the hybrid car rental program to places outside the west coast.

Brett Bittel, Vice President and General Manager of Enterprise in California. “The Saturn Vue Hybrids deliver 20 percent better fuel economy over the standard Vue engine, and if California renters show that they demand alternative fuel cars we will continue to add more to our fleet.” The introduction of the hybrid vehicles is just one of Enterprise’s many environmentally-friendly initiatives.

With this initiative, Enterprise becomes the second nation wide company to offer hybrid rental cars in the United States. Fox Rental Car though an exclusive partnership with EV Rental. Currently Fox Rental Car is offering 10% off all hybrid rental cars though it’s website, located at www.foxrentacar.com

To commemorate Enterprise Rent-A-Car’s 50th anniversary, the company is underwriting the planting of 50 million trees over the next 50 years at a total cost of $50 million dollars. The Enterprise Rent-A-Car 50 Million Tree Pledge partners with The National Arbor Day Foundation and the U.S. Forest Service in a long-term commitment to help restore public lands that are in need of reforestation. California is expected to benefit in particular from the tree plantings because of the onslaught of forest fires in the state each year.

While hybrid vehicles are generally not available through most rental car companies or through priceline.com, most of the priceline.com customers surveyed (39%) said they would be willing to pay up to $1 to $3 more a day to rent a hybrid. That would represent an increase of up to 11% over the average weekend published-price for a mid-size car on priceline.com ($26 a day) and up to 17% over the average successful offer price for a Name Your Own Price mid-size car on priceline.com ($17 a day).*

Eight percent of the priceline.com customers said they would be willing to pay up to $4 to $6 more a day for a hybrid. That would represent an increase of up to 23% over the average weekend published-price for a mid-size car on priceline.com and up to 35% over the average successful offer price for a Name Your Own Price® mid-size car on priceline.com.*

One percent of customers said they would be willing to pay up to $7 to $10 a day more. No one was willing to pay more than $10 a day extra, while 53% of customers said they were not willing to pay any premium to rent a hybrid.

The already high and rising price of gasoline was another theme that turned up frequently in the new priceline.com survey:

* If gasoline reaches $3 a gallon, almost half (47%) of the priceline.com customers said they would change their rental car preferences and opt for smaller, more fuel-efficient car types.

* 55% of customers prefer to rent more fuel-efficient cars such as mid-size (example: Pontiac Grand Am), compact (example: Ford Focus) or economy (example: Chevrolet Metro).

* 96% of customers say they fill up their rental cars themselves before turning them in, rather than pay refill fees. 52% said they spend time looking for the cheapest gas in an area before filling up prior to return.

* 48% would be willing to pay more for a green rental car

Currently very few companies offer hybrid cars for rent. Of the handful of companies, EV Rentals and Fox Rental Cars have taken the lead in renting the environmentally responsible hybrids. Though Fox Rental Car, EV Rentals is able to offer its fleet of Toyota Prius’, Honda Civic Hybrids and Toyota Highlander Hybrids for rent to consumers in three states and nine cities. With greater inventories of hybrids avalable for sale as well as gas prices soaring and environmental consciousness going mainstream, it is likely major car rental firms such as Hertz, Dollar and Alamo will begin to offer hybrid cars to consumers.

From The Wall Street Journal Online

Like most Americans these days, Jeff Pink sees dollar signs when he pulls in at a gas station. But instead of flowing out of his wallet, the dollars are flowing in.

As chief executive of EV Rental Cars, a Los Angeles agency devoted solely to hybrid vehicles, Mr. Pink is one of the few U.S. business owners actually enjoying, and profiting from, the current surge in oil prices. Daily rental rates range from $35 to $75 for the combination gasoline-and-electric cars in his fleet, including Toyota’s Prius, Camry and Highlander, the Honda Civic and the Ford Escape. Depending on the make, the hybrids average from 30 to 50 miles per gallon and, in some cases, upward of 600 miles per tank of gasoline — a powerfully attractive number to anyone who plunks down $60 or more to fill up an all-gas SUV.

How is your business coping with higher oil and gas prices? Share your experience and join the discussion.

With 425 cars and eight rental locations on the West Coast, EV Rental is barely a blip on the radar screen compared with car-rental giants. But the company’s stable of hybrids has thrust it into the industry spotlight. Even Enterprise Rent-a-Car Co., one of the largest rental agencies, has only about 50 hybrids in its fleet of roughly 650,000 cars, and it can’t expand that portion because the supply of hybrids is so tight. “Manufacturers aren’t making them widely available to us,” says Christy Conrad, a spokeswoman for Enterprise. The company had about 3,000 Prius hybrids last year but had to return them to Toyota under the terms of its agreement with the manufacturer. “Consumers like them,” Ms. Conrad says. “Demand is there.”

Now for the 64,000-gallon question: Can EV Rental parlay its current prominence into a sustainable enterprise down the road? Right now, the fleet’s average monthly “utilization rate” — the portion of days in which a vehicle is out generating revenue — is at 90%. That compares with an acceptable industry norm of 80% to 85%, according to Neil Abrams, president of Abrams Consulting Group, a Purchase, N.Y., car-rental advisory firm. EV’s cars can command at least a $10-a-day premium over most comparable all-gas rentals. Mr. Pink says EV turned a profit last year on revenue of $4 million and expects to take in $5 million to $6 million this year.

But when and if gas prices fall, consumer appetite for hybrids could wane — throwing a monkey wrench into EV’s prospects. Or if the reverse happens and consumer demand for hybrids takes off, manufacturers might ramp up supply, allowing big rental players to jump into the game at full force and potentially squeeze EV Rental out — a familiar fate among small enterprises at the forefront of trends.

All of which puts EV Rental in the curious position of needing demand for its product to grow — just not too much and not too fast, a seemingly counterintuitive position for small businesses hungry for a bigger slice of the pie. Mr. Pink says he’d “like another 500 cars if I could get them,” but he also knows scarcity helps him by keeping giant rivals at bay and letting him build brand awareness.

Hybrids “would have to be available in substantial quantities” for us to start offering them, says Charles Pulley, spokesman for Vanguard Car Rental USA Inc.’s Alamo and National brands. “It’s an availability problem. We’d love to market them, but a couple here and there don’t really help.”

By contrast, EV Rental can burn through a lot of cash and time acquiring just a handful of hybrid cars and still make it pay off. The company, for example, trucked one hybrid to California from Florida. And while most car-rental companies buy vehicles at a volume discount, EV pays manufacturers’ suggested retail price for most of its vehicles — something it can afford to do, at least for now, because of grants it has received from the Transportation Department to educate consumers about alternative-energy cars.

The company spends a lot of time courting local dealers. “They know if a deal falls through to a consumer, that I’ll buy it from them,” says Paul Christensen, EV’s chief operating officer, who says he worked previously at both Hertz Corp. and Budget, now a unit of Cendant Corp. “And we pay retail for our cars.”

For most big players, those economics don’t add up. “For our business, it’s just too difficult to do a niche play like that other than for just a little bit of buzz,” says Don Himelfarb, chief administrative officer at Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, which has about 130,000 cars in its collective fleets.

One of the first players in the “environmental vehicle” rental market, EV Rental began accumulating its inventory of hybrids before most consumers adopted the word in their automotive vocabularies. Mr. Pink founded the company in 1998 with a fleet of 11 electric cars — General Motors Corp.’s EV1 — and 20 natural-gas cars. He says he got the idea for a hybrid rental agency after his son was born: Worried about smog, Mr. Pink gave an EV1 a test-drive and wanted to try it out for more than a lap around the block.

An early alliance with Budget gave EV a partner with a ready reservation system and a cadre of customers — infrastructure the smaller player desperately needed. Funded by the government grants as well as $1.2 million in Mr. Pink’s personal cash and investment from friends, EV Rental expanded rapidly and was poised to open on the East Coast in Washington, D.C., with a Capitol Hill ceremony set for Sept. 13, 2001.

The terrorist attacks took their toll on the car-rental industry along with so many corners of commerce. Travel stalled. Budget filed for bankruptcy protection, and EV Rental couldn’t get banks to lend it money for new cars. (The partnership fell apart last year after Cendant bought Budget.) The Washington outpost lasted only about two years before EV shipped its cars there back to Phoenix and California.

Then the all-electric car movement short-circuited with GM’s recall of its EV1 fleet. Natural-gas cars, meanwhile, became rare as did the stations where they could be filled. And EV Rental might have gone the way of the Edsel if hybrid cars hadn’t come along. As EV transitioned its vehicle stock to hybrids, events conspired to give it a surge. Hybrid cars became more attractive-looking. California decided in 2005 to let hybrids with single drivers ride in High Occupancy Vehicle lanes. And fuel prices rose.

Today, EV Rental is joining forces with a small independent Los Angeles discounter, Fox Rent a Car Inc. In exchange for routing cars through its reservation and location system, Fox takes a 20% to 30% cut of the rental fees, Mr. Pink says.

Robert Rogener, Fox’s marketing director, says, “It’s a good niche for us because no one had it, it’s affordable and it’s a tremendous value for the leisure traveler and the small business.” Fox plans to use its hybrid offerings to position itself for companies looking to save money on employee-travel costs: Starting in September, it will offer a 5% discount on rentals to corporate accounts.

Occasionally, customers have signed up to rent a hybrid but found none available when they arrived at a Fox counter. Mr. Pink says the company’s policy is to offer them a free hybrid rental on their next visit. If the reservation is for a long period of time, he says EV tries to bring them a Hybrid as soon as possible for the remainder of their trip.

EV says the aftermarket for hybrids is so robust it often can sell one of its used Priuses, turn around and buy a new one for just a few hundred dollars more. What’s more, with more consumers considering hybrid purchases, renting is a way to get an extended test drive first, Mr. Pink says.

EV is pushing to expand in Las Vegas in September, and it has its eyes on the East Coast, though Mr. Pink says he “doesn’t see that happening yet because there aren’t enough vehicles available.” Still, even if the hybrid supply from manufacturers picks up only modestly, EV Rental might see significant revenue growth for several years to come.

Long-term, however, the path is murkier. “It’s a great business that can grow from a controlled standpoint,” says EV Rental’s operations chief Mr. Christensen. He adds, “It’s not a business that will become an international business or national business overnight. We have to continue to reinvent ourselves.”

Mr. Pink, the founder, says he hopes if he can build up enough inventory, and if the hybrid market takes off, EV Rental might make an attractive acquisition target. He expects to have 1,500 cars by the end of 2007 and 2,500 the next year. He says he is working to establish centers to educate consumers about the cars. “I think getting our name out is important in the next year or two,” he says. “We want people to drive these cars.”

http://www.startupjournal.com/columnists/enterprise/20060712-bounds.html

rent hybrid car

EV Rental Cars, the nation’s only rental car agency exclusively offering hybrid vehicles, is rapidly building its fleet in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.

“We have a responsibility to the environment and to the economy to help business travelers who are suffering from political foot-dragging and oil company profiteering,” said EV Rental Cars Chairman Jeff Pink. During the next six to twelve months Pink is planning on adding as many as 500 hybrid vehicles to the EV Rental Cars fleet in Las Vegas alone, which is one of the top three highest volume rental car cities in America.

“In a hybrid rental vehicle I can drive around Las Vegas for two days and never have to refill the tank before returning to the airport,” said Patrick Pharris, President and CEO of Promethean Partners, the advertising broker for the environmentally friendly Las Vegas Monorail.

A particular benefit of renting EV Rental Cars’ hybrid vehicles is that these vehicles qualify for the carpool lane in California, even when the driver is the only occupant.

EV Rental Cars has the largest fleet of used hybrids that are now available for sale to the public.

BENEFITS OF RENTING A HYBRID CAR:

* Up to 50 miles-per-gallon, 600 miles per tank
* California drivers qualify for the carpool lane, even if driving alone
* Seats up to five passengers
* Runs on electric and uses no gas when driving at slow speeds

The hybrid vehicles provided by EV Rental Cars include the Toyota Prius and the new Honda Civic Hybrid models. Each gets nearly 50 miles a gallon and has a range of about 600 miles per tank of gasoline. Both are half electric and half gasoline-powered cars that seat five passengers. Each is equipped with integrated charging systems, which mean they never have to be recharged from an outside source.

EV Rental Cars opened its doors in December 1998 as the first and only rental company in the United States to rent only environmental vehicles to the public. EV Rental Cars’ fleet has grown to more than 350 cars at 8 locations throughout the country. Airport locations include California sites in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, a site in Phoenix, AZ and its newest location in Las Vegas, NV. The company has prevented more than 100 tons of air pollution and passed on to its customers more than $1 million in fuel costs savings by acting environmentally. EV Rental Cars is an affiliate of Fox Rent-A-Car. To rent a hybrid car, click here and you will be taken to Fox Rental Car