Hybrid Rental Fleets Keep Growing

Wall Street Journal:

Avis Rent A Car is adding 500 Nissan Altima hybrids to its U.S. fleet this month and Enterprise Rent-A-Car is adding 1,500 Toyota Priuses in the fall, becoming the latest examples of the rental-car industry's rush to boost the availability of more environmentally friendly vehicles.

Avis's Altima hybrids will be available at locations throughout California and will be in service before the end of the month. Avis also added 1,000 Priuses earlier this summer, offering them in California; Seattle; Portland, Ore.; and Washington, D.C., with plans to make them available in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, New York and Philadelphia by year's end.

Enterprise's new hybrids will be spread throughout the U.S.; the company has just over 3,000 hybrids in service now. Enterprise also established an "E85/FlexFuel" branch in Washington last month, with half the fleet there made up of flex-fuel vehicles that can run on a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, or E85.

Read the whole story: Wall Street Journal