Some rental car agencies are now renting out hybrid cars. And you might think this is an exceptional thing for a car rental agency to do, but it also costs the auto rental agencies more to rent these types of cars for several reasons. The first reason is return on investment; hybrid cars generally cost $15-$20,000 more than regular cars of the same type, style, and size. Plus, they are higher on maintenance, and there are more things to go wrong because on a hybrid car you have an electrical system, and extra components, as well as a regular motor. They are very complex vehicles, and they have to deal with Murphy’s Law.
Some car rental agencies in the big cities offer all electric plug-ins as part of their rental car fleet. This is also quite challenging because someone that doesn’t drive and all-electric car may not realize that it’s easy to run the battery down, and not be able to plug it in somewhere. And not all the hotels have places to plug in. Therefore people get stranded, and they have to have the vehicle towed back to the rental agency. This causes an angry customers due to additional fees and charges on their credit card and a whole lot of hassle for the rental car agency. Continue reading »