Car Hire Tips UK

With much talk in the media about the environment and the ecological impact of virtually everything we do, it’s time to take a look at the car rental industry to see how “green” car hire is and what the rental firms are doing to become more eco friendly.

Most of the major car rental companies have already recognised the growth in customer demand for low emission cars and have started to change their fleets to accommodate.  The range of low emission cars currently available is quite limited, both in options and rental locations, but it’s growing quickly with changing patterns in customer demand.

So, who’s doing what?

Avis Sweden has invested in more than 400 of the new ethanol-powered Saab 9-5 BioPower cars, along with around 75 Ford Flexi-fuel and 20 Toyota Prius. In the US, Avis have added 500 Nissan Altima Hybrid vehicles and 1,000 Toyota Priuses to their fleet. In the UK they have reduced their rental fleet emissions by 4%. Avis has also been a carbon neutral company since 2000.

Hertz have introduced a “green collection” which allows you to choose from a range of cars that offer a weighted CO2 output level of less than 140g/km and achieve 40 - 65 MPG, depending upon vehicle size. This weighted CO2 level is already below the 2008 voluntary levels set by the EU for the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. This collection is available from 50 selected outlets across Europe.

Holiday autos have also launched a range of hybrid cars in selected locations across Europe through its rental partners. If you want to go really green though and live in London, why not try out an electric car. Future Vehicles (www.futurevehicles.co.uk) was one of the first to set up in this market, offering cars within the M25 area.

Car rental giants Avis have just announced the opening of a new rental station in the North London borough of Enfield. Enfield is just inside the M25 and is around 12 miles north east of central London.

The new rental office is on a busy main road, just off the North Circular. The new site is a redevelopment of a former run down petrol station.

Budget Rent A Car System, Inc. is a car rental company that was founded in 1958 in Los Angeles, California by Morris Mirkin.

With its original fleet of 10 cars the company lived up to the ‘Budget’ name by undercutting the daily and per mile rental rates of the established airport based car rental companies. Mirkin was joined in 1959 by Julius Lederer (husband of Ann Landers). In 1960 the headquarters was moved to Chicago, Illinois and the rental fleet expanded with franchised and wholly owned rental outlets.

The company was eventually acquired by Transamerica Corporation, and then sold in 1986 in a leveraged buyout by Gibbons, Green and van Amerongen Ltd., along with management and selected investors. It was taken public in 1987.

The public company was purchased by Team Rental Group in 1997, which took the name Budget Group. In 2002 the company’s assets were sold to Cendant Corporation, which also owned Avis.

In September 2006 Cendant Corporation separated into four independent companies by spinning off its real estate division, now called Realogy, Inc., and its hospitality services division, now Wyndham Worldwide, and by selling its travel distribution services division, called Travelport, Inc., to an affiliate of The Blackstone Group.

In 2006, following the Travelport sale, Cendant, now composed solely of its vehicle rental services businesses, renamed itself Avis Budget Group.

Avis car rental is an American owned company and has two major brands that it promotes its car rental products using, those being Avis (obviously!) and Budget Rent a Car. Avis is headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey USA. In addition to the main brands, Budget Truck Rental are also part of the Avis Budget Group.

Avis Budget Group operates the Avis brand in North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, India, Australia and New Zealand. In other parts of the world, the Avis brand is operated by Avis Europe plc, a separate company which licenses the Avis brand from Avis Budget Group. All together, Avis currently has over 4000 branch offices worldwide. Avis is one of the largest car rental agencies in the world.

Avis is a leading rental car provider to the commercial segment serving business travelers at major airports around the world, and to leisure travelers at off-airport locations.

The company was founded in 1946 with 3 cars at Willow Run Airport[1], Detroit by Warren Avis (b.1915, d. April 24, 2007). It established branch operations across the U.S. over the next few years, becoming the second largest car rental company in the country by 1953 and by its tenth anniversary in 1956 had opened its first international offices in Europe, Canada and Mexico.

Their corporate motto is “We Try Harder.” It was adopted in 1962 [1] to make a more positive reference of Avis’ status as the second largest car rental company in the U.S., at the expense of its larger competitor The Hertz Corporation. In 1981, the company instituted its system of vehicle tracking, that was coincidentally named Advanced Vehicle Identification System, or “AVI.S”.

Avis has been owned by a number of other companies over the years, along with several periods of being a public company.