Hertz Featuring High Mileage Rental Cars
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 09. 6.06
Hertz is this week launching its "Green Collection" of rental cars (with USEPA ratings of 28+ mpg, highway). "More than half of the 35,000 vehicles are SmartWay certified, the highest EPA marks for limiting air pollution and greenhouse gases. Travelers can reserve one of 42 types of cars, including the Toyota Camry, Ford Fusion and Buick LaCrosse, at 50 airports around the country". By grouping and featuring the higher efficiency models, Hertz provides a "pull marketing" force that could, if customers responded positively, send a strong message to car manufacturers. We wish them success and hope the other rental agencies follow suit, so that fleet buying as a rule reinforces the idea that efficiency must be a principal design goal. Via: Wall Street Journal (Subscription Only)
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28+ mpg. Wow. I'm impressed.
Not.
In a more sensible world, it would be illegal to produce cars with such low mpg.
As it is, it's only immoral.
Ahh so it seems you'd rather have them not make any attempt at haveing better MPG cars. Makes sense. All or nothing attitude.
=== author's response follows ====-
Perhaps the concept of 'pull marketing' was left unclear. Instantaneous feedback becomes available as to rental preferences by model and mileage. This kind of information can give direct support to designers who would work toward more efficient vehicles, perhaps in opposition to the "marketing department" which is getting its insights from the trailing indicators of quarterly sales data from a less segmented market. This is a very good thing as it pushes for continuous incremental improvement.
"Ahh so it seems you'd rather have them not make any attempt at haveing better MPG cars"
Eh? Where does it say this?
Ah... So when you say high mileage you mean (more) fuel efficient cars. So why didn't you just say that.
I have a high mileage car (100k+) but it's not fuel efficient.
I'm not impressed with this, either. The Buick LaCrosse only offers 19 mpg in the city. As I posted earlier, this really isn't very "green" of Hertz.
http://upgradetravel.blogspot.com/2006/09/hertz-insults-our-environmental.html
=== author's response follows ====
Objectively, and instantaneously, you are spot-on, of course. Subjectively, and in the long view, Hertz has figured out that efficiency matters more lately and is testing ways to leverage it for market share. It's what we want to see happen. If profit suffered as a result of a bolder move, Wall Street would punish them for it. So its a small change to a business model and, as you say, not the 'next big thing'.
As it happens, I was on the phone with Hertz when I read this last night. I've noticed in several cities that Hertz has at least a couple of Priuses, though no one could ever tell me how to reserve one [On the ground, they'd say, "It's booked," when I tried to switch, and on the phone, they never knew what I was talking about: "Prius? huh?"]
So I asked the res agent for "The Green Collection," and she immediately comes back with, "oh, that's only available in Canada."
I ended up getting a Navigator instead [KIDDING!]
I am traveling to Florida and will need a rental car so I was excited when I saw this post. Now I'm just disgusted and confused. Is it really that difficult for Hertz to offer true eco-cars. I hate the green washing. I also called Hertz and the gal I spoke to was unaware of the 'green' collection. Hertz will not be getting my business this trip.