Should be really helpful to prospective buyers. We rented one for 4 days in 2005 to see if we liked it--bought a car on the 3rd day. Carl
About time. I had to drive up to Carlsbad to rent a Prius when mine was in the shop. I called both Hertz and Avis (among others) and every time I was told they do not have any Prius or any other hybrid to rent, I told them thank you very much but I'm not interested in what you have to offer. Maybe they got one to many phone calls like that. Or maybe they see the resale value is high and they can rent the car for a year and still get a good return when they sell it.
Good News, lets hope they don't put too much of a premium on them. I was sold on hybrids when I rented a Civic Hybrid in San Francisco. It was only $10 more so a said "what the heck". If it was much more though I probably would have gotten a standard car like I did when we did our week long trip through some of the national parts in CA.
'bout time. When we were looking for a courtesy car, we couldn't find any Toyota hybrids. We settled for a Mazda5 GT. It was one hell of a car (or van) but still would've preferred a hybrid.
Let's see... Hertz is spending $ 68,000,000 for 3,400 cars. That works out to exactly $ 20,000 per automobile. Not a bad deal; but not really a great deal either (depending upon options). Keith
The Hertz in Sun City, AZ has offered the Prius for a while, though the rep said most people prefer standard cars as they're intimidated by the hybrid technology (i.e. how do I turn it on, put it in drive, etc.). I imagine that's changing though - I see quite a few Prius in that area.
