Saturday, April 21, 2007

More Hybrid Cars For Rental Fleets Say Travelers

Priceline.com is yet another online source for automotive tidbits and as a part of Earth Day which happens this April 22nd, the group has already done a survey. This new study has focused more on consumers of rental car companies and what they have been aiming to find out is what kind of vehicles do these consumers really want to see as part of rental fleets.

After the survey was done and all the statistics were evaluated, priceline.com was able to find out that 72 percent of all respondents said that they would like to find rental car companies who do offer hybrid vehicles which are not only economical but would be friendly to the environment. Of course, this group also did say that they would like to find hybrid vehicles that run on both electricity and gasoline.

Of the 764 consumers who took part of priceline.com’s study, 71 percent did also state that they are very much willing to rent out a hybrid vehicle especially if they would be traveling to other states. A good 48% of the total respondents did also disclose that even if they would have to shell out for a premium payment for the hybrid, they would gladly do so.

It is of course a reality that there are quite a few hybrid vehicle models available through most of the country’s rental car companies. And because of such, there would be a higher demand for the vehicles though the supply may be quite low. And as according to the study, more consumers would even be willing to shell out an additional $1 to $3 per day on the rent of the vehicle and it would mean that it would also more and more consumers are thus inclined to greener vehicles rather than ordinary vehicles like the Honda Civic or the Ridgeline which comes equipped with the Honda cold air intake. Although this may be so, there is a small amount of consumers, amounting to eight percent of the total, who did mention that they are even willing to shell out $4 to even $6 per day of renting out a hybrid.

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