Following neatly on from my last post about Sixt’s deployment of electric hire cars in London, Renault has announced that it has received an order from Europcar for 500 electric cars from its forthcoming Z.E. (Zero Emissions) range of electric cars.

A prototype of the Renault Fluence Zero Emission electric car

The cars are due for delivery from the third quarter of 2011 and will be available for hire in cities across Europe – the primary market for electric cars at present. Renault’s Zero Emission (Z.E.) range will initially be made up of three models:

• Fluence Z.E. (pictured above) – a four-door saloon
• Twizy Z.E. – a small, city car
• Kangoo Z.E. – an electric version of Renault’s popular Kangoo small van

Car hire company Sixt will be offering electric car rental in London, stating from the 4th March, 2010. Sixt’s Fulham branch will be offering the Citroen C1 Ev’ie for hire – an all-electric version of the popular C1 supermini.

The C1 Ev’ie apparently has a range of up to 75 miles, a top speed of 60mph and can be charged for as little as 95p in electricity costs. Drivers of electric cars in London gain access to a number of benefits, including:

• Exemption from the London Congestion Charge
• Designated parking spaces and recharging spots

The electric C1 will be on display at Sixt’s Fulham branch and will be available for rent from 4th March.

Click here to visit Sixt’s website.

If you would like to try an electric car and live in or near London, then help may be at hand. GoGo Electric Car Rentals is based in Brixton and has a fleet of Mega City electric cars that are available for daily rental.

Benefits of electric car use in London include free parking, exemption from the congestion charge and even free parking at specified points in the City of Westminster, according to GoGo Electric Car Rentals. To find out more, visit GoGo’s website or give them a call on 0845 299 7260.

One of the most common problems that car rental firms and their customers experience is disputes over damage.

The rental firm claims – often after the car has been returned – that certain damage has been caused by the renter. The renter disputes this but is unable to provide evidence to back his or her claim up – apart from the notes from the walkaround inspection at the beginning and end of each rental.

The problem with a walkaround inspection is that it is not always very accurate or comprehensive. The last two times I hired a car (from a major international car rental firm), the pickup walkaround inspections were flawed:

• One the first occasion, the car I was collecting was black and was still wet from being washed after its last rental. On top of this, it was dark outside. You try finding minor paintwork damage or small dents on a wet, black car in the dark. I just had to take a chance that all was okay.
• On the second occasion, the agent from the rental company did not notice that both of the car’s wing mirrors had been badly scraped and then touched up (also badly!) by a previous customer. I pointed this out and it was recorded – but otherwise I might have been held responsible.

Hertz’s solution is to start taking high resolution ‘before and after’ photographs of each car. The scheme has been trialled for the last month at a US car rental location and Hertz is positive about the impact it has had.

Hertz hopes that the scheme will help reduce customer disputes and lower its repair bills, which run to $170m a year at present.

I can see the benefits of this system. Hertz will be able to produce before and after photos to prove that a car was damaged during the rental period. However, in the cases I mentioned above, photographs would only really have helped in the second instance. A wet car photographed in the dark will still not show up damage like a dry one in daylight.

Has anyone had any experience of this system in practice, yet? If so, leave a comment below, I’d be very interested to know more about how it works in reality.

Car rental firm Sixt has just opened two new car hire offices in Brussels South station and Maastricht Central station.

This follows the highly successful opening of a rental office directly opposite Amsterdam Central Station last year. It seems that long-distance railway travellers want to hire cars at their destinations! According to Sixt’s Thomas Walters, the “opening of the Sixt branch at Amsterdam Central Station proved to be an enormous success”.

Sixt expects this trend to continue, especially as Brussels South is one of the key international interchanges for rail travel in Europe.

Click here to visit Sixt’s website for a quote or to book a hire car.

International car rental company Avis has just opened its first branch in Vietnam.

Located in the capital, Hanoi, Avis’ first Vietnam office has been opened in response to “overwhelming demand from our corporate and leisure customers”, according to Eric Brun, General Manager of Avis in Asia.

Avis is planning to open a second branch, in Ho Chi Minh City, before the end of 2009 and a further branch, in Danang, in 2010. The company expects its Vietnam fleet to grow to over 300 vehicles by the end of 2011 and is working on partnership arrangements with various airlines and hotel chains.

Customers can choose from a wide range of vehicles, including Mercedes saloons, 4×4 vehicles and minibuses/minivans.

To learn more about Avis or get an instant quote for Vietnam car rental, click here.

Although the cost of car hire in America is rising, it seems that the opposite is happening in Europe. That’s right. In many European countries, car rental rates are falling.

According to the Post Office Travel Services Motoring on the Continent Report 2009, car rental costs in many European countries are lower than this time last year. For example:

• Greece car hire costs down by 36%
• Sweden car hire costs down by 32%
• Portugal car hire costs down by 21%
• Portugal is also the cheapest place to hire a car in Europe

One of the biggest surprises to me was that the UK rated as the second-cheapest place in Europe to hire a car – with only Portugal coming in cheaper.

Heading to Florida?

Any heading across the Atlantic for some Florida sun will be in for an expensive shock. Rising US costs and a weaker pound mean that the cost of car rental in Florida has risen by a whopping 64% since this time last year. Ouch.

Note: Car hire costs were calculated based on a 3-day hire with 200 miles of motoring. Figures published by Post Office Travel Services.

USA Car hire prices have risen dramatically over the last year, according to new figures published by Abrams Consulting Group, an American organisation that tracks car hire rates.

For example, the average weekly rental rate for a compact car hired at a US airport was $347.44 in mid-June – up from $210.38 at the same time last year. That’s a 65% increase. (Source: New York Times).

The problem is simple – the recession has reduced demand for car hire but car rental companies have reduced their fleets by more than the reduction in demand. The benefit for the hire companies is obvious – higher fleet utilisation and the ability to increase rates, bolstering profits.

However, it’s not simply a question of car hire companies trying to exploit tough times. They’ve had to make changes to survive.  There are three main reasons for this:

1. Secondhand car values have fallen, reducing the value of hire companies cars when they sell them.

2. New car costs have risen in many cases, as struggling car manufacturers readjust their business models.

3. Finance costs have risen and the availability of finance has been reduced, in many cases.

Given all of this, doing what the car rental companies have done just makes good business sense – but there is no denying that the result, for customers, is that rental rates are up.

Significant price rises like this like this make it even more important to shop around and compare car hire quotes before booking.

Airport Connect is a new service from Europcar. It’s aimed at removing the hassle caused by holidaymakers trying to get to the airport with all of their luggage by public transport.

It’s an unfortunate fact that the UK’s public transport network makes carrying luggage very inconvenient. On top of that, who enjoys lugging suitcases between platforms or around the London Underground?

Europcar Airport Connect solves this. Hire a car from your nearest Europcar branch, drive directly to the airport with your luggage and drop off the car – from just £49 each way.

No public transport.

No costly or distant airport parking arrangements.

It sounds like a good plan to me and I would certainly consider using it if I was planning a family holiday by air.

Find out more on Europcar’s website – click here

No-show fees – a penalty fee charged if you don’t turn up for your booking – are common in other parts of the travel industry but until recently have been unheard of in the car hire industry.

Avis has changed all that by introducing what it claims is the industry’s first no-show fee, which it is rolling out gradually throughout Europe.

In the UK, Avis will charge customers who don’t show up a £40 penalty fee. The company claims that this will help it to improve fleet availability. The logic is that the fee should discourage people from booking hire cars ‘in case’ they need them – safe in the knowledge that there is no penalty if they don’t turn up or change their mind.

It will be interesting to see if other car rental operators follow Avis’ lead.