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Hertz wants you to rent an electric vehicle

By | December 6, 2010, 6:15 PM PST

There may not be an electric vehicle in your driveway yet, but Hertz is charging ahead with a new service that will soon field a fleet of electric vehicles.

Connect by Hertz locations in New York, Washington, DC, and San Francisco will be making up to 1,000 electric vehicles available to customers. Models will appear in New York midway through this month, and select Starwood Hotels will be promoting the cars to guests during the coming year.

Other partners include electric vehicle makers Chevy, Mitsubishi, Nissan, and smart USA.

“Hertz’s partnership with smart USA is another strategic element of our long term plan to provide consumers with electric vehicle access on a global scale,” said Mark P. Frissora, Hertz chairman and chief executive officer. “With its worldwide recognition, smart was a logical choice for our program and we’re excited to begin offering the smart electric drive to our customers later this month.”

Hertz announced its commitment to go green in September at the Clinton Global Initiative, but its initiatives had been strictly regional to date. The company calls the initiative Hertz Global EV, and the “smart” vehicles will be made available through its Connect by Hertz rental service.

Hertz has either calculated that electric vehicles could greatly reduce its operational costs, generate “goodwill,” or devised a clever marketing ploy to lure in eco-philes like myself. Regardless, its buying power will doubtlessly introduce many consumers to electric vehicles.

Hertz’s chief competitor Zipcar discovered new green in the car rental business by servicing communities and introducing a subscription-pricing model. Connect by Hertz follows a similar model.

Zipcar brought hybrids onboard in 2003, and launched a pilot program for plug-in hybrid vehicles in California last year.

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David Worthington

About David Worthington

David Worthington is a contributing editor for SmartPlanet.

David Worthington

David Worthington

Contributing Editor

David Worthington has written for BetaNews, eWeek, PC World, Technologizer and ZDNet. Formerly, he was a senior editor at SD Times. He holds a degree from Temple University. He is based in New York.

Follow him on Twitter.

David Worthington

David Worthington

David does not have financial holdings that would influence how or what he covers. Occasionally he consults for other companies; should David cover a topic in which a client is involved, he will disclose this fact in his writing. His views do not represent those of ScaleOut Software.

He writes for SmartPlanet and is not an employee of CBS.

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+1 Vote
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RE: Hertz wants you to rent an electric vehicle
That's a good idea. And I think reading this article and learning
some benefits of Solar Power Generator is also a good idea. Visit
this sunpowerportcom (Give a dot between letter T and C. Thanks).
Have a great day. happy
Posted by bowking
7th Dec 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
So, if you return your EV without a full charge...
...will they rape you with a "recharge fee" like they do when you
don't return with a full tank of gas?

And how are they going to manage inventory, since it usually takes
hours to recharge an EV that is returned without a full charge.

It will be very interesting to see how this works out.
Posted by JohnMcGrew@...
7th Dec 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
No problem
They could check the charge meter to see how much it's down, but why bother? Recharging only costs a few bucks.
Posted by Greenknight_z
8th Dec 2010
-1 Votes
+ -
There is a problem.
Unlike refueling an auto which takes 5 minutes at the most,
recharging an EV can take hours.
Posted by JohnMcGrew@...
9th Dec 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
Changable batteries
EV's should be designed with a standard battery pack that can be easily and quickly changed. Then it's like pulling into a filling station. You don't own the battery, you just buy the power on it. I think there are some experimental taxi's they are trying to do that with right now.
Posted by riverat1
10th Dec 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
RE: Hertz wants you to rent an electric vehicle
please find our electric car:
http://www.electric-bicycle.de/
Posted by chinaeu
4th Mar 2011
+1 Vote
+ -
Electric Cars
Please explain to me how electric cars offer a solution to energy problems. The batteries in electric cars do not PRODUCE energy, they only store energy that is produced elsewhere. Most likely from electric power plants which use traditional energy sources. By transferring this energy into a different form, energy is LOST. Also, aside from the other problems such as cost of the vehicles, batteries, lithium (as demand increases), what will happen to the cost and availability of electricity when 100 million people plug their vehicles into the grid? I really need to hear the answers to this. (Hybrids, on the other hand, make sense, they generate their own electrical power when braking, coasting, etc.)
Posted by Leealban
29th Jun 2011
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