Prius Rentals

Originally Posted by mastermann

Why does Enterprise no longer carry the Toyota Prius. It's the perfect car to rent. ERAC should like it because:

1) It has a relatively low sale prices, especially without the "goodies" like navigation, leather, etc.

2) It has a very high resale value.

3) It gets very high MPG--desirable for customers.

4) It has enough room for Enterprise to call it a Standard-sized car, or may even an FCAR.

...I know, a PT Cruiser is really a compact and an Impala is a mid-sized, but not in the world of ERAC.

The main reason they stopped buying them is because the customers couldn't figure out how to drive the damn things. If you put a gun to their head they wouldn't be able to start them. About a month or two ago we had one on the lot and ended up having to send someone 45min away to switch the customer out because he couldn't start. They are more hassle then they are worth.

[Collared Greens]

Originally Posted by FailingEnterpriseAdmin

Don't be impersonating Andy Taylor here.

uh oh. someone's afraid of erac's lawyers.

[FailingEnterpriseAdmin]

Originally Posted by Collared Greens

uh oh. someone's afraid of erac's lawyers.

They get all bent out of shape when someone impersonates a senior manager here.

Originally Posted by mastermann

Why does Enterprise no longer carry the Toyota Prius. It's the perfect car to rent. ERAC should like it because:

1) It has a relatively low sale prices, especially without the "goodies" like navigation, leather, etc.

2) It has a very high resale value.

3) It gets very high MPG--desirable for customers.

4) It has enough room for Enterprise to call it a Standard-sized car, or may even an FCAR.

...I know, a PT Cruiser is really a compact and an Impala is a mid-sized, but not in the world of ERAC.

The reason why Enterprise doesn't carry this anymore is because they cant get a good deal on them due to their demand. When gas prices were low there was little need for Hybrid in the marketplace, as a result Toyota was willing to cut Enterprise a deal on leasing Prius's. When gas prices skyrocketed people were looking to get the most fuel effecient car possible, thus the Prius became a very attractive car. Toyota ended up pulling all the vehicles leased to Enterprise to sell them to the market place. Last I checked Hybrids still had some sort of waiting period to acquire one and usually had a dealer mark up. So to answer your questions:

1) Hybrids are about $25K and could be more depending on dealer markups. Enterprise will not be able to get a deal on them due to their demand.

2) Enterprise doesn't care about the resale value because they are only leasing the vehicle from the manufacturer, they were not buying the Prius.

3) Although it has greater fuel economy people were not willing to pay $70/day to rent the car. In my experience the only branch that was renting out the prius was the Toyota dealership branches since they were required to carry the vehicle per the dealership agreement.

4) The car classifications are used more for grouping together cars with similar purchasing costs.

****Back in 2004, I used to be a regular $9.99 weekend customer. The branch I frequented had a cool manager named "Mike" who would hook me up. Although I sometimes got an Aveo or Hyundai, I would often get nicer cars like a Prius, Camry, Tahoe, and sometimes even a Cadillac Deville. I would use my university alumni assocation discount code to waive the underage fee and change the rate to $8.44 per day. The total weekend always came to $31.02, with all taxes included.

Hey! Try buying a car for that, you can't if you concider tax title etc. ERAC is 90% of the time the cheapest. The company would lose money on your rental. I'm not going to be like everyone else and insult you but seriously, that's a ridiculous expectation.