I think it bodes well for Toyota to be renting its cars and especially its hybrids. The more people

Rental car companies normally don't care how efficient the cars they rent are, nor do most customers. Even if you're renting travel and expense a car for a week, you can probably live with the gasoline costs. That's travel and expense not stopping both Hertz and Avis from adding hybrid Toyota Prius models to their fleets.
Hertz will add 3,400 Priuses worldwide by 2008, the company says, at a cost of $64 million, with 1,000 of those cars hitting fleets as early as next week. The company is starting a "Green Collection" that also includes conventional gasoline-engine models like the Ford Fusion and Toyota Camry. The aim is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The company travel and expense is also renting Priuses by the hour in New York City. Of course, they'll cost more to rent per day than a standard travel and expense gas-powered car.
These numbers are relative travel and expense drops in the bucket. Hertz has a fleet of 410,000 vehicles in the U.S. and Europe. That makes the move smell of marketing rather than corporate responsibility, but you have to start somewhere, we guess. It also aims at the small " carbon footprint " movement in the travel industry, where vacationers look to create less pollution when enjoying their time off.
Toyota has over a dozen Toyota Rent-A-Car shops in Houston, TX. My company rents from them exclusively when we travel within Texas or need to get rental cars for our customers (we re in the auto repair business). They rent all the Toyota models except travel and expense the MR2 Spyder and I ve rented a Prius several times. Saves significantly if I ve got lots of city driving around the Houston, travel and expense D/FW, or Austin areas. From what I gather, these shops are only in Houston, unfortunately.
A low resale value and the fact that a car is common among rental fleets are two symptoms of the same problem: undesirability. Rental companies primarily buy cars that are deeply discounted because the manufacturers have trouble selling them. As long as the rental companies don t flood the market with used Priuses the resale value shouldn t change much.
While what you say is correct, there s a double whammy here. Once you begin to fleet sell to rental companies (who only keep cars a few years at most), there is a significant increase in the number of vehicles available used. Supply and demand travel and expense causes price/value to drop. So low resale value, while caused by undesirability, is also caused by rental sales (which are SOMETIMES caused by undesirability). However, the few thousand vehicles here aren t going to make much difference.
I think it bodes well for Toyota to be renting its cars and especially its hybrids. The more people that see them and drive them, the more they will be accepted. Not everyone lives in Los Angeles where the Prius is as ordinary as a SUV in St. Louis.
Has anyone outside of say LA tried to rent one of these cars. I have tried to rent one for the last 10 trips I have taken. I have tried in cities from minneapolis, to Denver, to indianapolis. Guess what no cars. The whole thing made a great article but I have yet to find a single travel and expense prius for rent in any city I have traveled to. Has anyone else found this situation to be true. I am not sure I want to rent a prius anymore as the prius drivers are now considered the worst drivers on the road. I have never seen such a complete group of inconsiderate, selfish, and road rage inducing drivers in my life. It used to be old men wearing hats were the ones to look out for. Now it is anyone in a prius. It is not the cars. I have driven a few of them and they are snappy little cars. More then able to stay in thier lane, stop approriatetely, and plenty of power to get out of the way. I think they are so busy watching the blinky lights and worrying about thier economy they forget to keep eyes on the road and drive in the real world. I have to say that when I test drove these cars I found myself watching the dashboard more then I should have. Sorry for the rant but if a few of these people see this the world will be a safer place for all of us on the road.
Try to be civil to your fellow blog readers. This blog is not a fan or enthusiast forum, it is meant to help people during the car-buying travel and expense process and during the time between purchases, so shoppers can keep a pulse on the market.