Filed under: Green Culture, Transportation Alternatives
Hertz wants to be there whenever you want to borrow a car. The traditional car rental company has been attempting to get in on the short-term carsharing bandwagon for a while, with Hertz On Demand, but this week's announcement of a new program called Hertz 24/7 is a big move towards giving you wheels any time you want them.
The details of the Hertz 24/7 expansion (which appears to be a rebranding of Hertz On Demand) are not available yet, but the company is saying it hopes to have "self-serve," pick-your-length-of-rental (by the hour, day, week or month) cars available "within minutes of the majority of the United States population" by 2016. And there are no membership fees. Hertz says it will have "a wide variety of vehicles" available in the program, but, again, details are scarce. Clicking around the 24/7 website reveals models like the Nissan Altima, Chevy Cruze and Toyota Camry and we also found this text: "Hertz's hourly car rental service offers a variety of luxury cars, hybrids, electric cars, even van and truck rentals, across the US, Europe, Australia, and is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."
There are currently 1,800 Hertz 24/7 locations with a total of 35,000 vehicles open around the world, and that number is expected to grow to 2,000 by the end of the year. This growth will come from adding stores like Lowes and Walgreens to the list. It's appealing to retailers because they will be "able to monetize their parking lot. It's almost a no-brainer. It's part of our asset-light strategy, investing in technology and making the car, if you will, the bricks and mortar," Hertz CEO Mark Frissora told Bloomberg.
By 2016, there are supposed to be 500,000 vehicles in the global program, and all of them can be picked up in one location and dropped off in another. In other words, in three years, most of the people in America could, technically, dispense with car ownership if Hertz delivers on this promise. More details are available in the press release below.
Zipcar and Car2go, you're on notice.
Continue reading Hertz 24/7 will make carsharing available to most Americans by 2016
Hertz 24/7 will make carsharing available to most Americans by 2016 originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Fri, 28 Jun 2013 17:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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