Car Guru writes for DriveAway Holidays, DriveAway Holidays New Zealand and DriveAway Holidays Blog
As people become more aware of environmental issues and conscious of their actions, demand for hybrid cars, to buy and rent, has risen.
A hybrid car is a car which can run on two or more fuel sources - most commonly an engine and an electric motor powered by batteries. The motor and batteries help the engine work more efficiently which means you spend less on fuel and emit fewer emissions.
The Toyota Prius is probably the most well known hybrid car. It first went on sale in 1997 and since then, more than 10,000 Prius' have been sold in Australia. The Australian Government's Green Vehicle Guide website rates all new vehicles based on greenhouse and air pollution emissions and fuel consumption. The Prius is currently the top performer in all 3 with a fuel consumption of 4.4L per 100kms.
To give you an idea of what this means - a Hummer H3 Adventure has a fuel consumption level of 13.2L/100km, Toyota Rav 4's fuel consumption is 9.6L, a Mercedes Benz C Class C180K is 7.6L and a Honda Civic 1.8L sedan has a fuel consumption of 7.2L. According to Toyota, a Prius has up to 50% less consumption than a comparably-sized family car and that one tank of fuel could theoretically get you over a whopping 1000km!
While hybrid cars are still quite expensive to buy - a Toyota Prius 1.5L petrol/Electric combination CVT will set you back $37,400 (from www.toyota.com.au), renting one may be within your budget.
DriveAway currently have Hybrids available to rent in France and the USA, but with car rental suppliers adding more ‘green' cars to their fleets, this is sure to grow over the next few years.
Renting a hybrid does cost more than renting a similar sized non-hybrid car (due to supply and demand and the fact that hybrids are more expensive for the rental company to buy), but you will save money on fuel and of course, it's better for the environment. Click here for more details.
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