Hertz To Rent CNG Vehicles, Pilot Program Begins In May
If you’re traveling to Oklahoma City any time soon, Herz will give you the option of renting a Honda Civic or GMC Yukon that runs on Compressed Natural Gas.
Renters will be able to select from one of eight Honda Civics or two GMC Yukons that use CNG. The vehicles will have a Hertz Neverlost GPS System on-board that will assist with locating a CNG refueling station.
Oklahoma may be “flyover country” for coastal greenie types, but OKC is home to big natural gas producers, including Chesapeake Energy Corporation. The state also has 70 CNG stations that are already in use or about to come online. Launching a pilot project here is akin to launching an all-E85 fleet in Iowa. Hertz is, of course, playing up both the green angle and the fact that CNG is a domestically produced fuel.
Hertz already rents CNG vehicles in Italy and the UK, and CNG cars can be rented at a Hertz outlet at Oklahoma State University, but this marks the first time that the company has offered CNG cars at an airport location.
More by Derek Kreindler
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Good! About time! I think most folks don't remember this but back in the early 1960s, Hertz had these great commercials where a couple flew out of the sky into an Chevy convertible, right into the driver's seat of the car. "Let Hertz put you, in the driver's seat!" was the happy, peppy song a group of happy, peppy young people, a-la-Beach Boys. The thing was, and a lot of folks don't know this, but what powered that flying couple was natural gas - yeah - a guy won a Clio for that ad.
No way this can work. The President hasn't shoveled billions of tax dollars into it, AND his buddies don't own Chesapeake Energy Corporation. No way at all. And the energy source is even practical and proven. Nope. Not gonna work.
I see what you did there, Derek: natural gas . . . pilot ;
No way I'd rent it, unless I could be assured CNG would be available everywhere I intended to go. The last couple of times I rented a car, I was offered some sort of "return it without refilling it" deal. You run the numbers and you realize it's an amazing screw job. Worse still is if you don't pre-fill the refill and then return it less than full. When that happens, IIRC, the rental agency (a mainstream agency, not Ed's Discount Rentals) charged on the order of $8/gallon to fill it up. I declined both deals and topped it the night before I returned it (the airport was 5 miles away from my hotel). I can hardly imagine what Hertz will charge for your CNG refill if you can't find a place to top it off before you bring it in. No thanks.