Car rental

America's rental car industry ain't what it used to be. For starters, rental companies now have to repair recalled vehicles before loaning them to customers (a requirement that the industry fought tooth and nail for years). Also, decades-old industry heavyweights find themselves competing against...Read More»

Rolling the dice at a rental car counter requires a strong stomach. You've reserved a "mid-size sedan" and there's a picture of a Ford Focus, but the keys that the friendly folks at Generic Airport Car Rental hand you may be for an entirely different car. After all, none of the major car rental...Read More»

The list of #firstworldproblems is long: spotty wifi. Chunky iPhone updates. Gluten. Complaining about those woes seems absurd given the life-or-death issues facing many people on the planet--issues like civil war, famine, and antibiotic-resistant disease. But complain we do, because honestly, who...Read More»

The quest to move a multi-year transportation bill through the U.S. Congress met with a bit of success yesterday, as the House of Representatives passed its own version of the legislation. A similar version of the Surface Transportation Reauthorization & Reform Act of 2015 was previously...Read More»

Rental car companies like Avis and Hertz aren't required to fix recalled vehicles before loaning them to customers. Several years ago, that yielded tragic results for Raechel and Jacqueline Houck, two sisters who were killed after unknowingly renting a recalled car from Enterprise Rent-A-Car. The...Read More»

Rental cars are rarely nice. Online, rental companies may show images of sleek, sporty coupes, but when you get to the service desk, you're handed the keys to a frumpy sedan. And who knows if it's up to snuff? The folks at Audi clearly understand your pain, because they've just launched something...Read More»

We do stupid things in the car. We eat, we sing, we shout at other people, we pick our noses. We do all that because, despite the fact that we're surrounded by glass, we think no one can see us. But can they? If you're behind the wheel of a Hertz rental car equipped with NeverLost, don't be too...Read More»

No one likes renting a car. Yes, it's nice to have a set of wheels when you're on vacation, but the process of standing in line, uncovering unexpected charges, and debating how heavy to ladle on the extra insurance can put a damper on anyone's day. And let's not forget, there's no requirement that...Read More»

For years, advocates have been pushing for legislation that would require rental car companies to fix recalled vehicles before loaning them to customers. The rental car industry helped kill such a bill last year, but a new version has been drafted, and it's now working its way through Congress...Read More»

Nearly ten years ago, Raechel and Jacqueline Houck were killed in a horrific accident when the Chrysler PT Cruiser they'd rented from Enterprise Rent-A-Car caught fire, causing the sisters to lose control of the vehicle and collide with an 18-wheeler. Later, the Houck's family and friends learned...Read More»

If mergers and acquisitions are any indication of future trends, it looks like the car-sharing sector could be on track for massive growth. That's because one of America's biggest rental companies, Avis, has just agreed to purchase America's foremost car-sharing service, Zipcar, for the sum of $500...Read More»

If you're planning to rent a car for the Thanksgiving drive to grandma's house but haven't yet secured your vehicle, you should shift your search into high gear. News reports indicate that many rental car lots in the northeastern U.S. are sitting empty this holiday season, due to Hurricane Sandy...Read More»

After a long, grueling slog through both houses of Congress, the highly anticipated, two-year surface transportation bill has finally passed. But now that it's been hacked to shreds by the House and the Senate, then stitched back together in joint committee, what, exactly, is in it? Hard to say...Read More»

When hybrids like the Toyota Prius became commonplace earlier this century, they generated a lot of buzz. And so, Enterprise Holdings added hybrids to its fleets at Alamo, Enterprise, and National rental car outlets. Unfortunately, no one wanted to rent them. According to an article in the New York...Read More»

Should rental car companies be required to repair recalled vehicles before loaning or selling them to the public? That may seem like a no-brainer, but according to Detroit News, three of America's biggest rental firms have balked at the idea, with Hertz the lone voice of support. History Back in...Read More»

Most of the world's successful companies follow one simple rule: they bring their goods and services directly to consumers, rather than waiting for consumers to come to them. Now, Zipcar is following suit by bringing its car reservation service to Facebook. Zipcar knows that most of its subscribers...Read More»

A couple of weeks ago, we told you about RelayRides, a car-sharing start-up that lets folks loan out their vehicles to friends and strangers for cold, hard cash. Now, a similar peer-to-peer start-up seems to be drawing a lot of attention and at least one high-profile investor. Is this the way of...Read More»

Whether you're in the market for a new car or just looking for some weekend R&R, you may want to pay attention to a new promotional campaign from Hertz. The rental car giant began running its new "Gas and Brake" ads yesterday. The premise behind them is that there are, metaphorically speaking...Read More»