Greg and April: I also have been put off over the years when contemplating the economics of car rental, and often have come away feeling ripped off, whether from having had to rent one in an emergency, or from having wanted to consider avoiding buying a car, but the costs of occassional rental made this too difficult.
But there are many issues here, some of which could be delienated by saying that, going forward, there are some possible innovations in the field. A consumer-activist friend of mine (it's her job, and she's got a degree in Materials engineering to boot) has, for years, championed the idea(s) of car-sharing. I can't think of any links off-hand, but I think in some ways, this is being tried as we speak. The idea is basically that a group of people can have access to a car, or a business can make a fleet of cars available to those who subscribe. In any case, that's just one thing to contemplate. Another area that's always bugged me is the insurance ripoff inherent to most of my rental car experiences. If one goes through the mainstream agencies and buys any of their insurance, on top of one's own insurance on one's own car (if one has a car), then the premiums are huge, and the daily and weekly costs of rental go up way too much. Over time (for example, when I"ve had a car break down), I've found agencies which are more reasonably priced. The daily rental is around $20, for a real bottom-of-the-line vehicle (i.e., something I would drive during periods of owning a vehicle), and they don't try an insurance ripoff on me. There are other ways in which they delienate themselves. For example, they may be more reasonable about the deposit they require. Some agencies were nasty to me when I had only a debit card and not a credit card (heaven forfend one should be debt-averse), but some places are ok. So, locally, there seems to be some room for enterprising non-chain outfits to undercut the big guys and compete very much on price and service. If the cars are not as nice, some customers (not all) are willing to sacrifice this. As anyone can tell from my various posts, a big overall topic for me is the (T)otal (C)osts of (O)wnership of vehicles. An interesting subset of this, I think, is the costs of rental and the costs of insurance, and how they can perhaps be changed, in part by consumer demand speaking clearly and in part by other factors. These topics are big ones and not to be finished in any one post or in a hundred. Overall I share your skepticism as to how the TCO of rental stacks up to ownership, but over time I think this can change, and there are many facets to the arguments, including the many difficulties and costs of ownership, such as having to learn more about one's vehicle's maintenance, and the time and effort this takes. There could be exceptions of course to the idea that Rental is less adviseable than ownership, such as if one lives in a city with terrific inner-city public transportation but huge costs (not only money but time) of parking and-or insurance. In that scenario, depending on how often one needs to drive outside the city, occassional rental may be adviseable as against ownership, perhaps. -------- On the separate issue of Road Taxes and their importance to tax revenues (local and federal) and the inter-twining of this with alt-fuel advocacy efforts, Robert has done a terrific job of championing the idea in the evworld.com conference that unless or until we address the concerns of governments that their tax revenues not be undercut by this or that alt-fuel effort, governments will bring effective opposition to those alt fuel efforts. But, his point seems to be, they are not necessarily inherently opposed to those alt-fuel efforts per se, if we could just find a way to help them continue to see their tax revenues, even with a shift in fuels or vehicle types. MM >There is only a few cases were it really makes sense to use a rental car, 1) >Your vehicle breaks down and you have no other option, and needing >transportation, while it is being repaired. 2) Traveling to a different city >by bus, train, or plane, and needing transportation at the destination. > >No, rentals are bad news, in the end, they cost more per mile than owning >and maintaining your own. For the cost of a cheaper rental, at $30.00 a >day, I can change the oil in my vehicle 1 time if I take it to a Jiffy Lube, >and 2+ times if I do it myself. That same $30.00 covers 60%-75% of a >complete tune up if I take it in to be done by someone else, or just about >100% if I can do it myself. $800.00 and change a year for insurance...at >first glance that is not good, but, when you consider that that is for 2 >vehicles and a homeowners policy ( with a few little extras tacked on ), >that is not bad at all. Get your self a decent vehicle, maintain it, and >don't push it, you save a lot, in energy and money. > >Greg H. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Save up to 80% on top-quality inkjet cartridges and get your order fast! FREE shipping on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. Shop at Myinks.com! http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/v2G7ND/KfUGAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
