EV Rental Cars Opens 2 Offices
Los Angeles-based Environmental Vehicle Rental Cars opened its eighth and ninth California locations this week, a pair of facilities that link San Francisco and San Jose.
The company will rent hybrid gasoline-electric cars from Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp.; natural-gas-powered vehicles from Honda and Ford Motor Co.; and gasoline-powered versions of Honda’s Civic EX sedan that are state-certified as SULEVs, or super-ultra-low-emission vehicles.
Planning Director Terry O’Day said the offices will share a fleet of 20 vehicles. The decision to open two offices was made because of the Bay Area’s unpredictable fogs, which often force travelers to rent cars in San Francisco so they can drive to San Jose to catch rerouted flights.
EV Rental Cars operates a fleet of 330 so-called green cars in a dozen offices: nine in California and one each in Phoenix, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Separately, O’Day said the company also will open a rental facility at Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport next week and plans to expand in that region this year with offices at Dulles International Airport near Washington and Baltimore-Washington International Airport in Baltimore.
In Southern California, where the company was started in 1998, EV Rental Cars also provides battery-powered electric vehicles such as General Motors Corp.’s EV1 electric sports coupe and Toyota’s RAV4 Electric sport-utility vehicle. But none will be available in the new offices, O’Day said, because the company has been unable to acquire new electric vehicles.
The major auto makers have been downplaying battery-powered electric cars and trucks for the last year as they have unsuccessfully argued against implementation of California’s Zero-Emission Vehicle Mandate. The mandate requires major manufacturers to provide electric or other zero-emission power plants for at least 2% of the passenger vehicles they sell in the state beginning with the 2003 model year.
