While the consumer car industry rushes to adopt the eco-friendly green vehicles and hybrid cars it appears that the rental market is severely lagging behind. Several operators have claimed that the prohibitive costs associated with a switch to green technology have left them unable to offer hybrid models.

The hybrid cars are not only expensive to purchase but ongoing maintenance and limited parts suppliers means that hire car companies are still unconvinced about their true worth. With their reliability sill under question the option of hiring them out on a regular basis is unattractive and certainly less profitable than larger fleet issues.

2009 did see a significant decline in new car sales however more consumers were slowly turning to green vehicles. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders confirmed that last year was the slowest year for new car registrations in fifteen years. The bright side was that the public are turning towards hybrids with the UK government’s scrappage scheme credited with a trend towards environmentally friendly vehicles. Also on the positive side was news that new car emissions in the past year have fallen by 5.4 percent.

While several car hire companies are trying to capitalise on the green-trend the sales remain slow. Carriers such as Green Car Motion have slammed the bigger operators for not adopting more of the eco-friendly options saying that arguments over initial purchasing costs would be offset by lowered running costs – although these benefits would more likely be seen by the customer than the owner.