Hertz takes on Zipcar with car sharing

Hertz has announced the launch of a car-sharing business called Connect by Hertz that specializes in the rental of vehicles by the hour in nearly 25 locations in London, Paris, New York and Park Ridge, New Jersey.

A new website has also been launched for the company, allowing customers to register for the service so that they can begin renting by the hour. Officially, business gets underway on December 16, but there are already some vehicles available, according to Hertz.

According to the Hertz website, the procedure for renting a car will be similar to that used by the car-sharing market leader, Zipcar. Paying a monthly or annual membership fee will permit customers to pick up a car at any one of a number of locations in a city - without having to go to a Hertz rental office. They are then charged an hourly rental fee.

Connect by Hertz is expanding the push of the traditional rental agency into car-sharing. Earlier this year, Enterprise Rent-A-Car said that WeCar, its car-sharing business, was expanding by placing cars in partner businesses located in several cities.

Unlike the Enterprise business-to-business approach, Connect by Hertz is targeting the retail customer, which is Zipcar’s target market.

A spokeswoman for Hertz, Paula Rivera, has said that there are plans in place to expand to additional locations: “We plan to go after the car-sharing market in an aggressive way.”

Thanks to online.wsj.com for the above quotes, for more information on this article please visit their website.

www.hertz.com