72% of Rental Car Customers Want Hybrid Option

Seventy-two percent of travelers want rental car companies to offer hybrid vehicles, according to a Priceline.com survey of rental customers. A similar number of the 764 customers who answered the survey said they would rent a hybrid and almost half said they would be willing to pay a premium for their green rental.

Most of the priceline.com customers surveyed (39 percent) said they would be willing to pay up to $1 to $3 more a day to rent a hybrid. That would represent an increase of up to 11 percent over the average weekend published-price for a mid-size car on priceline.com – $26 a day – and up to 17 percent over the average successful offer price for a Name Your Own Price mid-size car on priceline.com – $17 a day.

Eight percent of the priceline.com customers said they would be willing to pay up to $4 to $6 more a day for a hybrid. One percent of customers said they would be willing to pay up to $7 to $10 a day more. No one was willing to pay more than $10 a day extra, while 53 percent of customers said they were not willing to pay any premium to rent a hybrid.