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Hi all,

Here at usrentacar.co.uk we try to remain as green as possible, so when I read that Enterprise Car Rental ( Alamo car hire’s Parent Company)  and Hertz believe that they could be offering electric cars from as early as January 2011  I had to look a deeper in to it.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car,  made public their plans  to offer around 500 Nissan Leaf all-electric cars last week, initially at dealerships in Los Angeles, San Diego, Portland and Seattle.

Hertz announced a few months ago that it  to would be offering the Nissan Leafs next year at a handful of locations in the U.S.  including New York, Washington and San Francisco.

About the Leaf

The Nissan Leaf is a 5 dr hatchback compact car. A fully charged Leaf has a range of about 100 miles however it takes up to eight hours at a charging station or 20 hours from a standard home outlet to reach maximum.

Problems

Will Enterprise and Hertz price normal customers out of having an electric car?

At present if you return a normal car without petrol you’d be charged a fee, what would happen if you return the electric car empty?

Would you hire an electric car?

How much would you be willing to pay ,fully insured for a week?

Kind regards,

James

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The battle for ownership of Dollar Rent A Car took another turn last night as Avis Budget returned with an improved offer. Back in August I blogged about how Dollar had declined Budgets initial advances and how Hertz looked favourite to purchase Dollar.

However Budget has returned with an improved offer of around $1.36 Billion for the Tulsa based car rental giant. The cash portion of the Avis offer for Dollar Thrifty has been raised from $39.25 to $40.75 per share.

“We are confident that the Dollar Thrifty shareholders will prefer the premium Avis Budget offer to the Hertz offer,” Avis Budget stated.

The improved offer may still be shunned due to the opposition the deal might encounter via antitrust regulations.

Dollar Thrifty shareholders are due to attend a special meeting on September 16 to consider the Hertz offer.

“In the event that the Hertz transaction is rejected by the special meeting, we will commit to sign the merger agreement we previously delivered to Dollar Thrifty at any time within five days of that meeting,” Avis Budget said.

It’s clear that whoever completes the deal will have increased their market share and obtained the only USA Car Rental supplier to make a profit in 2009.

Will keep you all posted.

Regards,

James

Hi all,

I reported last week about the Budget Avis Group making a counter offer for Dollar Thrifty, the offer they made was more than the orginal offer made by Hertz. However last night the offer was rejected by Dollar Thrifty in favour of the lesser Hertz offer.

The reason behind this from the Hertz point of view is that they believe their offer will have less objections from regulators due to the fact that their presence on airport is less than Avis Budget.

However from what I understand Dollar Thrifty are concerned that Avis Budget are not willing to enter in to a “reverse termination fee” where if Avis Budget were unable to or pulled out of the deal, Dollar Thrifty would be compensated. Hertz have agreed to this clause.

From what I have read, if Avis Budget agree to this addition the deal could be on.

I wait for the next instalment of the latest car hire soap opera.

Regards,

James,

U.S. Rent A Car.co.uk

Last night the Avis Budget Group entered in to the bidding for Dollar Thrifty, with a whooping bid of$ 1.33 Billion, this trumps the earlier Hertz bid of $1.17 Billion.

A letter sent to Dollar Thrifty’s top bosses from Avis Budget’s group chairman and CEO Ronald Nelson stated: “We are prepared to put forward an offer today for Dollar Thrifty that clearly constitutes a superior proposal under that [Hertz] merger agreement.”

He continued: “We are prepared to enter into a merger agreement that contains substantially the same terms as the Hertz merger agreement, but which includes removing the matching rights, eliminating the break-up fees, and increasing the commitment to secure antitrust approvals.

“In short, we believe that the higher purchase price we are offering, combined with the terms of our proposed merger agreement, makes our offer a superior one from the perspective of Dollar Thrifty and its shareholders.”

Whomever manages to purchase Dollar Thrifty will decrease the huge advantage Enterprise owned Alamo Rent A Car have on the U.S. market at present.

For those clever bosses at Dollar Thrifty who took shares in the company rather than performance related bonuses must be very happy at the moment.

Who would you rather see take over at Dollar Thrifty?