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Why Environmentally Friendly Car hire is nice to your Wallet and the Planet

Green transport has always had a bit of a stigma – “yeah it’s good for the environment but it’s a bit pricey”. The environmental benefits of Green Cars are beyond doubt, but as technology advances, the economic benefits have started to emerge.

When hiring a car the main added cost you need to consider is fuel. This is where Greener cars don’t get enough credit. Low emissions traditional combustion engines - these are cars that typically emit less 130g/kg of Co2 – are incredibly fuel efficient. Vauxhalls low emission range (heavily used by Green Motion) averages 88.3 MPG. In comparison traditional cars, especially smaller hatchbacks, can sit anywhere between 30-60MPG.

Consider a Blue Motion low emission Golf with an average of 88.3mpg versus the traditional Golf with an average of around 40 MPG. Hire the gas guzzler for 500 miles and you’ll be set back around £55.06 in fuel costs – alternatively rent the Blue Motion and fuel comes in at a much nicer £24.94. To put that in holiday terms – the £30 difference equals 6 cocktails at Baba Au Rum cocktail bar, Athens. Mojito anyone?

When we consider hybrid and fully electric cars the savings are much greater. The BMW i3 when used without the petrol range extended was claimed to cost around 2p a mile. Perhaps an exaggeration, but with the Nissan Leaf offering a full, 127 mile range, for £2 of electricity - fuel costs do become nominal. Throw in no congestion charge fees and the costs of actually running an electric motor is beautifully small.The main offset of electric cars is their initial buying price – the BMW i3 sits at around 30K, which for a relatively small car is expensive. Of course, with renting this cost is foregone – renting low co2 or hybrid/electric cars isn’t significantly more expensive than traditional models.

Currently, electric cars on more rural holidays aren’t totally practical; it will be some years before recharging stations are regular in rural Mexico, so now long exotic excursions are best handled by low co2 emitting petrol/ diesel cars – still the savings are significant. For city breaks though, the electric option is the way to go. Little known fact, but as electricity is instant, and combustion isn’t, the Leaf and co will get off the lights faster than most. All in all then, an environmentally friendly car, aside from the obvious worldly benefits, is simply much cheaper. Who wants to spend their holiday money on petrol after all? That’s reserved for after-sun.