car rental

A car rental or car hire agency is a company that rents automobiles for short periods of time (generally ranging from a few hours to a few weeks) for a fee. It is an elaborate form of a rental shop, often organized with numerous local branches (which allow a user to return a vehicle to a different location), and primarily located near airports or busy city areas and often complemented by a website allowing online reservations.
Car rentals are subject to many conditions which vary from one country to another and from one company to another. Generally the vehicle must be returned in a good condition and sometimes must not exceed a maximum driven distance, otherwise extra fees may be incurred.

Some companies set a minimum age for the vehicle driver, which in some cases is as high as 25, even in countries where the minimum legal age to hold a driver's license is much lower. In all cases a valid, current driver's license is required in order to rent a vehicle, and some countries require an International Driving Permit.

Recent conditions have utilized GPS technology to limit maximum speed ] or driving to specific regions. Renewable fuel vehicles are available in certain areas.

The majority of car rental companies require the use of a credit card to charge additional fees should a defect be found with the car on its return or for road tolls, motoring related fines or missing petrol. In lieu of a credit card some companies require a large cash deposit.


Car rental agencies primarily serve people who have a car that is temporarily out of reach or out of service, for example travellers who are out of town or owners of damaged or destroyed vehicles who are awaiting repair or insurance compensation. Because of the variety of sizes of their vehicles, car rental agencies may also serve the self-moving industry needs, by renting vans or trucks, and in certain markets other types of vehicles such as motorcycles or scooters may also be offered.

Alongside the basic rental of a vehicle, car rental agencies typically also offer extra products such as insurance, global positioning system (GPS) navigation systems, entertainment systems, and even such things as mobile phones.

Hertz is one of the longest established rental companies, and the first in America, originally started in 1918 by Walter L. Jacobs as Rent-a-Car with twelve Ford Model T cars in Chicago.
Car rental companies operate by purchasing or leasing a number of fleet vehicles and renting them to their customers for a fee. Rental fleets can be structured in several ways – they can be owned outright (these are known as ‘risk vehicles’ because the car rental operator is taking a risk on how much the vehicle will be sold for when it is removed from service), they can be leased, or they can be owned under a guaranteed buy-back program arranged directly through a manufacturer or manufacturer’s financial arm (these are known as ‘repurchase vehicles’ because the manufacturer outlines the exact price of original sale and of repurchase at the end of a defined term).

At the end of a rental vehicle's useful life, rental companies will often sell them into the used car market to dealers across the country via several methods, including direct-to-dealer and via specialized wholesale auctions companies (such as Manheim Auctions in the USA). Dealers generally will go through an inspection of the vehicles to make sure they comply with the safety standards of that dealership and then sell the car to the public. Many of these are known as program vehicles in the representation by the selling dealer