By YOUNG MONEY Staff
23 November 2010

Electric vehicles are on the way - Nissan and Chevrolet plan to start selling their respective electric cars, the Leaf and the Volt - next month. That means electric vehicles will soon appear on the nation's car-rental lots.

Hertz, the country's largest rental company, plans to begin renting an electric sedan called the CODA in Southern California sometime next year. The car has yet to reach the market - but when it does, Hertz will be one of its first buyers.

Enterprise, another giant in the car-rental industry, also has electric-car plans up its sleeve. Enterprise expects to buy and rent 500 Nissan Leaf hatchbacks; it will also purchase as many as 100 CODAs once that model goes on sale.

Like Hertz, Enterprise is targeting the Southern California market. It also plans to offer EV rentals in Phoenix, Nashville, Seattle and Portland, Oregon. Why those cities? They're the only parts of the country with an adequate charging infrastructure. As more cities put charging stations in place, EV rentals should become more common.

Electric cars are both environmentally friendly and cheap to run - a full charge for the CODA, which has 120 miles of range, costs about $3.50.