Hybrid Car Rental: Are They Cheaper to Run?

In today’s climate, it’s becoming increasingly important to be environmentally conscious. For this reason, it’s becoming more common to see electric or hybrid cars on the road. In some cases, a hybrid car rental is the better choice, not just because it benefits the environment, but also because it benefits your wallet.

A hybrid car combines a traditional combustion engine with an electric motor. This gives you power from your normal combustion engine to start the car, meaning your battery charging is powered by the petrol you put in.

However, the extra energy used for acceleration is from the electric motor.

The hybrid will also generate more energy from use to distribute into other practices. For example, regenerative braking means that the kinetic energy that’s produced from driving can be released when you brake, charging your battery without having to use your fuel.

The car will also shut down if you brake for a longer period – at traffic lights for example. This means that you lose no energy from sitting idle.

For this reason, if you’re only using your hybrid for a short commute, you could run your car off electricity most of the time. This drastically cuts your fuel bills and make a hybrid much more cost-effective than a petrol or diesel car.

Fuel Economy on Petrol and Hybrid Cars

When it comes to hiring a car, the most important thing is how fuel efficient the car will be based on your environment. The efficiency tends to differ based on motorway driving vs. rocky or hilly terrain.

Typically, petrol is much more expensive than diesel to buy. Although it may seem cheaper at the pump, diesel actually lasts much longer in your car. Either way, petrol and diesel tend to work best efficiency wise for motorway driving.

But, if you aren’t planning on driving on the motorway and want to focus more on localised driving, then a hybrid will most likely win outright every time. You may not even need to use much petrol at all to get where you need to be.

While driving on the motorway, a petrol car has a fuel efficiency of around 35.5 mpg, whereas a hybrid has 38.7mpg – a tiny difference.

However, when driving around town a petrol car operates at around 41.7 mpg, while a hybrid is at a whopping 70.8 mpg.

Should You Hire a Petrol or Hybrid Car?

Hybrid car rental is definitely more fuel efficient overall. Studies show that we actually only spend around 27% of the time driving on motorways on average, compared to 42% of time driving around town or on short commutes.

This means that a hybrid car rental could focus on using electricity for the majority of the time over these short distances. For commutes or just driving around town, you might not even need to fuel up your car at all, as long as you charge it regularly. If you’re looking for a hybrid car in Oxford, then Eurodrive is the perfect option for you. Eurodrive have a range of hybrid cars available for hybrid car rental, so you’re guaranteed to find a car that is right for you. Contact Eurodrive today to find out more.