Avis is now offering customers the chance to rent a Toyota Prius from its London locations. The environmentally friendly hybrid vehicle, which runs on a mixture of petrol engine and electric motor, is available to book through the Avis Prestige website www.avisprestige.com and is exempt from the congestion charge.

The launch of the 20 Prius vehicles onto the UK fleet follows the announcement, in February, that Avis Germany introduced natural gas VW Tourans to its fleet at 19 locations in 15 cities across the country.

Avis Portugal introduced hybrid cars to its fleet in 2005 and currently operates 50 hybrids across the country, reducing its CO₂ emissions by over 50 tonnes.  Avis Scandinavia also offers customers the chance to rent environmentally friendly vehicles with over 400 ethanol-powered Saab 9-5 BioPower cars, 75 Ford Flexi-fuel and 20 Toyota Prius vehicles on its fleet.

“The expansion of our environmental offerings across Europe is an important part of our commitment to driving real change in the industry,” says Daniel McCarthy Commercial Director, Avis UK. “Our environmental commitment has been palpable since we launched our relationship with The CarbonNeutral Company in 1998 and within the past five years Avis Europe has offset 76,500 tonnes of  CO₂ through a combination of forestry and climate friendly projects.”

Avis was the world’s first carbon neutral car rental company, having joined forces with The CarbonNeutral Company (previously known as Future Forests) in 1998 to offset the emissions from its UK operations.  Avis has also dedicated one tree for every car in the Avis rental fleet planted in forests throughout the UK. In the UK, Avis customers are able to choose to offset the CO₂ emissions of their rental online at www.avis.co.uk.