Why is it harder / more expensive to rent cars with automatic transmission in Europe?

10/24/2017 12:52:50 AM

Cars with manual transmissions are simply more popular in Europe. While the cost of automatic cars is usually higher by a small percentage that does not make up for the difference.

What allows rental agencies to increase rental fees is that automatic cars are a specialized demand which is almost exclusively catered to tourists. Locals are most likely to look for manual transmissions since that is more prevalent. When renting to tourists the cost of ownership of the car, from the point of view of the rental agency, must be divided by the volume of tourists renting which is likely lower than that of locals.

One place where this is taken yet a step further is Iceland where the cost of automatic car rentals is quite expensive. They have a very short tourist season, around 3 months, where they most cover their costs and accumulate profits. The large fleets of rental cars remains largely unused the remainder of the year. That is exactly what the explained to me when I commented about how much more costly it was to rent a car there.

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

About me

Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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