A year ago, renting a car cost an average of $45 per day, according to a study by the travel booking site hopper.com. At the peak of this summer’s travel season, it cost $120 per day.
Prices have since fallen to an average of $80 per day. But that high price may be with us for a while.
Travel site Kayak reports that the number of customers searching for a rental car for the upcoming holiday season is up 230% over 2019’s pre-pandemic level.
5 Ways to Beat the Rental Car Shortage
New Car Shortage = Rental Car Shortage
A worldwide shortage of microchips is behind the surge in rental car prices.
Most new cars contain more than 100 of the tiny processors. They are critical to dozens of systems in modern cars, from navigation to tire pressure monitoring. With automakers unable to buy as many chips as they need, they’ve been forced to cut back production.
The chips they do have are going to produce the fully equipped cars, trucks, and SUVs that bring them the highest profit margin. That leaves just a trickle of the bare-bones economy cars that rental car companies buy by the thousands.
But rental car companies need more cars. Many of them sold off some of their stock in 2020 as COVID-19-related travel restrictions kept Americans home. Now that travel is climbing again, they’re scrambling to find whatever they can – in some cases, competing with private buyers for used cars right off dealership lots.
Crisis Predicted to Stretch Into Next Year
Many analysts now believe the microchip shortage will stretch into 2022. The rental car shortage will last at least as long.
Matt Clarke, Kayak’s vice president of North America marketing, told Money magazine that the crisis could ease “sometime mid-next-year.” He added, “I wish I had a lot of answers to ‘when is this going to end’ for all things COVID-related.”
In the meantime, the Los Angeles Times reports, “Industry experts say travelers who want to avoid such headaches should book cars as early as possible and try to choose car rental outlets in small or midsize airports where demand is lower.”
