There’s a very good reason why you see a fair number of the Toyota Yaris on rental car lots across the U.S. It’s the same reason you’re also offered a Chevy Impala as an upgrade.
Josh Barro over at The New York Times found the cars with the highest percentage of sales to rental fleets in calendar year 2013. Sure enough, the Chevrolet Captiva tops the list because it’s fleet only. But then things get interesting.
Apparently it’s rental car companies driving sales of the GMC Yukon XL, with about 70 percent of that rig’s sales going to fleets. Then it’s the Chevy Impala and Toyota Yaris, with almost 60 percent of their sales going to companies like National and Hertz.
The Impala’s figures are largely driven by GM’s insistence on manufacturing the old W-Body version as the Impala Limited, specifically for fleets. But the redesigned 2014 Impala is also included in that fleet figure. The Yaris is particularly surprising since a Toyota isn’t expected to dominate the fleet market.
The Mazda 2 is also surprising on this list, as more than 40 percent of its sales go to rental fleets.
Of the top 16 cars with rental fleet sales of more than 30 percent of their total, seven were fleet-only vehicles or ones that were due to be replaced soon. So it doesn’t take into account recent redesigns of the GMC Yukon and Yukon XL, Chrysler 200 and Chevy Tahoe and Suburban, just to name a few. But it still makes for some interesting reading. Take a look at the full New York Times chart.
By Zac Estrada
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