Hire a green limo or car service
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Hesitant to rent wheels on your next vacation or business trip? Need a lift from the airport? Simply want to be chauffeured around the city for the day or after your wedding reception? Hiring a green limo or car service is an easy, eco-friendly way to travel in style while minding carbon emissions. It also gives you a chance to see the sights while someone keeps his or her eyes on the road for you.
Find it! Green limo, car, and shuttle services
This isn't your parents' white stretch limo. Green car, limo, and shuttle services offer hybrid and biodiesel vehicles to those who need a lift—from the airport, to a meeting, or just around town—but would rather have someone else put the pedal to the metal. Some companies will even chauffeur your wedding, corporate event, funeral, or boozy winery tour.
- Clean Air Limo (Austin, TX)
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Austin-based Clean Air Limo—serving Central Texas and the Hill Country—offers "style, service, and sustainability" to green Texans. The company's fleet is composed entirely of hybrids, including makes by Mercedes and Lexus. Available for airport transfers, sightseeing, special events, and more. - DrivenEco (New York City)
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Need chauffeured hybrid wheels? Look no further than DrivenEco and its fleet of the Toyota Prius and hybrid Camry, Lexus hybrid sedan and SUV, and hybrid GMC Yukon. Serving New York City and its environs, including Long Island and Westchester County, for events both business and personal. - ECOLIMO (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington DC)
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ECOLIMO's noble green mission? "...to become the premier provider of fuel-efficient, chauffeured ground transportation service to businesses all over the world." The company's fleet includes a range of hybrids, biodiesel-fueled vehicles, and Chevy Suburbans powered by compressed natural gas (CNG). - EcoShuttle (Portland, OR)
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All aboard! Hire one of EcoShuttle's nine-person, 100 percent biodiesel-fueled vans for a simple back and forth from the airport or for a slew of special group events like a pub crawl, wedding, sporting event, corporate function, wine tour, or even an excursion to the Oregon coast. - Elite Green Car (Atlanta, GA)
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Visiting Atlanta and want someone to do the driving for you? Hail (well, hire) one of Elite Green Car's Lexus RX 400 Hybrids to cruise around the ATL in sustainable style. All cars come equipped with knowledgeable "Eco-Chauffeurs," WiFi, Sirius Satellite Radio, and other state-of-the-art perks. - Evo Limo (Los Angeles, CA)
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Los Angeles is the kind of place where traveling in luxury is de rigueur, but it's also a town plagued by smog and traffic congestion. The remedy? Evo Limo's fleet of uber-lux suburbans and sedans that have been converted to run on compressed natural gas (CNG) cater to the eco-conscious VIP without doing away with any of the good stuff like mini-bars, tinted windows, and entertainment systems. - Green Car Limo (San Francisco Bay Area)
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Swapping traditional stretch limos with a Toyota Prius fleet, Michael Fadis' Green Car Limo service has been serving the Bay Area since 2005. Service is available to and from all three Bay Area airports, for chauffeured corporate events, and for special occasions such as weddings. - Green Limousine (Vail, CO)
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Want your next trip to the Colorado Rockies to be a bit greener (and sans the hassle of navigating snowy conditions yourself)? Book a ride with Green Limousine, a car service with a fleet of biodiesel-fueled sedans and SUVs. - Green Shuttle of Cape Cod (MA)
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Visit one of the Northeast's most popular summer playgrounds, Cape Cod, while curbing your carbon tiremark. Get picked up in a Prius, Altima, or Mercury Mariner at various points in New England such as Boston Logan Airport and Providence's Green Airport. - Greenfleet Car Service (New Jersey)
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Garden State-based Greenfleet Car Service specializes in corporate travel to and from airports, personal travel, group outings, and conventions. The company and its fleet of hybrids service airports in the Tri-State area, including New York City. - greentomatocars (London, UK)
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With a snazzy, informative website and a fleet of private hire hybrids, greentomatocars is the greenest ride in London (they'll also transport you to other points in the UK). What's more, the company offsets emissions by planting trees and partaking in various eco-friendly projects. - OZOcar (New York City)
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Driving around the Big Apple can be a big pain in the you know what. Why not hire OZOcar, NYC's first hybrid luxury car service, to do the driving for you? - PlanetTran (New England, San Francisco Bay Area)
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Are you a green-minded traveler flying into San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Boston, Providence, or Manchester, New Hampshire? Give PlanetTran a buzz and they'll pick up you and your bags in a Toyota Prius and deposit you at your destination the sustainable way.
Hiring a green limo or car service helps you go green because...
- When accelerating, a hybrid rental car will run off a battery-charged electric motor, not gasoline, curtailing global-warming-causing tailpipe emissions. Hybrids can reduce air pollution by as much as 90 percent.[1]
- As concern over the cost and source of petroleum soars, hybrids have been proven to have excellent fuel economy due to advanced aerodynamic designs (which reduce wind resistance), light-weight engines, and other fuel-efficient features.
- While at a standstill, a hybrid's engine shuts itself off and the vehicle runs on electricity. Every two minutes of idling in a standard car consumes the same amount of gas required to drive approximately one mile—a waste of resources and a contributor to smog.[2]
- Even if you choose to drive a large vehicle with poor mileage at home, the environment in whatever locale you're visiting can benefit from a hired green car and its decreased emission of air pollutants and greenhouse gases.
The livery and limo car service industry is one traditionally populated with over-sized, gas-guzzling, pollutant-spewing luxury vehicles such as the Lincoln Town Car. Compared to the fuel economy of hybrids that hovers around 50 mpg, the fuel economy of a standard limo dwindles in the low teens. Aside from decreased fuel costs, a hybrid such as a Toyota Prius costs less to purchase and maintain than a Lincoln Town Car, making hybrid fleets a more viable economic and environmental choice to livery car operators.
Motor transportation is responsible for about one-third of CO2 emissions in the US, with cars and light trucks accounting for a majority.[3] Together, cars, SUVs, and minivans emit more than 300 million tons of carbon each year in the US. These emissions are equivalent to those generated by a 50,000-mile-long coal train—which would reach between Washington, DC and Los Angeles 17 times.[4] For every gallon of gas a car burns, it emits nearly 20 pounds of CO2.[5] Thus, a 3,000-mile drive in a vehicle that gets 20 miles per gallon produces 3,000 pounds of CO2. Although hiring a car service that has a hybrid or other biodiesel-fueled fleet may be a short-lived experience, those miles traveled will help curb these carbon emissions.
Glossary
- automotive fuel economy: Fuel economy in cars is important because carbon dioxide emissions are directly related to the amount of fuel burned. "Miles per gallon," or mpg, is the way most Americans measure fuel economy, while other countries may use liters of fuel per 100 km traveled.
