Hertz and Nissan join forces to market electric cars

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Car Rental News - 15/02/2010

 

Nissan LEAF to edge world towards eco-mobility

The world’s largest car hire firm Hertz has announced that it has entered a partnership with auto manufacturer Nissan to provide zero-emission mobility to the car hire industry in Europe and the US by early 2011. Under the terms of their agreement, Hertz will develop a programme for the introduction of the Nissan LEAF at rental sites in the two markets.

The Nissan LEAF offers a new era of eco-mobility, in line with demand across Europe. Designed for lithium-ion battery-powered chassis, the mid-size hatchback can seat five adults and has a range of 100 miles. The LEAF will also go on sale in Japan, the US and Europe in late 2010.

According to CEO and Chairman of Hertz, Mark P. Frissora, the partnership with Nissan seals the company’s commitment to green-car rentals and demonstrates Hertz’s mission to advancing zero-emission mobility on a global scale.

He pointed out that with existing environmentally friendly solutions like the Hertz Green Collection, the company believes in continuously providing innovative solutions to sustain the growing need for eco-travel.

Chief Operating Officer of Nissan, Toshiyuki Shiga said that the partnership with Hertz recognised an important step towards their goal of promoting the widespread acceptance of electric vehicles around the world. He added that the existing alliance with Renault, the two companies aim to become the leader in zero-emission vehicles which they believe are one of the best solutions for sustaining the growing need for transport across the globe.

Hertz and Nissan plan to expand the Nissan LEAF vehicle into the hire firm’s car sharing service ‘Connect by Hertz’, which allows customers to hire a car for short term periods, such as pay-per-hour.

TAGS: hertz, Nissan leaf, connect by hertz, electric cars

Barclays could sell private equity arm

Scottish courts fail to ban sex offenders from travelling abroad

Scottish authorities and courts have failed to ban a single child sex offender from travelling overseas to engage in the child sex industry.

An inquiry undertaken by Strathclyde University has shown that no Foreign Travel Orders were issued in 2009, which prevents predators from visiting countries notorious for the child sex trade.

But police and prosecutors in England and Wales have made use of FTOs on 13 separate occasions since 2007, in a bid to restrict the movements of paedophiles to countries like Cambodia and Thailand.

17 are currently classed as missing, and understood to be on the run abroad.

The research, carried out by social work lecturer Beth Weaver, studied the effectiveness of Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements for keeping record of high-risk offenders.

It has also been revealed that the Sexual Offences Prevention Orders that are currently made available tot the courts have been only used on a handful of occasions.

According to the research, only 45 SOPOs, which ban paedophiles from visiting areas such as schools and playgrounds, were issued last year.

The amount of offenders returned to prison for breaching their SOPO went up by nearly double last year, while the number of those who received further convictions for serious or violent sexual crimes increased from eight to 44.

Justice spokesman for Labour, Richard Baker, has urged Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to commence a review into how to keep track of paedophiles, and to consider a total ban on convicted sex offenders from travelling overseas.

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