Why is it so expensive to rent a car right now?
Americans looking to rent a car or truck this summer are running into extraordinarily high prices, and that’s if they can find an available vehicle to begin with.
Over the past several months, the cost of rentals in the US has shot up on a mix of soaring demand and inadequate supply to match it. Customers are contending with prices like $400 a day for a car in Orlando or $700 for a sport utility vehicle in Arizona.
In June, it was about 88% more expensive to rent a car or truck than during the same time last year, contributing to the inflation hitting US consumer prices, according to newly released data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s in comparison with a period when the pandemic shut down much of the US, forcing rental prices down, but the figures are still 76% higher than during June 2019, before the upheaval of Covid-19.
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