Ranking done by Edmunds.com

1. Toyota Prius 48,156 units sold

2. Toyota Highlander Hybrid 18,127 units sold
3. Honda Civic Hybrid 15,755 units sold
4. Lexus RX 400h 11,193 units sold
5. Ford Escape Hybrid 10,190 units sold
6. Toyota Camry Hybrid* 7,386 units sold
7. Honda Accord Hybrid 3,245 units sold
8. Mercury Mariner Hybrid 1,461 units sold
9. Lexus GS 450h 525 units sold
10. Honda Insight 489 units sold

(* The Toyota Camry Hybrid was newly released in May 2006, but sales in May and June were already second only to the Prius.)

Did you know you can now rent a hybrid car on your next trip to California, Phoenix or Vegas? But you better call ahead for a reservation because the cars are limited and in great demand.

Apparently, a lot of people must feel that driving a rental hybrid is a great way to stay true to their environmental principles while traveling and save money at the gas pump at the same time. Others must believe renting is a good way to check out a hybrid before buying into this new technology. Whatever their reasons are, customers are lining up at EV Rental Cars.

Thanks to Jeff Pink’s entrepreneurial spirit and his mission to save the world, EV Rental Cars opened its door in 1998 as the first and only hybrid car rental company in the U.S. Pink now has the biggest fleet of hybrid cars in the country.

There are over 400 cars to rent in eight western airport locations - Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Ana, San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Phoenix and Las Vegas. With a new partnership with discount Fox Rent A Car, Pink now appears ready for new expansion with plans for 2,500 cars by 2008.

Hybrids, as I’m sure you know, are pretty hard to buy. There are just not that many available and they’re certainly not available at the fleet prices Hertz and Avis get their cars. That means EV Rental has to get their cars one at a time at retail, but they get some help with grants as part of a government consumer education program.

Right now, you have a choice of renting a Toyota Prius, a Toyota Highlander Hybrid and a Honda Civic Hybrid. All three cars are Consumer Reports recommended vehicles and get between 35 mpg to 60 mpg in town and on the road.

And, in the state of California, with a hybrid, you even get to drive in the carpool lane when driving alone. That, in itself, can save you a small fortune in time and money when tooling around LA.

EV Rental Cars’ mission is to “provide the most technologically advanced environmental vehicles to the general public as soon as they are available, to educate the public and raise the awareness of the benefits of driving clean-fuel cars, and create a market for clean car technology.”

Pink says, “People have to understand we’re gonna kill ourselves with cars. All these muscle cars out there, getting terrible mileage, with the terrible emissions; we’ve go to think about what we’re doing.”

The management team at EV Rental are proud “to have prevented more than 100 tons of air pollution and passed on to its customers more than $1 million in fuel costs savings by acting environmentally.”

EV Rental hybrids aren’t necessarily any less expensive to rent either and, even tough you’re going to pay a lot less for gas, you’ll still have to drive a lot of miles each day to make up the difference. But right now, until auto manufacturer’s economies of scale kick in, that’s the same problem hybrid car owners have.

Just think of renting a new Prius in LA this way. You’d be driving the same car Leonardo DiCpario does. I’m sure he considers the higher expense of driving a hybrid as either an investment in the environment or the cost of being cool. You could too!