Originally Posted by
cestmoi123
Could also be the LYS location offloading this German car they ended up with on a one-way - making it Paris's problem. Or they have more PAR->Germany one-way demand, so it's easier to get it back to Germany that way.
One thing I've often wondered - given the Common Market, I would have thought that some aspect of vehicle ownership (i.e. vehicle cost, taxes, registration fees, etc.) would make it make sense for a company like Hertz to register all their cars in one country, even if they're going to be rented in another country.
In the US, there's a county in the state of Tennessee (Blount County) which doesn't charge an annual renewal fee for license plates. So, a huge portion of Hertz's cars are registered in Blount County, even if they never get within 1000 miles of Tennessee. I would have thought there would be a similar regulatory "hack" possible in the EU, but maybe not.
I think the EU can't be compared at this level to US states. Each country has some different rules and regulations for cars. And you cannot have a car reside in another EU country for more than 6 months without registering it and paying related taxes.
You do see that cars are mostly registered in one place in France as most of them have department 60 (Oise) plates. But I think that is for logistical reasons rather than cheaper registration prices.