Avis Budget Group and OPENLANE, Inc., recently reported that the companies' joint wholesale used vehicle online auction initiative has generated exponential sales growth since being launched more than a year ago, with increasing growth in the past six months.

Avis Budget Group has already sold more vehicles online during the first quarter of 2008 than it sold online in all of 2007, the OPENLANE reports. Avis Budget Group is the first car rental company to work in conjunction with OPENLANE, an online automotive company in North America enabling automobile dealers to buy and sell wholesale used vehicles prior to removal from the company's rental fleet.

Through OPENLANE, Avis Budget Group rental vehicles remain in service until the sale is near completion, significantly reducing the time typically required to remarket inventory.