Auto rental wars II?: Hertz to offer 3-, 6-, 9-hour rates in Europe

Headed for Europe? I know. Given the slumping dollar and the soaring costs of airline tickets it's heard to believe that anyone is but in its first international summer travel forecast AAA is actually expecting travel by Americans to rise 2.6 percent.
OK, so if you happen to be headed over you should know that the Auto Rental Wars that are percolating here are starting to brew there.
Hertz, which has a number of offices in Western Europe, just announced that it would start renting for periods shorter than a day. The new Hertz 369 program will let you rent for three or six hours for day trips, or nine hours for overnights.
It's no mistake that Hertz is doing this a little over a month after our own Cambridge-based, car-sharing pioneer Zipcar announced it was setting its sights on Europe (it already has an office in London).
My old friend Scott Kirsner wrote a story in March about how UHaul and the big rental agencies like Hertz and Enterprise , mature industries all, having been casting jealous glances Zipcar's way and are looking to compete for the sharing/short-term rental biz aux Etats Unis.
And now it appears a new front is being opened across the pond. This is a good thing.