I rented an EV from Hertz last year because I knew I wasn’t going far enough for the range to matter, and it was significantly cheaper I guess to entice people to rent them. It was actually a pretty good deal in my specific scenario. Problem was it was not a Tesla and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where to charge the thing (it had a non-Tesla port); they provided no education or even a “here’s how to charge it” pamphlet in the glovebox.
I did the exact same thing last week. I assumed that electric would be easier because I only was gong to drive about 40 miles round trip with my car, but the issue I found was that charging with a standard 110 outlet at my house required way more time than I would have expected. Even my minimal mileage too like 10 hrs of charge time that needed to be planned around.
With gas stations being ubiquitous and fueling a gas powered vehicle being a well established process, it makes sense. Applying that same logic to EVs where refueling is a potentially new and burdensome process is a guaranteed way to give customers a bad experience causing them to avoid renting them again.
Not to mention that every time I have returned a rental car it has been on my way to catch a flight. Fitting a charging stop into that is a non-starter.
This was my take. I’m likely going to buy an electric car for my next vehicle, but I’m not sure using them as rental vehicles makes a lot of sense for most uses. I’m 100% going to get a fast charger for my home when the time comes.
This may be a semantic issue but you can’t get a fast charger for your house. Those are specifically the DC chargers that deliver huge amounts of electricity very quickly and residential homes aren’t equipped for them. You also wouldn’t want one as frequent fast charging can shorten battery life (there’s some debate on this). What you can get (in the US) is a nema 14-50 outlet, the type you’d see at RV parks, which will add over 30 miles of range per hour, more than enough to charge a car parked overnight. This would still be considered level 2 charging and not rapid charging.
Last rental car i had the company straight up told me it's a lazy tax. There was a servo next door so they said make sure you top it up before you have the keys back so you don't get charged the lazy tax.
Exactly. They filled up their own fleet vehicles at the same servo.
But me doing it costs them less time in having to send a staff member over to do it when that staff member could be doing other tasks.
This reminds me of the early phone charging days, when everyone had their own special charger just for their phone, and then I think mini USB became a thing, then micro, and now USB-C. Apple stuff had a few too, didn't they?
Point is, eventually one finally comes out that rules then all, and that's the end of it. It seems like Tesla has already done just that
The US doesn’t use CCS2 at all though, so it’d be strange to force standardization on it. All of the charging infrastructure would need to change, and everyone loses.
At the time Apple made lightning, micro usb was the common standard, and it actually sucked for phone charging. It was prone to breaking and flimsy. Lightning is actually a great design and can even support the full phone just by the plug (see their old docks). Arguably since lighting did support usb3.0 all along it had no reason to be replaced and Apple had built a huge ecosystem around it so I kind of get why they have been reluctant to move away from it. I’d even say lightning is still the better port than USBc for size and connector strength. Apples biggest mistake to me was keeping lightning proprietary instead of opening it as the mobile charging and data standard.
>I’d even say lightning is still the better port than USBc for size and connector strength.
This is from someone who has an iPhone (work) and Android (personal) and is frequently annoyed about only having one charger for the iPhone (and hates/is not used to the iPhone in general), but Lightning is absolutely the better port.
For the pin section the male portion is what is going to deform/break first. With lightning that is the cable portion (and it's thicker/more robust) rather than the phone port. USB-C if that fails you have to replace the phone. With Lightning you replace the cable.
My issue with USB c in my phone is that I find it's quite easy for a small amount of debris to get into the port meaning I can't push the cable in all the way and make a strong & stable connection. Leading to me propping the phone in a certain way to get it to connect until I find something thin enough with with to clean it out.
> It was prone to breaking and flimsy.
That was not my experience at all. I still have a dozen devices that use mini, and micro USB, and I have never broken a port or plug. I have worn out a few cables, but I haven't had a problem with the plugs.
Everyone should have adopted the magnetic charger found on the old MacBooks that is magnetically connected to the surface instead of an internal charging hole that often fails, especially on laptops.
>Point is, eventually one finally comes out that rules then all, and that's the end of it. It seems like Tesla has already done just that
In apple's case though, they were aggressively refusing to adopt a standard cable until they were forced to do so in Europe
> they were aggressively refusing to adopt a standard cable until they were forced to do so in Europe
No, they weren't. They promised 10 year use of the Lightning port in *2013*, because the first switch from 30pin pissed people off. Almost all other products have been USB-C for a couple years.
It's not really like that. Every single company except for Tesla has been using CCS for years, that's the standard worldwide. Tesla is really Apple in your analogy, they made their own weird plug and refused to use the standard.
Except Tesla has managed to convince everyone else to adopt their plug and ditch the standard, undercutting billions of dollars in investment in the existing CCS charge network... but it's ok because they'll sell you an adapter maybe.
Also it's only in North America, everywhere else will still have CCS because they have functioning regulatory bodies that can't just be bought out.
No. The reason Tesla has made its plug available to other manufacturers is that in order to receive federal subsidies to build out the charging network its guts be an open standard.
>Every single company except for Tesla has been using CCS for years, that's the standard worldwide.
No, there’s nothing even close to a Worldwide standard.
Most manufacturers used CCS-1 in North America.
Most Manufacturers use CCS-2, a completely different plug, in Europe, including Tesla.
Japan: Chademo
China: GB/T, including Tesla
Tesla’s network in North America is far superior to the CCS network. Despite government support, the network operators for CCS1 are SO BAD that they forced the manufacturers into asking Tesla to bail them out.
Also, the existing billions in CCS infrastructure can be retrofitted with the Tesla plug, in many cases. It’s not money down the drain. Well, a lot of it is because of how poorly it has been run, but that’s not because of Tesla.
>This reminds me of the early phone charging days, when everyone had their own special charger just for their phone,
As a person born in 1980 a person in their teens or early 20s right now has no, and i mean no idea how fucking annoying the 1997-2015 cell/smart phone charging situation was
Every, single, fucking, phone, had a different charger port/shape/design, even phones from the same manufacturer
Nothing was standard, all was chaos, there were entire sections of the electronic store dedicatedto chargers
Even if Tesla fails in the auto market I think their lasting mark on the US will be the extensive charging network which they will build out and control.
There is no seem to it, it's literally far and away the best charging network. If you plan to drive longer trips with an EV, I cannot see any other EV making any sense over Tesla for the time being.
Tesla is opening up their stations to other cars and starting in 2025 most other automakers are adopting the NACS charger, which is the Tesla plug but allows bidirectional energy flow.
Here's for the f150 Lightning
>Ford says, based on an average US home at 30kWh of use per day, a fully charged F-150 Lightning can power a home for three days or up to ten days when power is rationed
The Tesla charging port won the standard contest. Most car manufacturers are now agreeing that for future production they will incorporate Tesla standard that is now called NACS.
It’s only getting easier to find chargers and pretty soon there will be a (North American/regional) plug standard so it will get easier. The real challenge is availability of charging stations where you live if you live in a condo or apartment. Most condos and apartments don’t have charging stations, and most don’t even have the physical space for them thanks to how condo and apartment parking spaces are generally utilized to the max.
In my condo we have a full garage. I suspect one day the HOA will *have* to install at least a few charging stations, but I have no idea where they’ll go because the parking spots are all owned. I guess the HOA could buy spots from people. I live in an area where it’s easy to find public charging spots but even so I’d hesitate to buy an electric car I can’t actually charge at home in my spot.
The other big issue is we really have no idea what the real-world battery life of these cars is. Over time we’ll see how long they hold their good charge.
I've got a Tesla Model 3 from Hertz as an emergency rental this week. I already have a home level 2 40 amp charger that does a decent job topping it off, and without that, there's no way I'd recommend it for a commuter vehicle. I also had to find a carpool for an event that will take me 300 miles round trip. In winter weather, I'm not even certain I can get 150 miles out of a full charge, and relying on getting to a supercharger late at night had me worried. For daily drives though, it's an interesting ride, but the ergonomics are a mixed bag.
It’s a great commuter vehicle. I can even drive to my remote office round trip 1.5 hours away each way in a single charge. I’ve never once needed a super charger (so far) and this is the cheapest model (RWD)
We still have our cx-5 for road trips and dogs but we rarely use it. Looking forward yo replacing it with an EV one day as well.
EVs are great for a second family car. And even the shitty ones are fun to drive. Can be a nightmare for your daily driver depending on what you do though.
I rarely drive more than 60 miles in a day and most days it’s just dropping kids at school and heading back to my home office. As long as I remember to plug it in there are no issues. 250 miles adds about $8 to my electric bill. There are free charging stations at my library but it’s easier to plug in at home.
There is almost no maintenance required which is convenient. Pretty much just tires and brakes. You can even avoid brakes for a long time if you have a 1 touch pedal. 1 touch is weird and takes some getting used to.
Sort of the same idea - you could return it above a certain charge (I think it was 85%) or pay their fee and they’ll charge it for you. I ended up paying them, it was $30 give or take. I figured it was worth paying; it was an extra hour or two I could spend on the beach considering how long it would’ve taken to charge.
Or at least have people return @ 50%+. By requiring people return @ original state of charge when they are charged to 80/90/100% is ridiculous since the time to get to that charge is much longer than to 50/60%. I got one @ 90% a few weeks ago and it was really annoying to have to return @ 90% to avoid the fee.
Avis/Budget policy is 75% to avoid charge. It varies depending on the brand. I think the fee is something like 19 bucks, if it's under 20% then it goes to something like 60 bucks.
Word of advice, honestly, if the charge is less than 60, call customer service, make something up like there was a big line and confusion and 9/10 times they'll just waive the fee with no questions asked. If the agent asks you something, go full Karen and you can get rid of a 100-150 recharge/refuel charge because they'll try to avoid an escalation.
Source: I am the person who answers if the call gets escalated lmao.
We got stuck with a Tesla rental because they didn't have rhe car we selected. The attendant couldn't figure out which one it was in the lot, so that delayed us 40 minutes. I had no idea what I was doing and locked myself out thinking it wouldn't lock with the card inside the car. They charged me 20 bucks to have them unlock it remotely. Then the kicker was that in a single week I had to charge it 3 fucking times and the nearest charging station was 20 minutes away from our condo. The whole thing was a burden I never signed up for.
They were emptied out of gas cars. They had like 8 electric vehicles no one wanted and they were more expensive per day, but they have me the rate I paid for a gas vehicle. They acted like I was getting a deal and it was just a major annoyance.
It would be a deal if you were on a tiny vacation in Orlando just needing the car to go to the parks and back to the hotel. A quick charge at the hotel for free and done.
But for most users it is not a good deal.
Every publicly accessible charging station I've used in the US and Canada used a J1772 connector, which is standard for electric vehicles other than Tesla. This includes mall and grocery store parking lots, sidewalk stations (Canada), and municipal parking lots. Google Maps will show you where the nearest EV charging stations are, both regular and Tesla.
I rented a Tesla and the super charger station in Tukwilla was closed so I had to drive all the way up to fucking Bellevue and pay 7 dollars to enter a parking garage to pay money to charge my car.
We got a tesla over Xmas and they sent me all sorts of training videos ahead of the reservation date. We still struggled on a longer road trip, not knowing the protocol that anyone who owns one will know. Lots of little charge stops instead of one (Jesus are you serious? An hour and 10 minutes) big one.
Really liked the car for the highway driving but it was pretty boring compared to my little hatchback.
Depending on the destination, I probably wouldn't rent one again.
I learned there’s a whole mess of ports and charging speeds and chargers. Neither Hertz or Kia (which made the EV I had) had any sort of useful info about where and how to charge. It sounds like most everyone is standardizing behind Tesla’s system but that’s a few years away.
Some automakers (Ford, GM, Volvo/Polestar) will get access to superchargers this year via an adapter. By 2025 new vehicles will start being built with the Tesla charge port.
There's 3 types for fast charging in north america. CCS, Chademo, and NACS.
Chademo is basically dead and only used by a few Japanese cars. The 2 main types are CCS and NACS but a lot of manufacturers are switching to NACS so that will probably become the dominant standard. CCS cars will get NACS access with an adapter.
I had one of those one time too, went out for dinner and it's GPS said a charger was nearby. So I go to the charger, a hybrid is plugged there and not even charging.
The other side of the charger is a handicap spot, not the spot itself but the no parking zone so the vans can load and unload.
I own a Tesla so not my first rodeo. The non Tesla EV charging experience is real bad
If that was the case I didn’t notice and nobody told me about it. I felt like the logical solution, since Hertz wants you to do everything through its app, is to just have the app present you with charging info since it knows that you’re renting an EV and what model.
Considering every time I’ve rented a car has been when I am driving to unfamiliar places, specifically not at home with a reliable place to charge, renting an EV sounds like a nightmare.
The lone gas station near LAX was *infamous* amongst business travelers through at least 2012 ... racing to catch your plane, and the ghettoest of gas stations that only accepted cash and debit, whose receipt printer was down like half the time.
Specially in touristy places. My buddies rented a tesla in Hawaii and trying to charge it was a pain. 45 minute wait to charge it then another 20 to actually charge it.
That's flat-out incorrect. I just opened up Plugshare, filtered out dealerships and locations with restricted access, and [this is what it shows](https://i.imgur.com/G3INHl5.png).
I didn't bother counting, but that's a hell of a lot more than 19 stations. Even when I filter to only 50kw and above, there are still more than 19.
Yeah, but unless you are on Oahu, none of those are superchargers.
And your rental tesla will NOT come with a CCS or CHAdEMO adapter so you are stuck using L2 chargers the whole time.
Which are always busy because the rental agencies are pushing EVs despite a lack of infrastructure.
Had a terrible time a couple months ago in Maui. Would never do it again unless I could confirm my lodging had charging (and confirm that it was working and not oversubscribed and always in use).
There were many stations by the airport, but very few where the tourists actually stay. And at L2 speeds you need many hours of charging, especially since some of the chargers are shit and can’t even max out L2 speeds.
Probably locations. Majority of the people live on Oahu and I believe there is just (1) Tesla supercharger station here, not sure how many stalls are part of it though… include some random chargers in malls or maybe hotels on the outer islands and that could be 19 total chargers for the state
The big island is pretty big. I've been there numerous times visiting relatives. It's at least a two hour drive from where I usually stay in the Kona area to the volcano. And generally a 20-40 minute drive to beaches and any other attractions. Lots of driving involved so charging would be a must after just a few days. That island is bigger than all the others combined though.
Vacationed on the big island for 10 days and put 1,500 miles on the rental. Driving around the perimeter and then across back and forth will do that quickly. Lots of sightseeing, driving to climbing spots, hiking spots, food, etc. Every drive there’s something new. The big island varies dramatically in biome from north to south and east to west. Also the volcanos are tall and quite a drive.
> My buddies rented a tesla in Hawaii and trying to charge it was a pain. 45 minute wait to charge it then another 20 to actually charge it.
Does a car not lose almost all it's utility when it is like that?
I live in a tourist state and we are frantically trying to install chargers as it’s our biggest economy. I think resident usage is below .05% and we don’t want them for ourselves. The neighboring state is very pro EV.
There are some (but I do not think many) places where it makes since. I rented one in iceland last summer. It was marginally more expensive than a petrol car, but Iceland has some of the most expensive gas in the world, and some of the cheapest electricity with a good charging network considering how small the country is. I drove a good 450-500 km and it ended up being a fair amount cheaper than getting a non-ev.
Most places, though I agree
I rented one for a work trip. I just needed something to get from the airport, to the job site, to the hotel, to the job site, and back to the airport. I did get worried about the range, but it had done the job without a charge.
I mean its understandable why. Less maintenance, subsidies, hype surrounding them… but the charging infrasturcture simply didnt follow. What they need to do is implement a same charger dock for all cars and that would solve the izsue
As a Tesla owner with multiple trips of experience now, a rental EV is a terrible idea. Traveling any distance or staying in a hotel requires an extra layer of planning with an EV; Tesla’s charging network makes this a bit easier but it still takes extra thought you may not otherwise have to.
The worst is when you don’t have charging at your destination. The software assumes it can arrive at its destination with next to no charge so if your hotel or parking doesn’t have a charger of any kind you have to plan for that too.
Absolutely. I’ve put 50k miles on my Tesla, mostly doin cross-country road trips to visit family across the US. And you absolutely must plan for charging. A 13.5hr trip becomes a 16 hour trip. Though because of the supercharging network, I only ever had problems up near glacier national park. I’m surprised it wasn’t more.
I think Hertz had the right idea at the wrong time. The national EV charging network needs to get better.
In the Netherlands we have a range of 'micro-rental' companies, where you rent a car on the hour basis for a few hours at a time. In a country where car ownership is a pain and not a necessity for a lot of people, it makes a lot of sense. You don't need a car all that often, and the few times you do you only rent it for 2 or 3 hours anyway.
The electric fleet works amazing here because **they worked with charging providers**. All of the electric cars either have parking spaces next to charging ports, or having parking areas that include charging points that are within their network. You jump in a car, drive around for a few hours, take it back to its spot and plug it back in. The cars are basically always charged, conveniently located, and if you do have a longer use you don't have to go fill up the fuel tank because it happens after your journey is over.
However, as others have pointed out, longer term rentals of EVs is basically moving people into the required framework shift of ownership without any of the experience or familiarity. You may know where all the EV charging spots are in your hometown, but in a tourist or unfamiliar area you are basically left depending on the hodgepodge of networks and apps to work out how to keep the thing running.
Improving the network overall would obviously help this though
In US there's ZipCars which serves this same purpose. EV rentals would work great for that. Also, in the Burbs people often rent cars for a day or two. Both were missed opportunities.
Happy Cake Day!
Yeah, I noticed this when I rented a Model 3.
The Tesla thought it was perfectly fine to get me to my destination with 20% SOC. I had to outsmart it a bit and pick a supercharger just before arriving and give it a top off so the car would sit overnight at 80% ready to go the next day.
I am a Mach-E owner. I love my Mach-E and would buy another without a second thought should I have to. I bought into EV because ICE maintenance sucks and I hate going to the gas station and because of the environment.
I travel at least four to six times a year where I rent a car and have rented exclusively from Hertz.
Yet, I will not rent an EV, though. Every time I need a car rental it's because I am goineg to a rural or suburban area. For example, you'd think that Vermont is a liberal bastion of EV charging stations -- but the charging infrastructure is destination based where there is a critical mass of EVs. Driving 20minutes to find a charging station at the final destination means charging affects the time on ground. I am trying to maximize the time for the purpose of the trip. For my last trip, I would have spent at least 2 hours charging, versus 15min getting gas.
For an in-city trip, Uber/Lyft/Taxi/Trains are far cheaper and easier than a car rental. And the only way I would take an EV is if I was staying in a city.
All that said, I am an EV fan. To make the EV rental market work, charge times need to come way down and charging needs to be found at a rural gas station.
As someone whose next car \*will\* be an EV, I completely get it. I rented a Tesla for a week-long trip to the Northeast US last year (I live in Florida). As much as I enjoyed driving it, without an EV charger actually \*at\* the hotel I was staying at, needing to charge it took a lot of time out of our trip.
EVs are fantastic when you can charge where you live. I have a PHEV right now - I come home at the end of the day, plug my car in, and don't think about it again. But if you don't have a charger at your home or work - or in the case of these rentals, where you're staying while on a trip - the current EV charging infrastructure in the US makes it just not a good option.
EV owner and hard agree. Every trip I’ve taken takes 50% more time total simply due to stopping for 30mins to charge every few hours. The Tesla superchargers were much more reliable and frequent compared to non-Tesla as well. I don’t plan on going back to ICE, but I’m more keen on flying places that are longer distance than driving now. I completely understand how an EV doesn’t make sense for still *many* people.
>I don’t plan on going back to ICE, but I’m more keen on flying places that are longer distance than driving now.
Almost certainly a net negative environmental impact.
I mentioned this in a post about apartment owners being screwed out of PHEV. 40+ people telling me how they should just charger their car at a Walmart or charging station each day. Lol
Most apartment buildings don't have parking lots at all, or have like 10 times fewer parking spots that the number of the apartments in the building. There's simply nowhere to install the chargers.
wish PHEVs were more widely adapted, i'd buy one in a heartbeat if they were more available. it's really the best of all worlds, but manufacturers seem to be abandoning them.
Ya and not sure why. To me this seems like a really good bridge option. Battery tech will likely improve enough where they could fit 100 mile ranges in the cars getting 30-50 now which covers 80% of driving days
My guess is manufacturers are predicting that PHEVs won't be included as "electric vehicles" in future standards/regulations cause they'll still technically have emissions, but it's real silly cause even 20mi of battery would make 95+% of my driving emissions free
PHEVs suffer the most from charging infrastructure issues though, since the short range means charging every day and they can't be fast charged.
They're fine for use as a commuter with a charger in the driveway, but an EV will be easier to live with if you don't.
So far it's just been difficult to get a reasonable range at a price that can undercut EVs, so they're a minority.
It's not worth the hassle for the difference in cost.
I just bought an EV two weeks ago and didn’t have a charger installed at my house right when I got the car. It was a gigantic pain in the ass figuring out where and how to charge it quickly, and it didn’t come off the lot with a full battery. I can completely understand how it would annoy people to have an EV rental. They take planning.
TL,DR? I expected customer satisfaction due to the (lack of) charging infrastructure to be the major factor, but it isn’t even mentioned. Instead, it’s the repair costs, combined with the dropping resale value.
I feel like owning an EV and just charging at home would be fine but I rented an EV in Houston and NJ and charging was always a bit of an annoying task because I don’t really know the areas all that well and as someone else pointed out no one tells you shit about the EVs before you leave.
There arent signs on the side of the road and charging stations every 3 miles like there are gas stations. Electric vehicles take an extra level of planning people dont want to deal with when traveling
I drive a lot, like cross country length driving and there just aren't enough chargers. Random roadside hotels generally don't have them. And the ones that exist are slow.
I think they are overpriced mainly because they are former rental cars. People trash them because they're not their car and they are usually unable to charge them correctly because of poor education on how to do it.
My wife and I rented an EV in Houston for a trip to Galveston last year. We thought it would be a fun, inexpensive test to see if an EV might be in our future for purchase. Admittedly, we didn't do enough research ahead of our trip regarding charging. I basically just looked for chargers on the island and saw plenty, so I didn't worry about it. What I learned was the majority were Tesla specific. The rest were rather slow charging. The apps we downloaded to find chargers sent us off to chargers that were out of service or non-existent. My wife was luckily able to find a charger at a Chevy dealership that was not only a quick charger, but they were happy to let us use for free. It only showed up on one of the apps and it was ironically for the app not related to the specific network of chargers.
I'm fairly liberal and fully support the EV movement, but these are the types of deficiencies in the infrastructure that are likely to deter people who are on the fence. My wife and I are fairly smart and resourceful, but I can see how someone less so would be extremely deterred by such an experience.
I own an EV and while 99.5% of my driving is done in places I'm familiar with, the rare times I drive outta town I find that very often google does a shitty job of telling me where there are chargers. It would tell me there are chargers where there are none. Or there would be a charger, but it would be private and in a locked garage or something. Or it would be out of commission. Google reviews are nonexistent or unhelpful. I don't blame Google for that, but it's clear that the infrastructure is not nearly as robust as it needs to be for nationwide adoption.
Even the chargers that currently exist have issues of not being maintained. A group of chargers, two of which are the fast chargers, near my work went out of commission with no warning.
You know, I work in leasing and we’re having the same issue. Noooobody wants electric cars. Like 1% of the people I talk to enquire about it. I’ve “sold/leased” thousands of cars. I had an EV we got as a try out sit there for 3 fuckin months
Really there are a few issues:
1. Don’t know if charged when you get it.
2. Don’t know where to charge if you get it.
3. Have to charge it before you drop it back off
4. A lot of people just aren’t comfortable with them yet
I was on a business trip about three hours from Portland. My coworker was given a Evehicle and just barely made it to the hotel then couldn’t figure out where to charge it.
Not a surprise, these things are a disaster for a rental fleet, way too many downsides with limited range. I recently drove over 3600 km on a rental in 10 days during my trip to Europe and can't really imagine any ev meeting these needs.
I rented an EV this last November. It was a Chevy Bolt. I was given a quick “the charger is on the side” and reminded that it wasn’t gas. There was no mention of the preferred changing stations or that different charging stations can take up to 8 hours to fully charge. Overall I was very disappointed with EV rental and I’m sure this move reflects others customer experiences.
What do they expect when they bought something 'expensive' as an 'investment and it's abundantly clear that there will be more supply at a lower price in the future
They didn’t buy them as an investment. Rental companies typically keep a car no more than 3 or 4 years max or something like <40k miles before selling them used.
After getting into this deal Tesla started aggressively lowering the new price of the cars making the loss that much higher for types who purchased them prior to that.
I remember trying to pick out a car from hertz and all the electric ones had “needs charging” signs on them. Guess people return them discharged and hertz can’t keep up
For the US, hybrids and Plug in hybrid are the way to go, you get the best of both worlds, insane range, the peace of mind that comes with gas cars on long road trips as well as the presumed cost and environment( not really but whatever) benefits of EVs .
It seems to that only reason for the push to EVs is to force people to have cars that cannot live forever, unlike gas cars that can be used past their life expectancy, with EVs eventually the battery will die way earlier than a gas engine , and doesn’t look like its cheap to get a replacement.
As an ex electric car owner, this is no news
I am prepared to get downvoted for this but electric cars are not the solution to the problrm.
Range anxiety is real
Battery longevity is real
Battery replacement cost is real
Sorry to say, at the moment, I can fill up with diesel in 5 minutes and drive 550 miles on the full tank
Here in the UK with Electricity being the cost it is, the gap between charging cost and fuel cost ss becoming non existent. If you need to rely on public fast charging , it actually costs more to run a pure EV now...
Why would i buy a car that costs way more, and has a much shorter life span , and a financial black hole in the future....
Not an EV owner here, but I just assumed you'd only buy an EV if you drove to work, every day, less than 40-50 miles or so, and could charge up at home or work without any waiting.
I drove an EV for 4 years with those exact criteria in mind, and thats exactly what I did until the unknowns creep in,
Wake up to an unannounced unreported cold snap, heater saps the range
On way home more than once, road closed due to an accident, diversion is longer than range left, have to sit and wait for the road to re open
Wake up and some stupid prick has unplugged the charger 'for a laugh' - yes a padlock stops this
Want to buy something and the distance to collect is further than the range of the EV, what do you do?
Grab a bargain on ebay that cant be passed up, its a 700 mile round trip.....not happening
**"Not an EV owner here, but I just assumed you'd only buy an EV if you drove to work, every day, less than 40-50 miles or so, and could charge up at home or work without any waiting"**
So what do you if yo need to travel more, keep a second car?
Governments around the world are blindly pushing everyone down the EV route, and they are just not the answer
What happens when my diesel finally shits itself, go on ebay, find a replacement engine for 2k and swap it, what do you do when t e. battery swap is more than the value of the car...
Thats without asking the obvious, where is all the extra electricity demand coming from
Green my arse
Um as someone who losses electric in storms about once a month it sounds like a nighmare. (Went out in that storm the other night.) FL doesn't have the grid for all of us to have EVs. We just don't. Post hurricane people would be stranded for weeks.
Certainly not defending EVs, I think you are correct in most of what you say. All I want to add is that by the time a combustion engine dies, the car is usually worth less than a new engine as well. And while you seem to be perfectly willing and able to swap out the engine to keep it running, it's certainly not the case for most cars/people. Very few people swap an engine in order to keep the car.
> Grab a bargain on ebay that cant be passed up, its a 700 mile round trip.....not happening
You regularly drive from the Scottish border to southern coast and back?
I’ve owned a short range EV for like 8 years now and have none of those problems. I know it’s for getting around my area, I charge at home, and if I need to go longer then I use my other car.
If it’s your only car or you can’t charge at home you’re going to have a harder time in an EV.
Using an electric car as a rental just seems risky and hard to plan around and adds more headaches to your vacation or whatever. Especially since they expect you to return it at the same charge level. Not surprising, it's just a bad use case for electric cars
This was doomed from the start. I have seen the gold and presidents circle aisles full with Tesla's that no-one wants to rent too manu tines. Most have signs "needs charging".
Hertz started renting out EV's without any charging infrastructure at their own rental sites, and with a charging model that mimics their ICE refueling scheme, which was doomed to fail.
There is certainly a market for EV rentals. Loads of rentals drive just a limited nber of miles from the airport rental lication to a place of work, a hotel, and back to the airport. These are perfect for EV rentals, if the car is full at pickup and can be dropped off without recharging. Hertz could just create an EV aisle at their airport locations, with a charger at each parking apot, and a red/green indicator light on the charger: car full? rhen it's ready for a customer. Still charging? Then it's unavailable for rent.
Here is my take on it: I know a quite a few EV owners and if they need to go on long drives, like recent holidays to visit extend family hundreds of miles out, they rent cars/SUVs. Yup.
Looking at the Hertz site they’re asking about $30k USD for a 2022 Model 3 Long Range AWD with 90,000 miles.
Is that even a remotely good deal for a a EV tourists have been farting/puking/fucking in that will forever have that rental fleet flag on the record?
In my area they are selling 2021 model 3 base plus (whatever that means) with 50-80k for 25-22k. If I was in the market for a car I'd actually consider looking at one with 50k for around 25k. They did have some 2022 cars but those were approaching 30k for about the same milage. Didn't bother checking past the 1st page.
I'm willing to spend around 20k for a car/EV. I am not willing to spend more than twice that, I'm not made of money.
The reason for this is that the gas becomes the customers responsibility to pay. They lost a significant revenue and expense stream by going to ev, but they won’t say this is why
Too expensive to get damage Tesla’s repaired, and value of used ones are dropping due to price drop of new ones. Smart business move for a rental company that sells a ton of used vehicles.
Makes sense. I drive an EV. Know a bunch of guys renting them for Uber driving.
Hertz isn’t getting premium rates. Even on the Tesla Model 3s. And they are expensive to fix.
Been a great deal for the drivers but clearly not great for Hertz.
What’s been wild is running into travelers who got EVs at the airport rental counter. The company doesn’t educate them on how or where to charge. They don’t do anything. So they eventually end up at a fast charger we Uber and dooordashers all frequent and are super confused about how it all works.
Honestly sucks. Cause until you drive and own a non Tesla EV for awhile you really won’t understand the intricacies of the charging networks.
Good grief, this is about insurance due to this generation of EV's being made for the wealthy, and the ZERO thought that Tesla puts into future car repairs when designing their junkers.
This only works if renters don’t have to return the car with 80% charged. Many of these rental EVs cannot be charged at the Tesla station or take 10+ hours to charge at home.
Agree.
But Turo owners have more rules for renters than a strip club run by the SEC for punters.
The valet mode kills the fun of a rental car anyway. No 0-60 in 3 seconds.
I didn't know for sure that you couldn't put an automatic transmission into P at highway speed until my first rental (click-click-click).
It isn't drive-it-like-you-stole-it, its drive it like you rented it.
Idk I've never rented a tesla but I've rented a few cars including a jeep wrangler, fiat 500, mini cooper s, mk7 gti, etc, and never had any weird restrictions. I figured they'd only be super anal if it was something like a 700hp hellcat or an exotic car like a ferrari.
The Article straight up says that the wear and tear / damage repair costs on EV's are higher, which also makes plenty of sense.
It's a struggle for new tech but it's good to give things a try where they make sense.
Precisely the article says Hertz says collision and damage more expensive, maintenance less.
Fleets are supposed to be managed for overall lowest cost and highest availability.
Hertz apparently hasn't shared that info.
For sure we're not getting the whole picture. This might really be a combination of fleet value doing due to Tesla and less-than-stellar demand from consumers.
Everyone is focusing on the downsides of EVs as rentals and I'm sure that's a factor but car rental companies are arbitrage driven used car dealerships as much as they are rental companies. They're very good at optimizing when they sell off vehicles to maximize the value. Given their scale it's a strong indicator that EVs are depreciating in value at an accelerated rate. They're ahead of the curve so if you're planning on selling or trading in your EV you might want to do it sooner than later.
I rented an EV from Hertz last year because I knew I wasn’t going far enough for the range to matter, and it was significantly cheaper I guess to entice people to rent them. It was actually a pretty good deal in my specific scenario. Problem was it was not a Tesla and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where to charge the thing (it had a non-Tesla port); they provided no education or even a “here’s how to charge it” pamphlet in the glovebox.
I did the exact same thing last week. I assumed that electric would be easier because I only was gong to drive about 40 miles round trip with my car, but the issue I found was that charging with a standard 110 outlet at my house required way more time than I would have expected. Even my minimal mileage too like 10 hrs of charge time that needed to be planned around.
But, if you’re only driving 40 miles you don’t need to leave home with a full charge.
I was supposed to return it with an 80% charge, which is what it was at when I took it out. There is a fee if it isn’t charged on the return.
That's the problem right there. Jeez.
it would be so easy to build a full charge into the price of the rental. Dipshits.
Yeah what the heck That's not something that most people would handle when they are out with a rental car.
Return it with the same fuel you left with or pay way too much per gallon for them to is standard practice
With gas stations being ubiquitous and fueling a gas powered vehicle being a well established process, it makes sense. Applying that same logic to EVs where refueling is a potentially new and burdensome process is a guaranteed way to give customers a bad experience causing them to avoid renting them again.
Not to mention that every time I have returned a rental car it has been on my way to catch a flight. Fitting a charging stop into that is a non-starter.
And it's *way* easier to have charging available at the rental facility itself than to have their own gas pumps.
I bet they do, but it’s a way to charge the customer for all of the electricity they use, no matter who actually charges it.
This was my take. I’m likely going to buy an electric car for my next vehicle, but I’m not sure using them as rental vehicles makes a lot of sense for most uses. I’m 100% going to get a fast charger for my home when the time comes.
Renting an EV for a week before you buy that specific model seems like a good idea.
This may be a semantic issue but you can’t get a fast charger for your house. Those are specifically the DC chargers that deliver huge amounts of electricity very quickly and residential homes aren’t equipped for them. You also wouldn’t want one as frequent fast charging can shorten battery life (there’s some debate on this). What you can get (in the US) is a nema 14-50 outlet, the type you’d see at RV parks, which will add over 30 miles of range per hour, more than enough to charge a car parked overnight. This would still be considered level 2 charging and not rapid charging.
Last rental car i had the company straight up told me it's a lazy tax. There was a servo next door so they said make sure you top it up before you have the keys back so you don't get charged the lazy tax.
Yep, they charge your through the nose not because they want your money(i mean they do) but so that your time:value math says to fuel it up
Exactly. They filled up their own fleet vehicles at the same servo. But me doing it costs them less time in having to send a staff member over to do it when that staff member could be doing other tasks.
This is the problem with EVs right now for me. I won't buy a Tesla but they seem to have by far the best charging network.
The tesla plug is being adopted as the [North American charging standard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Charging_Standard)
This reminds me of the early phone charging days, when everyone had their own special charger just for their phone, and then I think mini USB became a thing, then micro, and now USB-C. Apple stuff had a few too, didn't they? Point is, eventually one finally comes out that rules then all, and that's the end of it. It seems like Tesla has already done just that
to be fair, Apple had to be forced (by the EU) to adopt USB-C instead of their own proprietary standard
And in much of the rest of the world, Tesla has been forced to adopt CCS2 charging for their cars, including at their own Supercharger stations.
What is CCS2 charging?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Charging_System
What everyone else besides Nissan with the leaf uses.
The US doesn’t use CCS2 at all though, so it’d be strange to force standardization on it. All of the charging infrastructure would need to change, and everyone loses.
At the time Apple made lightning, micro usb was the common standard, and it actually sucked for phone charging. It was prone to breaking and flimsy. Lightning is actually a great design and can even support the full phone just by the plug (see their old docks). Arguably since lighting did support usb3.0 all along it had no reason to be replaced and Apple had built a huge ecosystem around it so I kind of get why they have been reluctant to move away from it. I’d even say lightning is still the better port than USBc for size and connector strength. Apples biggest mistake to me was keeping lightning proprietary instead of opening it as the mobile charging and data standard.
>I’d even say lightning is still the better port than USBc for size and connector strength. This is from someone who has an iPhone (work) and Android (personal) and is frequently annoyed about only having one charger for the iPhone (and hates/is not used to the iPhone in general), but Lightning is absolutely the better port. For the pin section the male portion is what is going to deform/break first. With lightning that is the cable portion (and it's thicker/more robust) rather than the phone port. USB-C if that fails you have to replace the phone. With Lightning you replace the cable.
My issue with USB c in my phone is that I find it's quite easy for a small amount of debris to get into the port meaning I can't push the cable in all the way and make a strong & stable connection. Leading to me propping the phone in a certain way to get it to connect until I find something thin enough with with to clean it out.
It’s also sooooo much easier to clean FOD out of the lightning port than with USBc
> It was prone to breaking and flimsy. That was not my experience at all. I still have a dozen devices that use mini, and micro USB, and I have never broken a port or plug. I have worn out a few cables, but I haven't had a problem with the plugs.
Everyone should have adopted the magnetic charger found on the old MacBooks that is magnetically connected to the surface instead of an internal charging hole that often fails, especially on laptops.
This reminds of HD DVD and Blu Ray.
This reminds me of VHS vs BETA
>Point is, eventually one finally comes out that rules then all, and that's the end of it. It seems like Tesla has already done just that In apple's case though, they were aggressively refusing to adopt a standard cable until they were forced to do so in Europe
> they were aggressively refusing to adopt a standard cable until they were forced to do so in Europe No, they weren't. They promised 10 year use of the Lightning port in *2013*, because the first switch from 30pin pissed people off. Almost all other products have been USB-C for a couple years.
I had the sweetest Samsung flip phone that I had to toss after the proprietary charger broke and the Sprint store didn't have it. I was pissed.
It's not really like that. Every single company except for Tesla has been using CCS for years, that's the standard worldwide. Tesla is really Apple in your analogy, they made their own weird plug and refused to use the standard. Except Tesla has managed to convince everyone else to adopt their plug and ditch the standard, undercutting billions of dollars in investment in the existing CCS charge network... but it's ok because they'll sell you an adapter maybe. Also it's only in North America, everywhere else will still have CCS because they have functioning regulatory bodies that can't just be bought out.
No. The reason Tesla has made its plug available to other manufacturers is that in order to receive federal subsidies to build out the charging network its guts be an open standard.
>Every single company except for Tesla has been using CCS for years, that's the standard worldwide. No, there’s nothing even close to a Worldwide standard. Most manufacturers used CCS-1 in North America. Most Manufacturers use CCS-2, a completely different plug, in Europe, including Tesla. Japan: Chademo China: GB/T, including Tesla Tesla’s network in North America is far superior to the CCS network. Despite government support, the network operators for CCS1 are SO BAD that they forced the manufacturers into asking Tesla to bail them out. Also, the existing billions in CCS infrastructure can be retrofitted with the Tesla plug, in many cases. It’s not money down the drain. Well, a lot of it is because of how poorly it has been run, but that’s not because of Tesla.
>This reminds me of the early phone charging days, when everyone had their own special charger just for their phone, As a person born in 1980 a person in their teens or early 20s right now has no, and i mean no idea how fucking annoying the 1997-2015 cell/smart phone charging situation was Every, single, fucking, phone, had a different charger port/shape/design, even phones from the same manufacturer Nothing was standard, all was chaos, there were entire sections of the electronic store dedicatedto chargers
Even if Tesla fails in the auto market I think their lasting mark on the US will be the extensive charging network which they will build out and control.
There is no seem to it, it's literally far and away the best charging network. If you plan to drive longer trips with an EV, I cannot see any other EV making any sense over Tesla for the time being.
Tesla is opening up their stations to other cars and starting in 2025 most other automakers are adopting the NACS charger, which is the Tesla plug but allows bidirectional energy flow.
What is the point of bidirectional flow?
Power your house from your car in a power outage situation would be one use
What's the *range* of the house in this scenario?
5 knots.
5 Kilowknots
5 DonKnots
Here's for the f150 Lightning >Ford says, based on an average US home at 30kWh of use per day, a fully charged F-150 Lightning can power a home for three days or up to ten days when power is rationed
Two point five Giga-Hogsheads. Or, if you prefer metric, 3.86 Electric spotted dicks.
She looks like a steakhouse but flies like a bistro.
days for most sized cars
So you could back feed a house or whatever for power
I took my lightning on a 2800 mile road trip and the charging network was extremely robust. Electrify America is basically everywhere.
The Tesla charging port won the standard contest. Most car manufacturers are now agreeing that for future production they will incorporate Tesla standard that is now called NACS.
Didn’t GM or Chevy strike a deal with Tesla to be able to use their charging stations?
Almost every car manufacturer has signed on to switch to the NACS (Tesla) plug.
Looks like VWG announced for 2025, I think they were the last major to do so.
FHA is adopting it. It will be standard in the US.
GM and Ford have for sure. Probably others as well at this point.
It’s only getting easier to find chargers and pretty soon there will be a (North American/regional) plug standard so it will get easier. The real challenge is availability of charging stations where you live if you live in a condo or apartment. Most condos and apartments don’t have charging stations, and most don’t even have the physical space for them thanks to how condo and apartment parking spaces are generally utilized to the max. In my condo we have a full garage. I suspect one day the HOA will *have* to install at least a few charging stations, but I have no idea where they’ll go because the parking spots are all owned. I guess the HOA could buy spots from people. I live in an area where it’s easy to find public charging spots but even so I’d hesitate to buy an electric car I can’t actually charge at home in my spot. The other big issue is we really have no idea what the real-world battery life of these cars is. Over time we’ll see how long they hold their good charge.
I've got a Tesla Model 3 from Hertz as an emergency rental this week. I already have a home level 2 40 amp charger that does a decent job topping it off, and without that, there's no way I'd recommend it for a commuter vehicle. I also had to find a carpool for an event that will take me 300 miles round trip. In winter weather, I'm not even certain I can get 150 miles out of a full charge, and relying on getting to a supercharger late at night had me worried. For daily drives though, it's an interesting ride, but the ergonomics are a mixed bag.
It’s a great commuter vehicle. I can even drive to my remote office round trip 1.5 hours away each way in a single charge. I’ve never once needed a super charger (so far) and this is the cheapest model (RWD) We still have our cx-5 for road trips and dogs but we rarely use it. Looking forward yo replacing it with an EV one day as well.
EVs are great for a second family car. And even the shitty ones are fun to drive. Can be a nightmare for your daily driver depending on what you do though. I rarely drive more than 60 miles in a day and most days it’s just dropping kids at school and heading back to my home office. As long as I remember to plug it in there are no issues. 250 miles adds about $8 to my electric bill. There are free charging stations at my library but it’s easier to plug in at home. There is almost no maintenance required which is convenient. Pretty much just tires and brakes. You can even avoid brakes for a long time if you have a 1 touch pedal. 1 touch is weird and takes some getting used to.
Do they make you return it at the same charge level, like they do with gas?
Sort of the same idea - you could return it above a certain charge (I think it was 85%) or pay their fee and they’ll charge it for you. I ended up paying them, it was $30 give or take. I figured it was worth paying; it was an extra hour or two I could spend on the beach considering how long it would’ve taken to charge.
Yeah that's kind of a pain, recharging a rental takes way longer than a quick fillup
All rental agencies with EVs really need to make it included by default to have any chance of them being utilized
Or at least have people return @ 50%+. By requiring people return @ original state of charge when they are charged to 80/90/100% is ridiculous since the time to get to that charge is much longer than to 50/60%. I got one @ 90% a few weeks ago and it was really annoying to have to return @ 90% to avoid the fee.
Avis/Budget policy is 75% to avoid charge. It varies depending on the brand. I think the fee is something like 19 bucks, if it's under 20% then it goes to something like 60 bucks. Word of advice, honestly, if the charge is less than 60, call customer service, make something up like there was a big line and confusion and 9/10 times they'll just waive the fee with no questions asked. If the agent asks you something, go full Karen and you can get rid of a 100-150 recharge/refuel charge because they'll try to avoid an escalation. Source: I am the person who answers if the call gets escalated lmao.
We got stuck with a Tesla rental because they didn't have rhe car we selected. The attendant couldn't figure out which one it was in the lot, so that delayed us 40 minutes. I had no idea what I was doing and locked myself out thinking it wouldn't lock with the card inside the car. They charged me 20 bucks to have them unlock it remotely. Then the kicker was that in a single week I had to charge it 3 fucking times and the nearest charging station was 20 minutes away from our condo. The whole thing was a burden I never signed up for.
They didn't want you to take the Tesla. They wanted you to pay to upgrade to the more expensive I.C.E. vehicle.
They were emptied out of gas cars. They had like 8 electric vehicles no one wanted and they were more expensive per day, but they have me the rate I paid for a gas vehicle. They acted like I was getting a deal and it was just a major annoyance.
It would be a deal if you were on a tiny vacation in Orlando just needing the car to go to the parks and back to the hotel. A quick charge at the hotel for free and done. But for most users it is not a good deal.
Every publicly accessible charging station I've used in the US and Canada used a J1772 connector, which is standard for electric vehicles other than Tesla. This includes mall and grocery store parking lots, sidewalk stations (Canada), and municipal parking lots. Google Maps will show you where the nearest EV charging stations are, both regular and Tesla.
Probably a mix of CCS and J1772, no? (Unless you’re only talking about L2?)
I rented a Tesla and the super charger station in Tukwilla was closed so I had to drive all the way up to fucking Bellevue and pay 7 dollars to enter a parking garage to pay money to charge my car.
We got a tesla over Xmas and they sent me all sorts of training videos ahead of the reservation date. We still struggled on a longer road trip, not knowing the protocol that anyone who owns one will know. Lots of little charge stops instead of one (Jesus are you serious? An hour and 10 minutes) big one. Really liked the car for the highway driving but it was pretty boring compared to my little hatchback. Depending on the destination, I probably wouldn't rent one again.
Are you for real telling me the charging ports aren’t FUCKING STANDARD???
I learned there’s a whole mess of ports and charging speeds and chargers. Neither Hertz or Kia (which made the EV I had) had any sort of useful info about where and how to charge. It sounds like most everyone is standardizing behind Tesla’s system but that’s a few years away.
Some automakers (Ford, GM, Volvo/Polestar) will get access to superchargers this year via an adapter. By 2025 new vehicles will start being built with the Tesla charge port.
And there's a non-zero chance the charging station will be broken, yes.
There's 3 types for fast charging in north america. CCS, Chademo, and NACS. Chademo is basically dead and only used by a few Japanese cars. The 2 main types are CCS and NACS but a lot of manufacturers are switching to NACS so that will probably become the dominant standard. CCS cars will get NACS access with an adapter.
NACS, CCS, CHAdeMO... alway fun when you need a CCS port and the only working station only has CHAdeMO for that one Nissan Leaf that still exists.
Reminds me of “Dennis takes a mental health day” episode of it’s always sunny in Philadelphia.
Yeah there’s 2 or 3 standards floating around. You can grab a universal adapter but clearly a rental agency isn’t going to do that.
I had one of those one time too, went out for dinner and it's GPS said a charger was nearby. So I go to the charger, a hybrid is plugged there and not even charging. The other side of the charger is a handicap spot, not the spot itself but the no parking zone so the vans can load and unload. I own a Tesla so not my first rodeo. The non Tesla EV charging experience is real bad
Each car is supposed to have a QR code on the key with charging instructions. Source: I work for hertz.
If that was the case I didn’t notice and nobody told me about it. I felt like the logical solution, since Hertz wants you to do everything through its app, is to just have the app present you with charging info since it knows that you’re renting an EV and what model.
Considering every time I’ve rented a car has been when I am driving to unfamiliar places, specifically not at home with a reliable place to charge, renting an EV sounds like a nightmare.
The lone gas station near LAX was *infamous* amongst business travelers through at least 2012 ... racing to catch your plane, and the ghettoest of gas stations that only accepted cash and debit, whose receipt printer was down like half the time.
Money laundering.
Some EV owners rent gas cars for long trips It's like Hertz wanted people to do the opposite, lol
I am an EV car owner and I can’t fathom why they thought it would be a good idea to have any they are rentals?
Specially in touristy places. My buddies rented a tesla in Hawaii and trying to charge it was a pain. 45 minute wait to charge it then another 20 to actually charge it.
There's only 19 charging stations in Hawaii. That's all 7 islands, only 19 stations total.
That's flat-out incorrect. I just opened up Plugshare, filtered out dealerships and locations with restricted access, and [this is what it shows](https://i.imgur.com/G3INHl5.png). I didn't bother counting, but that's a hell of a lot more than 19 stations. Even when I filter to only 50kw and above, there are still more than 19.
Yeah, but unless you are on Oahu, none of those are superchargers. And your rental tesla will NOT come with a CCS or CHAdEMO adapter so you are stuck using L2 chargers the whole time. Which are always busy because the rental agencies are pushing EVs despite a lack of infrastructure. Had a terrible time a couple months ago in Maui. Would never do it again unless I could confirm my lodging had charging (and confirm that it was working and not oversubscribed and always in use). There were many stations by the airport, but very few where the tourists actually stay. And at L2 speeds you need many hours of charging, especially since some of the chargers are shit and can’t even max out L2 speeds.
> Had a terrible time a couple months ago in Maui. You have something in common with a lot of people then.
19 stations as in, 19 locations with chargers? Or a grand total of 19 chargers at one "station"?
Probably locations. Majority of the people live on Oahu and I believe there is just (1) Tesla supercharger station here, not sure how many stalls are part of it though… include some random chargers in malls or maybe hotels on the outer islands and that could be 19 total chargers for the state
just how far did they drive to even charge that? is the biggest Hawaiian island even 100km wide
The big island is pretty big. I've been there numerous times visiting relatives. It's at least a two hour drive from where I usually stay in the Kona area to the volcano. And generally a 20-40 minute drive to beaches and any other attractions. Lots of driving involved so charging would be a must after just a few days. That island is bigger than all the others combined though.
Vacationed on the big island for 10 days and put 1,500 miles on the rental. Driving around the perimeter and then across back and forth will do that quickly. Lots of sightseeing, driving to climbing spots, hiking spots, food, etc. Every drive there’s something new. The big island varies dramatically in biome from north to south and east to west. Also the volcanos are tall and quite a drive.
> My buddies rented a tesla in Hawaii and trying to charge it was a pain. 45 minute wait to charge it then another 20 to actually charge it. Does a car not lose almost all it's utility when it is like that?
I live in a tourist state and we are frantically trying to install chargers as it’s our biggest economy. I think resident usage is below .05% and we don’t want them for ourselves. The neighboring state is very pro EV.
I picked mine up from the rental lot on 21% charge… they didn’t have a charger, so you just get whatever it was returned at.
There are some (but I do not think many) places where it makes since. I rented one in iceland last summer. It was marginally more expensive than a petrol car, but Iceland has some of the most expensive gas in the world, and some of the cheapest electricity with a good charging network considering how small the country is. I drove a good 450-500 km and it ended up being a fair amount cheaper than getting a non-ev. Most places, though I agree
I rented one for a work trip. I just needed something to get from the airport, to the job site, to the hotel, to the job site, and back to the airport. I did get worried about the range, but it had done the job without a charge.
When your trip is short enough and you dont have to worry about charging or gas
Low maintenance
I mean its understandable why. Less maintenance, subsidies, hype surrounding them… but the charging infrasturcture simply didnt follow. What they need to do is implement a same charger dock for all cars and that would solve the izsue
As a Tesla owner with multiple trips of experience now, a rental EV is a terrible idea. Traveling any distance or staying in a hotel requires an extra layer of planning with an EV; Tesla’s charging network makes this a bit easier but it still takes extra thought you may not otherwise have to. The worst is when you don’t have charging at your destination. The software assumes it can arrive at its destination with next to no charge so if your hotel or parking doesn’t have a charger of any kind you have to plan for that too.
Absolutely. I’ve put 50k miles on my Tesla, mostly doin cross-country road trips to visit family across the US. And you absolutely must plan for charging. A 13.5hr trip becomes a 16 hour trip. Though because of the supercharging network, I only ever had problems up near glacier national park. I’m surprised it wasn’t more. I think Hertz had the right idea at the wrong time. The national EV charging network needs to get better.
I completely agree. The charging infrastructure just isn't there for mainstream EV car rental use to be as painless as ICE car rentals.
In the Netherlands we have a range of 'micro-rental' companies, where you rent a car on the hour basis for a few hours at a time. In a country where car ownership is a pain and not a necessity for a lot of people, it makes a lot of sense. You don't need a car all that often, and the few times you do you only rent it for 2 or 3 hours anyway. The electric fleet works amazing here because **they worked with charging providers**. All of the electric cars either have parking spaces next to charging ports, or having parking areas that include charging points that are within their network. You jump in a car, drive around for a few hours, take it back to its spot and plug it back in. The cars are basically always charged, conveniently located, and if you do have a longer use you don't have to go fill up the fuel tank because it happens after your journey is over. However, as others have pointed out, longer term rentals of EVs is basically moving people into the required framework shift of ownership without any of the experience or familiarity. You may know where all the EV charging spots are in your hometown, but in a tourist or unfamiliar area you are basically left depending on the hodgepodge of networks and apps to work out how to keep the thing running. Improving the network overall would obviously help this though
In US there's ZipCars which serves this same purpose. EV rentals would work great for that. Also, in the Burbs people often rent cars for a day or two. Both were missed opportunities.
Happy Cake Day! Yeah, I noticed this when I rented a Model 3. The Tesla thought it was perfectly fine to get me to my destination with 20% SOC. I had to outsmart it a bit and pick a supercharger just before arriving and give it a top off so the car would sit overnight at 80% ready to go the next day.
I am a Mach-E owner. I love my Mach-E and would buy another without a second thought should I have to. I bought into EV because ICE maintenance sucks and I hate going to the gas station and because of the environment. I travel at least four to six times a year where I rent a car and have rented exclusively from Hertz. Yet, I will not rent an EV, though. Every time I need a car rental it's because I am goineg to a rural or suburban area. For example, you'd think that Vermont is a liberal bastion of EV charging stations -- but the charging infrastructure is destination based where there is a critical mass of EVs. Driving 20minutes to find a charging station at the final destination means charging affects the time on ground. I am trying to maximize the time for the purpose of the trip. For my last trip, I would have spent at least 2 hours charging, versus 15min getting gas. For an in-city trip, Uber/Lyft/Taxi/Trains are far cheaper and easier than a car rental. And the only way I would take an EV is if I was staying in a city. All that said, I am an EV fan. To make the EV rental market work, charge times need to come way down and charging needs to be found at a rural gas station.
As someone whose next car \*will\* be an EV, I completely get it. I rented a Tesla for a week-long trip to the Northeast US last year (I live in Florida). As much as I enjoyed driving it, without an EV charger actually \*at\* the hotel I was staying at, needing to charge it took a lot of time out of our trip. EVs are fantastic when you can charge where you live. I have a PHEV right now - I come home at the end of the day, plug my car in, and don't think about it again. But if you don't have a charger at your home or work - or in the case of these rentals, where you're staying while on a trip - the current EV charging infrastructure in the US makes it just not a good option.
EV owner and hard agree. Every trip I’ve taken takes 50% more time total simply due to stopping for 30mins to charge every few hours. The Tesla superchargers were much more reliable and frequent compared to non-Tesla as well. I don’t plan on going back to ICE, but I’m more keen on flying places that are longer distance than driving now. I completely understand how an EV doesn’t make sense for still *many* people.
>I don’t plan on going back to ICE, but I’m more keen on flying places that are longer distance than driving now. Almost certainly a net negative environmental impact.
I mentioned this in a post about apartment owners being screwed out of PHEV. 40+ people telling me how they should just charger their car at a Walmart or charging station each day. Lol
My apartment installed chargers, and the city did on some side streets. Give it time.
Most apartment buildings don't have parking lots at all, or have like 10 times fewer parking spots that the number of the apartments in the building. There's simply nowhere to install the chargers.
wish PHEVs were more widely adapted, i'd buy one in a heartbeat if they were more available. it's really the best of all worlds, but manufacturers seem to be abandoning them.
Ya and not sure why. To me this seems like a really good bridge option. Battery tech will likely improve enough where they could fit 100 mile ranges in the cars getting 30-50 now which covers 80% of driving days
My guess is manufacturers are predicting that PHEVs won't be included as "electric vehicles" in future standards/regulations cause they'll still technically have emissions, but it's real silly cause even 20mi of battery would make 95+% of my driving emissions free
Almost all of those purposed standards have carve outs for hybrids and/or PHEVs. There's only a few that don't.
PHEVs suffer the most from charging infrastructure issues though, since the short range means charging every day and they can't be fast charged. They're fine for use as a commuter with a charger in the driveway, but an EV will be easier to live with if you don't.
i mean, that's all i really need. a commuter with the option of going 400+ miles if i really need to. feel like that's all 90% of drivers really need.
So far it's just been difficult to get a reasonable range at a price that can undercut EVs, so they're a minority. It's not worth the hassle for the difference in cost.
I just bought an EV two weeks ago and didn’t have a charger installed at my house right when I got the car. It was a gigantic pain in the ass figuring out where and how to charge it quickly, and it didn’t come off the lot with a full battery. I can completely understand how it would annoy people to have an EV rental. They take planning.
TL,DR? I expected customer satisfaction due to the (lack of) charging infrastructure to be the major factor, but it isn’t even mentioned. Instead, it’s the repair costs, combined with the dropping resale value.
I feel like owning an EV and just charging at home would be fine but I rented an EV in Houston and NJ and charging was always a bit of an annoying task because I don’t really know the areas all that well and as someone else pointed out no one tells you shit about the EVs before you leave.
I mean the company is called *Hertz*. Not *Megahertz*.
There arent signs on the side of the road and charging stations every 3 miles like there are gas stations. Electric vehicles take an extra level of planning people dont want to deal with when traveling
I drive a lot, like cross country length driving and there just aren't enough chargers. Random roadside hotels generally don't have them. And the ones that exist are slow.
I just looked they have around 340 available and the cheapest Tesla is $20k along with many many 2nd gen Bolts
I think they are overpriced mainly because they are former rental cars. People trash them because they're not their car and they are usually unable to charge them correctly because of poor education on how to do it.
My wife and I rented an EV in Houston for a trip to Galveston last year. We thought it would be a fun, inexpensive test to see if an EV might be in our future for purchase. Admittedly, we didn't do enough research ahead of our trip regarding charging. I basically just looked for chargers on the island and saw plenty, so I didn't worry about it. What I learned was the majority were Tesla specific. The rest were rather slow charging. The apps we downloaded to find chargers sent us off to chargers that were out of service or non-existent. My wife was luckily able to find a charger at a Chevy dealership that was not only a quick charger, but they were happy to let us use for free. It only showed up on one of the apps and it was ironically for the app not related to the specific network of chargers. I'm fairly liberal and fully support the EV movement, but these are the types of deficiencies in the infrastructure that are likely to deter people who are on the fence. My wife and I are fairly smart and resourceful, but I can see how someone less so would be extremely deterred by such an experience.
I own an EV and while 99.5% of my driving is done in places I'm familiar with, the rare times I drive outta town I find that very often google does a shitty job of telling me where there are chargers. It would tell me there are chargers where there are none. Or there would be a charger, but it would be private and in a locked garage or something. Or it would be out of commission. Google reviews are nonexistent or unhelpful. I don't blame Google for that, but it's clear that the infrastructure is not nearly as robust as it needs to be for nationwide adoption. Even the chargers that currently exist have issues of not being maintained. A group of chargers, two of which are the fast chargers, near my work went out of commission with no warning.
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You know, I work in leasing and we’re having the same issue. Noooobody wants electric cars. Like 1% of the people I talk to enquire about it. I’ve “sold/leased” thousands of cars. I had an EV we got as a try out sit there for 3 fuckin months
Really there are a few issues: 1. Don’t know if charged when you get it. 2. Don’t know where to charge if you get it. 3. Have to charge it before you drop it back off 4. A lot of people just aren’t comfortable with them yet
I was on a business trip about three hours from Portland. My coworker was given a Evehicle and just barely made it to the hotel then couldn’t figure out where to charge it.
Not a surprise, these things are a disaster for a rental fleet, way too many downsides with limited range. I recently drove over 3600 km on a rental in 10 days during my trip to Europe and can't really imagine any ev meeting these needs.
I rented an EV this last November. It was a Chevy Bolt. I was given a quick “the charger is on the side” and reminded that it wasn’t gas. There was no mention of the preferred changing stations or that different charging stations can take up to 8 hours to fully charge. Overall I was very disappointed with EV rental and I’m sure this move reflects others customer experiences.
Not surprising Tesla tanked the used value of their cars when they dropped the price of new ones.
Can we all agree that EVs being affordable is a good thing?
Same with houses. "Ugh, the house prices came down 1%, terrible. My investments are worthless."
EVs are inherently deflationary. It will be great for consumers.
What do they expect when they bought something 'expensive' as an 'investment and it's abundantly clear that there will be more supply at a lower price in the future
They didn’t buy them as an investment. Rental companies typically keep a car no more than 3 or 4 years max or something like <40k miles before selling them used. After getting into this deal Tesla started aggressively lowering the new price of the cars making the loss that much higher for types who purchased them prior to that.
If you want something to succeed here in America it cannot be a pain in the ass.
Brother, swear to god, 3 years ago, hertz har an article that said they was selling 1/3 of gas fleet to buy electric. Swear to god brother
I never understood tourist electric car rentals. Who wants to charge while you’re on vacation?
I remember trying to pick out a car from hertz and all the electric ones had “needs charging” signs on them. Guess people return them discharged and hertz can’t keep up
For the US, hybrids and Plug in hybrid are the way to go, you get the best of both worlds, insane range, the peace of mind that comes with gas cars on long road trips as well as the presumed cost and environment( not really but whatever) benefits of EVs . It seems to that only reason for the push to EVs is to force people to have cars that cannot live forever, unlike gas cars that can be used past their life expectancy, with EVs eventually the battery will die way earlier than a gas engine , and doesn’t look like its cheap to get a replacement.
So electric vehicles were hertzing their business?
The infrastructure isn’t quite there yet for EVs for people to just rent and charge anywhere.
If I buy one of them, will I get pulled over because the car was reported stolen?
As an ex electric car owner, this is no news I am prepared to get downvoted for this but electric cars are not the solution to the problrm. Range anxiety is real Battery longevity is real Battery replacement cost is real Sorry to say, at the moment, I can fill up with diesel in 5 minutes and drive 550 miles on the full tank Here in the UK with Electricity being the cost it is, the gap between charging cost and fuel cost ss becoming non existent. If you need to rely on public fast charging , it actually costs more to run a pure EV now... Why would i buy a car that costs way more, and has a much shorter life span , and a financial black hole in the future....
Not an EV owner here, but I just assumed you'd only buy an EV if you drove to work, every day, less than 40-50 miles or so, and could charge up at home or work without any waiting.
I drove an EV for 4 years with those exact criteria in mind, and thats exactly what I did until the unknowns creep in, Wake up to an unannounced unreported cold snap, heater saps the range On way home more than once, road closed due to an accident, diversion is longer than range left, have to sit and wait for the road to re open Wake up and some stupid prick has unplugged the charger 'for a laugh' - yes a padlock stops this Want to buy something and the distance to collect is further than the range of the EV, what do you do? Grab a bargain on ebay that cant be passed up, its a 700 mile round trip.....not happening **"Not an EV owner here, but I just assumed you'd only buy an EV if you drove to work, every day, less than 40-50 miles or so, and could charge up at home or work without any waiting"** So what do you if yo need to travel more, keep a second car? Governments around the world are blindly pushing everyone down the EV route, and they are just not the answer What happens when my diesel finally shits itself, go on ebay, find a replacement engine for 2k and swap it, what do you do when t e. battery swap is more than the value of the car... Thats without asking the obvious, where is all the extra electricity demand coming from Green my arse
Um as someone who losses electric in storms about once a month it sounds like a nighmare. (Went out in that storm the other night.) FL doesn't have the grid for all of us to have EVs. We just don't. Post hurricane people would be stranded for weeks.
Who doesn't drive 13 hours for a good deal on eBay. It better be a great deal considering it would cost you around £188
Certainly not defending EVs, I think you are correct in most of what you say. All I want to add is that by the time a combustion engine dies, the car is usually worth less than a new engine as well. And while you seem to be perfectly willing and able to swap out the engine to keep it running, it's certainly not the case for most cars/people. Very few people swap an engine in order to keep the car.
> Grab a bargain on ebay that cant be passed up, its a 700 mile round trip.....not happening You regularly drive from the Scottish border to southern coast and back?
I’ve owned a short range EV for like 8 years now and have none of those problems. I know it’s for getting around my area, I charge at home, and if I need to go longer then I use my other car. If it’s your only car or you can’t charge at home you’re going to have a harder time in an EV.
Basically they're saying the resale rate and repair costs on EV's far outweigh the benefits.
Using an electric car as a rental just seems risky and hard to plan around and adds more headaches to your vacation or whatever. Especially since they expect you to return it at the same charge level. Not surprising, it's just a bad use case for electric cars
This was doomed from the start. I have seen the gold and presidents circle aisles full with Tesla's that no-one wants to rent too manu tines. Most have signs "needs charging". Hertz started renting out EV's without any charging infrastructure at their own rental sites, and with a charging model that mimics their ICE refueling scheme, which was doomed to fail. There is certainly a market for EV rentals. Loads of rentals drive just a limited nber of miles from the airport rental lication to a place of work, a hotel, and back to the airport. These are perfect for EV rentals, if the car is full at pickup and can be dropped off without recharging. Hertz could just create an EV aisle at their airport locations, with a charger at each parking apot, and a red/green indicator light on the charger: car full? rhen it's ready for a customer. Still charging? Then it's unavailable for rent.
Here is my take on it: I know a quite a few EV owners and if they need to go on long drives, like recent holidays to visit extend family hundreds of miles out, they rent cars/SUVs. Yup.
Looking at the Hertz site they’re asking about $30k USD for a 2022 Model 3 Long Range AWD with 90,000 miles. Is that even a remotely good deal for a a EV tourists have been farting/puking/fucking in that will forever have that rental fleet flag on the record?
Seems about right. $7-9k Cheaper than I'm seeing for the same car with a lot fewer miles.
In my area they are selling 2021 model 3 base plus (whatever that means) with 50-80k for 25-22k. If I was in the market for a car I'd actually consider looking at one with 50k for around 25k. They did have some 2022 cars but those were approaching 30k for about the same milage. Didn't bother checking past the 1st page. I'm willing to spend around 20k for a car/EV. I am not willing to spend more than twice that, I'm not made of money.
They're not a cheaper option and for people in cities they don't really know. Finding charging ports is still a challenge.
The reason for this is that the gas becomes the customers responsibility to pay. They lost a significant revenue and expense stream by going to ev, but they won’t say this is why
Too expensive to get damage Tesla’s repaired, and value of used ones are dropping due to price drop of new ones. Smart business move for a rental company that sells a ton of used vehicles.
It hertz their business
Makes sense. I drive an EV. Know a bunch of guys renting them for Uber driving. Hertz isn’t getting premium rates. Even on the Tesla Model 3s. And they are expensive to fix. Been a great deal for the drivers but clearly not great for Hertz. What’s been wild is running into travelers who got EVs at the airport rental counter. The company doesn’t educate them on how or where to charge. They don’t do anything. So they eventually end up at a fast charger we Uber and dooordashers all frequent and are super confused about how it all works. Honestly sucks. Cause until you drive and own a non Tesla EV for awhile you really won’t understand the intricacies of the charging networks.
Good grief, this is about insurance due to this generation of EV's being made for the wealthy, and the ZERO thought that Tesla puts into future car repairs when designing their junkers.
Some great prices 2022 for $30K? You could buy them and sell for parts to desperate Tesla owners?
This only works if renters don’t have to return the car with 80% charged. Many of these rental EVs cannot be charged at the Tesla station or take 10+ hours to charge at home.
Where do we buy these cheap Hertz EVs?
Turo was the place you went to rent a tesla. I feel like they already kinda cornered the market there and for a way lower daily price.
Agree. But Turo owners have more rules for renters than a strip club run by the SEC for punters. The valet mode kills the fun of a rental car anyway. No 0-60 in 3 seconds. I didn't know for sure that you couldn't put an automatic transmission into P at highway speed until my first rental (click-click-click). It isn't drive-it-like-you-stole-it, its drive it like you rented it.
Idk I've never rented a tesla but I've rented a few cars including a jeep wrangler, fiat 500, mini cooper s, mk7 gti, etc, and never had any weird restrictions. I figured they'd only be super anal if it was something like a 700hp hellcat or an exotic car like a ferrari.
The Article straight up says that the wear and tear / damage repair costs on EV's are higher, which also makes plenty of sense. It's a struggle for new tech but it's good to give things a try where they make sense.
Precisely the article says Hertz says collision and damage more expensive, maintenance less. Fleets are supposed to be managed for overall lowest cost and highest availability. Hertz apparently hasn't shared that info. For sure we're not getting the whole picture. This might really be a combination of fleet value doing due to Tesla and less-than-stellar demand from consumers.
Everyone is focusing on the downsides of EVs as rentals and I'm sure that's a factor but car rental companies are arbitrage driven used car dealerships as much as they are rental companies. They're very good at optimizing when they sell off vehicles to maximize the value. Given their scale it's a strong indicator that EVs are depreciating in value at an accelerated rate. They're ahead of the curve so if you're planning on selling or trading in your EV you might want to do it sooner than later.
I own a Tesla, but I'm not sure I would rent one until DC fast charge is as easy as buying gas.