It's Hertz. I'm guessing it's like any rental company, but Hertz is the only one I've ever worked for. They push what they have an abundance on. Every year they buy or lease way too many of one type of vehicle and they sit on the lot collecting downtime. An EV adds another level for those that don't know how to manage them. There are a number of extremely simple solutions that could fix it for them, but they'd never do it because it would cost them a little money now to save a lot later. You have to think of the shareholders today, not where it could be 3 months from now. Any company beholden to some shareholders will be extremely wasteful.
Hertz CEO says buying EVs was a big mistake and very costly to the company margins
- Thread starter alarmguy
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In the case of Atlanta, potentially your life.So once you start to value your time EVs don’t work as well as ICE.
I get a couple emails a week from them promoting EVs.
10 years later and still not installed? Shocker! Anyone have this experience in Las Vegas? That's where I worked out of and I physically saw the Tesla chargers in the boxes 10 years ago. They were moved into the parts room in the maintenance shop and were still in there when I left the company.
I'm in So. CA. Just north of San Diego. I wouldn't take one to Vegas from here. The lines at the mid desert charging spots are ridiculous on busy weekends.
I am guessing it would be very expensive and maybe not even feasible in some areas because there might not be enough electrical capacity to add chargers. Think of those parking ramps that a lot rental companies at airports and it can't be cheap to bring a lot of power into those areas.
They're just Level 2 chargers. The place was wired with that in mind, they just never got it done.
I just didn't know if anyone here had flown in and rented from Las Vegas. There were supposed to be dedicated spots with Tesla chargers, but I don't think that ever happened. It didn't while I was there at least.
Me too. I laugh every time I see them. You couldn't pay me to take an EV as rental, especially here in the Midwest. Charging stations don't exist in most areas here, they are confined to larger city areas. If you want to drive around Chicago, sure, you can do it. Of course, driving around Chicago is its own special hell so EV or ICE it won't be pleasant.
I live in a rural part of my state. Charging would be its own interesting problem if I didn't have a Tesla. It seems they're the only ones investing in the infrastructure. You might not see them, but they're there. I was surprised how many chargers there actually were that I didn't see because the car points them out.
Cool story, but this is obviously not about a car you (or anyone) own(s). It’s about rental companies and the challenges that people face if they’re renting EVs in areas away from home. Even I can see some instances (metro areas, retired &/or local work only) where EVs can make a compelling argument.
But the vast majority of experiences show that being a business traveler and needing a rental exposes many more risks and vulnerabilities if one was to choose an EV. Even vacation EV rentals do not have the same level of concerns. But EVs simply do not work for every contingency that is merely routine if one has rented an ICE.
wemay
Site Donor 2023
Rental EV's just sounds like an oxymoron.
- People don't take as much care of a rental as they do their personal cars.
- Repair costs will be much higher.
Shocking that early innovators with new technology find it to be something a little less than that promised by the inventors.
I don't have a Tesla but when I look at the EV maps for this area only the larger cities have them. Aside from that, the ones in Peoria and East Peoria seem to be out of service most of the time and there are very few of them to begin with. East Peoria only has 4 in the Target parking lot and last time I was up that way, 2 were out of service. I wouldn't want to rely on having to drive 200 miles to a location that claims it has a charger only to find out its broken.
That’s literally what I said. I probably don’t want one as a rental, especially from a company that can’t reliably manage it. They’re great for personal use.Cool story, but this is obviously not about a car you (or anyone) own(s). It’s about rental companies and the challenges that people face if they’re renting EVs in areas away from home. Even I can see some instances (metro areas, retired &/or local work only) where EVs can make a compelling argument.
But the vast majority of experiences show that being a business traveler and needing a rental exposes many more risks and vulnerabilities if one was to choose an EV. Even vacation EV rentals do not have the same level of concerns. But EVs simply do not work for every contingency that is merely routine if one has rented an ICE.
It was a poor choice to buy electric vehicles to rent.
If you read the article it also points out losses are double that of vehicles with gasoline engines.
Typically companies work to make things more efficient with less loss.
In the case of the electric vehicles, salvage write offs and repair expenses are ridiculous compared to gasoline.
The take away from this is you are not going to see the major EV purchases by car rental companies moving forward that one is a fact. It was a flop and the rental industry has taken notice, and that means not just Hertz
I couldn't read the article but it seems a large part of the problem is that Hertz did not implement the EV rentals well. If every EV rental was delivered to the customer with a full charge, Hertz recommended EV for only those drivers going less than 80% of the theoretical range of the EV, and Hertz told the customers to not charge the EV themselves unless necessary, things would have turned out differently. Renting an EV to check them out would be a great idea. I'd love to maybe rent an EV for the weekend or a 100 to 200 mile round trip. I don't want to deal with charging it. I'm not set up for that at home and don't want to deal with it at a public charger. It's bad enough trying to gas up a rental car and not being able to find a gas station near the rental car office. It's really stupid for Hertz to have a fleet of EVs and no way to quickly charge them themselves.
I would be willing to bet that with them being a self insurer they ate a lot of totaled Teslas. What they didn't write off as a total loss(it's an actual financial loss when you're your own insurance) came as a loss on the sales in with the price drops. There's a 2018 Model S sitting at a dealer here and I've watched them drop the price 3 times now. If it gets dirt cheap I'll buy it and that's only an interesting proposition used because it would be genuinely cheap. That's the market Hertz is selling in. They're taking a bath on these things.
I don't think the price drops are a bad thing for the consumer, but they're horrible for a corporation that will have to realize a loss knowing they will sell the cars in 2-3 years. The price drops don't hurt me because I'll keep the car 10 years. That can't affect me more than $1k-$2k in the end when it's all said and done sales value wise. I can get mad about "overpaying" for the car, but that was the price at the time and the car we wanted. I think Tesla is doing the Samsung model of pricing.
AZjeff
$50 Site Donor 2023
They get wrecked and damaged like any other rental car. Probably lots of people rent an EV to check them out, new EV driver plus EV instant torque and acceleration might account for more accident damage.
