Hertz to buy 100K Teslas

[ZeeOSix]

Gasoline and diesel powered vehicles have tax in the price of the fuel, as well as a "gross weight" fee on the yearly registration cost, even if you never haul any load. Even motorcycles have a gross weight fee, which seems rediculous. And there is also excise tax based on the value of the vehicle. It's just a way for the state to dig into people's pockets for a bigger money grab. EVs have an added "use tax" to take the place of lost fuel tax revenue for now, but sure there will be other money collecting schemes being dreamt up for the future.

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

In all seriousness this is going to be an interesting experiment. Hertz is going to have to be careful with how they manage the charging schedule.

IMO renters won't be responsible for charging the car like they are responsible for filling the vehicle with fuel. It just takes too much time out of the renters schedule unlike pouring in 2-3 gallons of gasoline on the way to the airport. Renters won't want schedule the extra 20-30 minutes for charging. They just won't do that.

So my WAG is that Hertz will have superchargers at their locations and will manage availability accordingly.

Another challenge : PARTS. Tesla customer service is awful and they do not provide parts or diagnostics to outside vendors. Hertz isn't going to want to wait on parts to repair minor damage (body, wheel, suspension).

 

[Snagglefoot]

Oh, don't worry. Tax masters will not let EVs "cheat" them out of taxes for roads. There may even be a day where people charging at home will have to put EV charging power through a dedicated meter so it can be charged and taxed differently than the power going to the house use.

Of course, people with their own solar panels would probably be exempt from power company intervention.

Sort of like making moon shine!

 

[4WD]

In all seriousness this is going to be an interesting experiment. Hertz is going to have to be careful with how they manage the charging schedule.

IMO renters won't be responsible for charging the car like they are responsible for filling the vehicle with fuel. It just takes too much time out of the renters schedule unlike pouring in 2-3 gallons of gasoline on the way to the airport. Renters won't want schedule the extra 20-30 minutes for charging. They just won't do that.

So my WAG is that Hertz will have superchargers at their locations and will manage availability accordingly.

Another challenge : PARTS. Tesla customer service is awful and they do not provide parts or diagnostics to outside vendors. Hertz isn't going to want to wait on parts to repair minor damage (body, wheel, suspension).

If I burn 4 gallons on the way to the airport … not stopping for gas … the extra they charge is fine by me …
Charging is going to mean having extra units in the inventory … besides, my airport rental spots close before midnight and could charge a few hours when closed …

 

[UncleDave]

Many states have started charging an EV specific registration tax to compensate for lost pump revenue.

Its equivalent to about 10K of annual driving, so it hits the grocery getters hard, and lets the huge mile guys off light.

 

[Inked]

How far did he think he was gonna go on empty? According to the article the vehicle was on empty when he took it out that night.
That is some pretty bad judgement, right?
By the way, I live just south of Fremont. I remember when the Fremont Police Dept added their Model S, in solidarity with the Fremont Tesla plant.

The article did not say it was on empty. It said it hadn’t been charged before coming back from repairs that same day. Also, his shift began at 2 PM and the pursuit began 9 hours later at 11PM.

It did say that he was the officer that discovered the Avalon so it’s not as if he joined a pursuit already in progress initiated by another officer. It was just him at the time he discovered it.

Why didn’t he recharge during his shift? The article doesn't address it but often times police are just running from call to call their entire shift. I don’t know if that was the case here but it routinely happens.

“We do run out of gas [on pursuits]. It happens. We’ve also had regular cars get flat tires on a pursuit, or cars that just die on a pursuit,” she continued.

“It’s definitely good to know [this can happen but] it did not jeopardize this pursuit.” - Fremont Public Affairs Mgr.

I don’t know what the battery discharge rate of this vehicle is at high speeds compared to their other ICE patrol vehicles using gasoline but it’s something I’m sure will be vetted by them if it hasn’t already.

I’m not against EV’s. While they have a way to go in certain applications they will get ironed out as time goes on and as people learn their limitations just as we’ve learned about older technologies.

What i do take umbrage with is calling the officer “stupid” given the limited details and how they were documented in the article.

 

[DwightFrye]

My guess is that initially, those cars will only be available at major airports. It will be a while before Tesla can ship 100,000 vehicles to Hertz and still fill regular consumer demand.

Those major locations will have superchargers. I would be curious to see what the average mileage that is put on by a rental car customer at those locations. My guess is that it isn't much. The business traveler gets the car, spends a couple of days doing whatever he needs to do and then returns it and goes to his next location. The customer who rents a car and then puts several hundred miles on it is most likely a small percentage of the business.

If my assumptions are accurate, the range of the Tesla's won't be an issue for most transactions nor will recharging them.

As of this moment, TSLA is at $1085 per share. It may drop $50 tomorrow. But I have predicted before that it will be $1250 next year.

I saw a commercial for a Ford electric truck. They were bragging about spending $30 million on developing it. Well, a million dollars isn't much when you are starting pretty much from scratch to enter the EV market. How are Ford, GM and Stellantis (around $16, $58 and $20 share today, respectively) going to fund their EV development ? And while still spending $$$$ to run their conventional ICE production lines ? Good luck with that.

 

[IndyIan]

My guess is that initially, those cars will only be available at major airports. It will be a while before Tesla can ship 100,000 vehicles to Hertz and still fill regular consumer demand.

Those major locations will have superchargers. I would be curious to see what the average mileage that is put on by a rental car customer at those locations. My guess is that it isn't much. The business traveler gets the car, spends a couple of days doing whatever he needs to do and then returns it and goes to his next location. The customer who rents a car and then puts several hundred miles on it is most likely a small percentage of the business.

If my assumptions are accurate, the range of the Tesla's won't be an issue for most transactions nor will recharging them.

As of this moment, TSLA is at $1085 per share. It may drop $50 tomorrow. But I have predicted before that it will be $1250 next year.

I saw a commercial for a Ford electric truck. They were bragging about spending $30 million on developing it. Well, a million dollars isn't much when you are starting pretty much from scratch to enter the EV market. How are Ford, GM and Stellantis (around $16, $58 and $20 share today, respectively) going to fund their EV development ? And while still spending $$$$ to run their conventional ICE production lines ? Good luck with that.

I think Ford should be bragging about only spending $30M to make the first practical electric and hybrid pickup truck(although I suspect its more like $300m, or maybe $3B).
I'll be surprised if TSLA stock don't plunge if the electric F150's prove to work well, and then Ford can electrify the rest of the line up and build an equivalent enough car to everything Tesla makes for less money and has the manufacturing to meet demand and a complete dealership/service/parts network for all on N.A... Right now probably half the pickup truck market isn't within an hour of a Tesla dealership, and making it a PITA to get parts isn't going to fly with people whose electric car/truck isn't a toy or a life style statement.
I think there's no doubt electric/hybrids vehicles are the future, but Tesla isn't going to have its early production advantage for much longer...

 

[97prizm]

Lets face it Rivian, and a few others have managed to beat Tesla to the truck market. Elon talked alot of trash about how Tesla will be first blah blah. The Cyber Truck is delayed again. Second Yesterday Tesla rescinded their newest update as "It wasn't good" according to them. Why would Hertz put up with the constant all-over-the map attitude? Repairing a Tesla, good luck Hertz hasn't seen the nightmare that will be.

 

[JohnnyG]

I suggest that people consider that EVs are coming whether we like it or not. Do you want America to own the EV market or China?
By the way, I am not sure mechanics are going away. There is plenty to do. Regardless, technology marches on; it always has and always will.
And there are winners and losers.

First of all, China has already won the EV race. If only for the fact that it is the main supplier of Lithium and now Magnesium. The simple fact that Tesla decided to produce cars in China is evidence of that fact. And secondly as many other have criticized me for, I said the ECONOMY is not ready for the hit in loss of manufacuring jobs not the crap shovelers that are going to lose their jobs.

Tesla is about to face some of it's toughest challenges yet in the EV market as many other established car makers are finally catching on to the idea that EVs are now in demand.
I am not anti EV, I had a VOLT and loved it (yeah, I know, it was a hybrid) but it gave me enough of the "Totally Electric Expierience" to be able to appreciate the fact that EV's are the future of transportation.

Wait until people get wind of the fact that it costs more to recharge an EV than it does to fuel an ICE car. Recent study in case you are wondering. Yes, it probably includes the cost of installing home level 2 charging, but so what. It does NOT include the additional road tax schemes that state gov'ts are currently cooking up.

 

[OVERKILL]

I saw a commercial for a Ford electric truck. They were bragging about spending $30 million on developing it. Well, a million dollars isn't much when you are starting pretty much from scratch to enter the EV market. How are Ford, GM and Stellantis (around $16, $58 and $20 share today, respectively) going to fund their EV development ? And while still spending $$$$ to run their conventional ICE production lines ? Good luck with that.

Ford is planning to have spent $30 BILLION on EV development by 2025. This is from back in May:

Ford on Wednesday dropped some big electric-vehicle bombshells as it gears up to tackle rivals in the EV realm. During its Capital Markets Day investor event, the automaker revealed its new Ford Plus plan, designed to help the Blue Oval in the shift to EVs with a new, scalable EV platform, IonBoost in-house battery engineering and manufacturing -- and a whopping $30 billion investment for all things EV by 2025.

They've already spent $950 million just to upgrade the plant to build the F-150 Lightning:

Ford Motor Company this week announced an unprecedented $11.4 billion investment in electric vehicle production targeted for sites in Tennessee and Kentucky. The investment, being made in partnership with South Korea-based energy company SK Innovations, is the largest manufacturing investment in the company’s history and will create two large manufacturing complexes, one near Memphis, Tennessee, and the other south of Louisville, Kentucky.

The move presages a massive restructuring in Ford’s operations as it moves away from gas vehicles. The company has targeted a goal of 40 percent EV production by 2030. The new EV operations will be much less labor intensive than production of gas-powered vehicles, involving more technical operations and far fewer assembly jobs, since EVs require fewer moving parts.

The two new sites are expected to employ some 10,000 workers. The megacampus near Memphis is being called Blue Oval City, after the Ford logo, and is supposed to be the largest and most efficient factory in the company’s history, dwarfing the massive Rouge Complex outside Detroit, which was the largest factory in the world when it opened in 1928. It will include an assembly plant, a battery plant and a supplier park. According to the Detroit Free Press “Inside the plant, ‘zero-waste-to-landfill’ processes will capture materials and production scrap at an on-site materials collection center to sort and route materials for recycling or processing either at the plant or off-site.”

In Kentucky, the company is planning the BlueOvalSK Battery Park, which will consist of twin battery plants that will supply electric power for new Ford and Lincoln electric vehicles set for production later this decade. The first batteries will be produced in 2025 with the complex in full operation by 2026. Construction will start later this year.

When fully operational, the three battery plants will turn out 1 million units a year to power a range of Ford vehicles.

The new EV megasites dwarf Ford’s previous commitment of $950 million in the Rouge Complex in Dearborn, Michigan, to build the all-electric 2022 F-150 Lightning. It also puts Ford, at least temporarily ahead of other major carmakers in the shift to EVs, including General Motors and Stellantis, as well as Japanese-based rival Toyota, which has focused more on hybrids rather than all-electric vehicles. However, General Motors is currently renovating its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant to produce new electric Hummers sometime next year.

So that $30 million figure is clearly wrong.

 

[OVERKILL]

Wait until people get wind of the fact that it costs more to recharge an EV than it does to fuel an ICE car. Recent study in case you are wondering. Yes, it probably includes the cost of installing home level 2 charging, but so what. It does NOT include the additional road tax schemes that state gov'ts are currently cooking up.

Based on what, a Prius and gas prices from two years ago compared to just using Tesla Superchargers? That's just nonsense. An EV costs considerably less to recharge than ti does to fuel an ICE car. I can break down the math for you if you'd like to see how that works, I've no problem with that.

Most people who buy an EV will be charging at home, where electricity is considerably cheaper than at a fast charge station.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Wait until people get wind of the fact that it costs more to recharge an EV than it does to fuel an ICE car. Recent study in case you are wondering. Yes, it probably includes the cost of installing home level 2 charging, but so what. It does NOT include the additional road tax schemes that state gov'ts are currently cooking up.

The cost of "EV electricity" will not stay low forever. It will become it's own identity and commodity (even for home chargers) as more and more EVs hit the roads.

 

[TumblrDucks]

911's used to win Paris to Dakar.

Idaho has tried the E.V. registration tax. It lasted 1 or 2 years, I had to pay about double for my Hybrid Accord. It was then Quickly repealed.

meanwhile in Ohio no one care if hybrid or EV pay 100/200 dollars more for registration...
Good to know it's getting repealed in your state...

 

[OVERKILL]

The cost of "EV electricity" will not stay low forever. It will become it's own identity and commodity (even for home chargers) as more and more EVs hit the roads.

Yes, I fully suspect that EV charging will be accounted for separately somehow, either through some smart charging infrastructure that tracks the EV "handshake" or similar, to match the revenue currently recouped from gasoline taxes, which are supposed to fund roads and bridges.

EV charge kWh will be taxed separately from home usage kWh, and thus the rate will be considerably higher. That's the only way to make it like gas vehicles where you are inherently paying more for larger or performance vehicles by using more fuel. Same goes for bigger, heavier, faster EV's, they'll suck back more kWh.

My understanding is that there's already communication capabilities in the charge ports, so it's not difficult to envision that being leveraged by equipment placed on the "network" to track the ID and consumption of the vehicle and present that separately on the power bill.

 

[E365]

I’m looking into 240v home charging installation now. My local electric company has an EV program and it’s massively cheaper per kWh (when used off-peak). Have to install a separate meter though, which will take a long time to recoup. Long term it makes sense, but I’m afraid they’ll kill the program before you’ve broken even

Still seems unlikely they’d go from dirt-cheap off-peak EV rates to HIGHER than normal off-peak EV rates.

 

[Kiwi_ME]

Wait until people get wind of the fact that it costs more to recharge an EV than it does to fuel an ICE car. ...

In this corner of the world my EV costs 1/5th of my ICE car to run, both cars are a similar size. If I used public chargers I'd still be paying half or 1/3.

 

[ZeeOSix]

I’m looking into 240v home charging installation now. My local electric company has an EV program and it’s massively cheaper per kWh (when used off-peak). Have to install a separate meter though, which will take a long time to recoup. Long term it makes sense, but I’m afraid they’ll kill the program before you’ve broken even

Separate power meter ... it's already starting. No surprise.

 

[JeffKeryk]

I have to believe Hertz has figured out how to charge their EVs, how to bill customers, etc. They are installing chargers as well.
The stock market has put its faith in Tesla and its whack CEO.
In fact, Morgan Stanley thinks Musk may be the 1st trillion dollar man.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Can you even buy a Tesla on a used car lot?

@JHZR2 yes you can buy Teslas at used car lots. There are probalby hundreds posted on Craigslist car by dealer locally here.
Probably 100 by owner.