How many people do you know that have run out of juice in their EV? I don't know any.
What would be an acceptable charge time at a fast charger for you?
- Thread starter ZZman
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Happened to me once when my fuel light burned out. Once.
I agree. I think thats probably a personality thing that will stay with people regardless of fuel format.
Given how easy to just plug in an EV, why not just charge it every day like one would charge a cell phone? Especially when many set up max charging at 80%.
If I had an EV and needed to commute to Silicon Valley every day (and I did that 100 mile round-trip commute before) I would think I'd want to charge it every day. But even if I'm working at home and going on 5 mile trips to Safeway I'd probably want it at whatever my set charge level is in the morning.
I used to charge every day. Then one day I forgot... Ya know what happened? Nothing.
Depends on the owner. EVs make more sense when there's home charging, and I can speak to how easy it is to just plug it in at home. But going out to get gas might be seen as more of a chore.
Sure. But it's plenty easy to just plug in. Certainly a lot easier than going out to a gas station.
Those things might help, here's the rub: Until an EV can charge as fast as someone can fill a tank, using them for rentals imo is still going to be a problem. Many people renting cars are usually on a vacation, they want to enjoy their vacations and have them as hassle free as possible.
I would think the majority of car rentals are still business or corporate, especially where many are on short notice at higher rates. I thought that there are several corporate initiatives where they prefer reserving EVs for business trips.
https://skift.com/2022/03/09/electric-car-rentals-and-shares-gain-momentum-with-business-travelers/
Granted it gets pretty tricky with corporate rentals. I remember getting several of them over the years at one company where we were told to just return the car to Hertz with however much gas was in it, and that any additional fuel added was at our discretion but we had a per diem for all other incidentals. If it's an EV I'm thinking it's probably the same. But then again everything was covered under the corporate rental, so I'm thinking it would have been easy to just use a Tesla Supercharger if it was a Tesla rental and it would be charged to the company.
As far as being on vacation, there are an increasing number of EV owners who might just be comfortable with it. But even then it's a lot nicer if there's 80-90% charge when picking up. I'd be comfortable with a Model 3 or Model Y on a vacation trip. There's also a certain "cool factor". And if my hotel has complimentary EV charging, that's a bonus.
I can't speak about corporate rentals. There might be a lot of EV owners who would like an EV rental for vacations, but I'd venture a guess that 95% of the population still drives ICE. Even if my numbers are off and it's 85%, the majority of drivers are still driving ICE. If Hertz was totally confident in their initial decision, they would have stuck with it I would think. Maybe in a few years they'll revisit it. CNBC said earlier the interest in EV's and EV ownership is dropping, so your guess is as good as mine.
They've done it for more than 10 years as a small part of their fleet. They just made way too much of a sudden push and weren't prepared for the result. None of these stories were happening in 2013 up to this point with the Model S. I was at the Las Vegas location at the time. I think we got 10 cars in the first run. Likely Los Angeles got 15-20. They weren't doing it in huge numbers, but it was treated as a specialty rental so I'm sure all of those renting them were renting that specific car. Definitely great when the customer gets what they want. I've been surprised by cars I didn't want to be caught dead in, but as a member of the team there it wasn't my choice. Flooding the fleet with specialty cars for standard rentals just isn't a good move.
Hertz's biggest problems weren't with EVs in general, although EV acceptance might have been a minor issue. They were with Tesla. Especially how their price cuts affected the resale value of their fleet of Teslas, and the cost of repairs where an inordinate amount were damaged by Uber drivers. I assume that as they take delivery of newer Teslas, they're buying them at current prices.
And absolutely they're still into EVs. They're still taking new deliveries as they sell off their old fleet. This is how the car rental industry works, as cars are rarely driven to the ground, but sold off when they still have residual value. Certainly this is an adjustment. And the important thing they're going to help rent EVs is adding to their on-site charging infrastructure, which is something the failed to account for earlier.
I realize they didn't get totally out of EVs. IIRC they're cutting the size of the EV fleet and raising the number of ICE vehicles now.
The SEC filing only stated that their intent was to use the proceeds of their EV sales to buy new ICE vehicles. But then again how does that work? ICE vehicles get retired and sold off too. This is just an early retirement for their mostly-Tesla fleet of EVs.
This is clearly going to be revisited in a few years. I would think the most important thing would be public familiarity and/or acceptance of EVs in general. And the real kicker will be when they take delivery of non-Teslas with NACS connections and access to Tesla's charging network.
Time will tell.
I have waited in line 5-15 minutes multiple times to buy gas at Costco because it's consistently the cheapest gas you can get in my area. And my daily driver gets horrible gas mileage, so there is a very strong incentive to seek out the cheapest gas you can get.
Once you get to the pump, it's often slower than usual because every single pump is in use at the same time.
So the answer has to be more than 10-15 minutes, because I already take 10-15 minutes and sometimes more, to fill up on a regular basis.
I'm going to say in the 20-25 minute range will work, being that, it doesn't seem as far away from current capabilities as the other statements in this thread. It's something that can be achieved in the next 5 years I'm betting.
Once you get to the pump, it's often slower than usual because every single pump is in use at the same time.
So the answer has to be more than 10-15 minutes, because I already take 10-15 minutes and sometimes more, to fill up on a regular basis.
I'm going to say in the 20-25 minute range will work, being that, it doesn't seem as far away from current capabilities as the other statements in this thread. It's something that can be achieved in the next 5 years I'm betting.
People with pacemakers might find inductive charging pads disruptive to their primary pump.
They have to start buying them first.
After a long day at work I want to go home and kick my boots off and relax. I don't want to spend 45+ minutes getting battery charged.
I ran out of gas once when I first started driving. In my own defense, the gas gauge in my first car didn't work. Come to think of it the speedometer didn't either.
I don't know of any either. I do run my PHEV out of charge on extended road trips, but with over 500 miles of gasoline range it's really not an issue.
