[HN Gopher] Hertz is scaling back its EV ambitions because its T...
___________________________________________________________________
Hertz is scaling back its EV ambitions because its Teslas keep
getting damaged
Author : cebert
Score : 75 points
Date : 2023-10-29 14:33 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I've never fully understood how rental companies manage the risk
| caused by drivers not having an incentive to treat the vehicles
| well.
|
| There's a thousand ways you can incrementally damage a car that
| cannot be detected until some time in the future.
|
| I guess with rentals some maintenance tasks can at least be
| handled. I know someone who leased for three years and never got
| the oil changed until the day before returning it.
| deaddodo wrote:
| > I know someone who leased for three years and never got the
| oil changed until the day before returning it.
|
| This is pretty easily detectable with modern ECUs.
| BonoboIO wrote:
| To me it seems that nobody cares, not the driver or the lease
| company. All priced in.
|
| ,,Don't be gentle it's a rental"
|
| Everybody drives their car as if they stole them.
| hef19898 wrote:
| In terms of off-road capability it goes: 4x4, rental,
| rental 4x4.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Oil changes? How does the ECU know? Only if someone resets
| the oil change indicator. All you have to do is reset the
| indicator and not change the oil.
| bluGill wrote:
| There are other sensors and that can indicate oil
| condition. Most don't have that, but we can't rules it out
| '
| deaddodo wrote:
| Or the cap on/off sensor, other oil warnings, etc.
| tiahura wrote:
| In olden times, people were more conscientious and more
| ethical.
| ThrowAway1922A wrote:
| Generally they were, there's a lot more feral "people" these
| days.
| HomeDeLaPot wrote:
| What makes you think that?
| seabrookmx wrote:
| What about all the public executions, slavery and genocide?
| vivekd wrote:
| I don't want to touch on what I see as a futile debate
| about whether people are generally better or worse now.
|
| However I do feel the need to point out that there are
| currently more slaves in the world than at any other time
| in history. I don't mean in the idomatic sense of wage
| slavery or anything. I'm talking about literal slavery -
| forced labor and ownership of people.
|
| Much of the stuff you buy today probably had a slave
| involved in its production at some point. Corporations say
| they can't ban slave labour from their supply chain because
| it's impossible for them to tell what resources had slaves
| involved in its production. The slave produced supply and
| legitimate supply of goods is too mixed to adequately track
|
| Some reading to get started
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century
|
| Also genocide was very prevalent in the 20th century
| probably more than at any other time
| tiahura wrote:
| The discussion is about the behavior of car renters so
| really only since the 1950s is relevant.
| alemanek wrote:
| Fairly certain horse rentals were a thing. Might be a bit
| of a stretch but post houses would fit the bill [0]. So,
| this lets us go back to the 2nd century BC. Just need to
| find some data on renter behavior now.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_house_(historica
| l_build...
| a2tech wrote:
| My wife leased a car for 2 years and never put enough miles on
| it to require the oil to be changed. Does that qualify are
| damaging the vehicle?
|
| Hertz works by flipping cars every few years (2-3, depending on
| mileage) and post rental inspections for obvious damage. It's
| not too complicated.
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| Your wife didn't change the oil on her (leased) car for two
| years?
| DoesntMatter22 wrote:
| She only drove 3000 miles per year?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Oil changes are what, every 30k km for new cars? Totally
| possible to not have a single service or oil change in two
| years.
| ghaff wrote:
| You should probably get it changed once a year--although
| it also probably isn't some grave error to let it go a
| couple years if you haven't been putting a lot of miles
| on.
| hef19898 wrote:
| OEM maintenance manuals for wvery newish car I had,
| across miltiple brands, since MY 2008 an initial service
| interval of 3 years, and then 30,000 km or two years.
| Yearly oil changes stopped being a thing in the 90s,
| unless we talk about heavy use and / or harsh
| environments.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| Although check the definition of "heavy use" -- it may
| include commuting during rush hour.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Heavy use: really bad roads, dust, pulling heavy loads,
| very high temperatures, track use (high speed on
| motorways is different), very high milage...
|
| Your daily communte is not heavy use, unless it is
| through Sahara or something...
| pvaldes wrote:
| It depends on the type of oil, but is either Km or time,
| what happens first
| kelnos wrote:
| I own my car, and that's about how much I drive; less,
| actually, I think. Not having a daily commute and mostly
| only using the car for longer trips (I live in a walkable
| city with decent transit) helps. It's nice to have a lower
| insurance rate for driving much less, too.
|
| I've considered it might be overall cheaper ditching the
| car and renting (or ubering, which I do sometimes) when I
| need one, but I value having the car ready to go at an
| unplanned moment's notice. And I just prefer having my own
| car that I'm familiar and comfortable with.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm only about 5,000 miles these days and I don't even
| live in a city. No commute. Don't drive into the city all
| that often. Take long weekend trips of up to maybe high
| triple digits miles--but, again, not that frequently.
|
| But absolutely could not live where I do without my own
| car.
| tohnjitor wrote:
| It does because engine oil degrades over time.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Synthetic oil doesn't really so.
|
| Edit: long perioda of a car not driven has the effect of
| not all gearbox and enhine parts being lubricated, that has
| a negative effect on oil as all that corrusion is ending up
| in the oil. That so has nothing to do with yearly millage,
| pulling a car out of storage every 11 months to drive
| 50,000 miles in one go has the same issues, and a lot more
| on top.
| olyjohn wrote:
| It still does. Especially after heat cycling, and taking
| on all the garbage that gets past the rings, and all the
| moisture that collects in the crankcase. Maybe sitting on
| a shelf is fine, but in the engine it definitely will
| break down. It lasts longer than conventional but isn't
| indestructible.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Sure, but much longer than mineral oils (since when those
| aren't OEM spec anymore?). Hence the two year / 30k km
| interballs (whatever happens first.
| alphabettsy wrote:
| Water and gasoline still dilute the oil regardless and
| synthetics are still affected.
| linsomniac wrote:
| ... why are we talking about oil changes on cars that have
| none? :-)
| pvaldes wrote:
| >leased a car for 2 years and never put enough miles on it to
| require the oil to be changed. Does that qualify are damaging
| the vehicle?
|
| Yes, is recommended to change oil each 12 months at least
| HWR_14 wrote:
| How far in the future? High turnover is priced into rental
| cars. They normally only last 2-4 years or 25k-40k miles.
|
| Meanwhile, all preventative maintenance (oil, etc.) is trivial
| to ensure happens on time and problems can be solved earlier
| because no one has an incentive to ignore the warnings (because
| a repair would be inconvenient or expensive). And they must get
| a great deal on replacement parts and mechanic services are no
| where near retail.
| dawnerd wrote:
| It was my understanding that's why most rental car companies
| also run used car sales so they can flip the cars before they
| get too bad.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| If you're only keeping the car 2-3 years you can get away
| with pushing the oil change intervals out or skipping some of
| them and other maintenance. I would not believe that rental
| companies are strictly following the manufacturers
| maintenance schedules, when they can save money and not
| suffer the consequences of deferring maintenance.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| They sell the cars when they are done with them, and
| regular maintenance is monitored by the onboard computer.
| It would be stupid to save a few dollars to obviously ding
| the resale value.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| > maintenance is monitored by the onboard computer
|
| So is there a way for the prospective buyer to query this
| log?
|
| And can't it be marked as done without doing the work?
| megaman821 wrote:
| This article is basically stating the opposite of your
| intuition. Rideshare drivers are causing much more damage the
| car renters, so they are taking unexpected losses by using half
| the EV fleet for rideshare.
| darkwater wrote:
| How can one fuck a rental car in a way it can be detected only
| days or weeks later?
|
| Personally I tend to be 10X cautious with a rented car because
| I never pay for full assurance coverage, because I feel it like
| being robbed (the same way renting a child's seat makes you
| feel, I paid more for the seat that for the car itself)
| latchkey wrote:
| I went to Mexico once, damaged the side of a brand new rental
| car (big huge dent in the side of the door from a close
| corner in an alley). Shockingly to me, the repairs (which
| they estimated and billed me for when I returned the car),
| were less than the insurance (that I didn't purchase).
| rightbyte wrote:
| Sometimes you can just suck dents out with a, you know, the
| thing a plumber use in the sink or toilette. Then you
| repaint the edges of the dent if they are visible.
| latchkey wrote:
| paint scratched + dent... there was a low cement
| staircase as I was going around a right hand corner of a
| small alley... didn't see it... whoops.
| seabrookmx wrote:
| Underbody damage? On an ice vehicle smashing up the oil pan
| for instance.
|
| Anecdotally, the folks checking over the vehicle before
| taking it back also do quite a poor job and miss things. A
| friend of mine I was helping move put a solid dent in the box
| of a u-haul and they didn't even notice.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah, it's usually a pretty cursory check. I've definitely
| had a number of scrapes over the years that weren't major
| but weren't totally trivial either and they've never been
| flagged. Right now I'm driving a rental that has some
| gouges in the paint up front that I had to make sure got
| added to my rental contract; presumably these were not
| identified after a prior rental.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's probably more a cumulative thing. In the western US, for
| example, there are a lot of bad mountain/desert/etc. roads
| that are rough on a vehicle, especially basic street cars.
| I've never taken a rental on a road I wouldn't have taken my
| own car on but I'm sure I've caused more wear and tear than
| just driving a car down the highway.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| > How can one fuck a rental car in a way it can be detected
| only days or weeks later?
|
| I used to run 'rental cars' (aka cabs) into the ground on a
| regular basis just because you're not making any money
| sitting around waiting on a wrecker. Plus, the company
| generally didn't fix the cars unless they were towed in,
| can't even count how many times I'd swap out of a car after
| telling them what's wrong with it and see a message the next
| morning about needing a passenger rescue on that car because
| the mechanics just sent it back out without even looking at
| it beyond "well, it starts and drives around the yard".
|
| The last cab company I worked for had an _unofficial_ policy
| (on 'voucher' trips which were billed to insurance companies
| and whatnot) that if you got the passenger in the car you'd
| get paid for the trip so if you have a $100+ trip on your
| screen and the car can somehow limp to the pickup address
| then this what you do without worrying about what it'll do to
| the car...
|
| I didn't intentionally tear up the cars but after a while I
| learned what a Prius could take. No AC in the Arizona summer,
| straight back to the yard. Car makes a big thumping noise
| taking off from every stop, probably be OK for a day or two
| before finding a better car to swap into.
|
| Can't imagine rideshare drivers care any more about the cars
| than I ever did.
| InvertedRhodium wrote:
| Using the incorrect octane fuel is one way, it'll seriously
| shorten the engines lifetime but will probably take months to
| become obvious.
| chriscappuccio wrote:
| Don't the cars just dial back ignition timing when they
| detect knock? Unless your car has no ability to dial back,
| maybe with a custom high-octane tune, regular fuel should
| still be safe to run.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| With modern cars incorrect octane will decrease available
| power, as the knock detector reduces the spark's advance,
| but it won't otherwise hurt the engine.
|
| Low-octane gas will cause problems in older carbureted
| cars, but most cars sold in the last thirty-or-so years
| will not have this problem.
| ahoka wrote:
| Mandatory service every year? Not that hard.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Yearly services are still thing? All newish cars I know are
| on a 2 years and/or 30,000 km schedule.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> Yearly services are still thing?_
|
| Usually yes.
|
| Certain sports cars with turbos or superchargers mandate 6
| month service periods for their engines. And you need to
| abide to that if you don't wanna void your warranty.
|
| This is a scam by the auto industry.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Maintenance intervalls are _not_ a scam... And high
| performance engines and cars are obviously different from
| normal cars...
| crazygringo wrote:
| They do manage the risk. It's all priced in. That's precisely
| one of the reasons why renting a car is so expensive.
|
| If they hadn't set prices to account for that risk, the rental
| companies would have all gone bankrupt decades ago.
| cavisne wrote:
| Hertz presumably use the fleet telemetry data Tesla provides
| [1] which probably give some interesting insights into how a
| car gets damaged.
|
| https://github.com/teslamotors/fleet-telemetry/blob/main/pro...
| alexose wrote:
| The headline doesn't really match the point of the article, which
| is that they're using half the vehicles for rideshare, thus
| causing more wear and tear than a typical rental. Apparently they
| didn't factor this into their math and had to fess up during
| their earnings call.
|
| The bigger problem is that their Teslas are so expensive to fix.
| I suspect a lack of replacement parts and/or qualified techs is
| to blame. Too bad, because if they had better repairability then
| Tesla would have a real claim to lowest cost-per-mile.
| peterder wrote:
| There's a lot of sensor-integrated parts that are difficult or
| impossible to repair and very expensive to replace.
| wredue wrote:
| Saturn was also notorious for sensor integrated parts. That
| didn't last very long.
|
| Tesla has a first mover advantage, but the "sensor integrated
| parts" has been tested and failed already.
| MDWolinski wrote:
| Yep, we rented a Tesla from Hertz during a recent vacation.
| Took a small pebble in the window causing a 1-inch spider crack
| on the lower part of it. Over $1200 repair bill sent to us for
| it, luckily we had insurance through our credit card.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| That sounds like a typical price for a dealer-replaced window
| including sensor calibration. If you're willing to skip
| calibration, cost is about half that - some people say
| calibration is not strictly necessary, but it's a safety
| system, I wanted to make sure it's working.
|
| This is based on getting my 2020 non-EV car's windshield
| replaced, the local glass shop said they can do calibrations
| for many cars, but didn't have the right procedures/equipment
| for my model.
| calciphus wrote:
| Tesla-sized and shaped glass is not available from general
| glass shops. I had a large crack appear in mine. My
| insurance and multiple glass shops in the bay area told me
| it had to be fixed by Tesla. No one else would be able to.
|
| Tesla did fix it for free though, because they weren't sure
| it wasn't an installation issue (no impact point, just a
| hairline crack running down the glass).
| Johnny555 wrote:
| Safelite said they can replace a Tesla windshield
| including calibration for $1300 -- for my non-EV car,
| it's $1100 for a windshield and calibration.
| abadpoli wrote:
| I recently replaced a windshield (plus calibration) for a
| Honda Accord and it was $350.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I've had some windshields replaced by a friend of mine who
| runs a business in this domain and the typical cost of the
| windshields is on the order of 100 to 200 bucks depending
| on make & model, and about $50 worth of materials to put it
| all in according to factory spec. He can do one in an hour
| and a bit and it's _very_ good money if you have a steady
| stream of work. He also said that if he was better at
| sourcing he could probably increase his margins quite a bit
| still but they 're already more than good enough. Dealers
| will be happy to rip you off on stuff like this, shopping
| around is always smart. Except when the company has a
| monopoly (such as in the case of Tesla).
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Those aftermarket windshield replacements (Safe-Lite,
| etc.) in my experience (have had a few over the years)
| always end up leaking. Always. If I had insurance
| coverage that applied I'd insist on a dealer replacement
| with OEM seals and glass.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I've yet to have a problem with any of the ones that were
| replaced, and they're approved as part of the safety
| structure of the car if glued in place with the right
| kind of glue and process. Technically it can't really be
| the windshield that leaks, usually it is a sign of wrong
| glue or an inappropriate application of the glue or
| process. This as well as good prepwork are key to an
| optimal result.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yes, I meant that the seal eventually leaks and I get
| rainwater coming in and running down the inside of the
| glass or at the corners of the windshield.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Crappy operators tend so save on the quality of the
| adhesive they use, that saves a couple of bucks and looks
| _just_ the same right after you leave their place of work
| but it comes back to haunt you in the long run. A
| 'proper' operator will use the exact same glue as the
| manufacturer originally used. Another common error is to
| not properly glean the surfaces the glue will have to
| bond to both mechanically and from various residue. This
| can cause the glue simply not to stick at all. The first
| is greed, the second is usually crappy instruction. The
| guy I know has worked for manufacturers on mass
| windshield replacements, so he has done thousands
| according to manufacturer spec and that makes a big
| difference in workmanship, but he says that there is no
| guarantee that a dealer will do a better job, there _is_
| the guarantee that if the dealer fucks up you usually get
| your next replacement for free and some of those window
| replacement businesses are 'fly by night', the worse the
| quality the bigger the chance that you will need them to
| honor their warranty, but also the bigger the chance that
| they will no longer exist. Insurance companies sometimes
| work with a bunch of preferred installers. Here in NL
| besides by friend I've also had reasonably good
| experiences with Carglass, not all without trouble but
| they want to stay in business. Over the course of now
| close to 40 years of driving I've lost a whole stack of
| windshields, especially near construction zones but the
| last couple of years have actually been pretty good. I
| probably shouldn't jinx it though :)
| kotaKat wrote:
| Also, Hertz bought a fuckton of these things _before_ Tesla did
| some fairly dramatic price drops. They basically doubled their
| depreciation hit right from that alone before you throw in the
| rideshare driver population /and/ price them low enough to
| make them attractive over a shitty econobox attracting...
| econobox driving behavior in a vehicle with expensive repairs
| and limited parts availability leading to the fleet being
| constantly downed for repair.
| csours wrote:
| Some might know this, but:
|
| Rental car companies make their money on re-sales. That is
| their margin. If the new equivalent drops in price, the
| margin is gone.
| matt-attack wrote:
| How is that possible? They make money on buying new cars in
| bulk and then selling them as used cars? I'm struggling to
| understand how flipping a depreciating asset is a profit
| center.
| csours wrote:
| 1. Negotiate lower purchase price.
|
| 2. Rent the depreciating asset to cover the cost of
| depreciation.
|
| 3. Insurance/financialization
| Nasrudith wrote:
| A technicality perhaps? Like if say they buy $40k cars,
| depreciate it to $30k but earn $20k from rentals.
| Technically they got most of their money from selling the
| car used but it still ultimately works only because they
| are able to rent it out for more than the depreciation
| cost.
| alemanek wrote:
| Consider that normally rental car companies get steep
| discounts on their bulk buys. They didn't with their
| Tesla order which further hurts them. But, here is the
| overly simplified normal math:
|
| (Resale Price + Rental Income - Maintenance - Purchase
| Price) / 2 years
|
| Trick is that they generally flip these vehicles after 2
| years and upsell an auto warranty which a big profit
| center as well. Resale price tanks and there goes all
| their profit.
| bsder wrote:
| I don't think "2 years" is valid anymore. It seems like
| the rental companies are hanging onto their cars for
| closer to 5 years, now.
|
| This would also link into their "extra damage" problem.
| latchkey wrote:
| One thing I've noticed about Tesla's driving around southern
| california... a significant number of them look damaged. I can't
| tell if this is because they aren't easily repaired or if people
| who drive them are worse at driving.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| Aren't easily repairable, means much more expensive to repair,
| means drivers will be slow to repair them, if at all.
|
| Probably don't want to shoot their premiums considering how
| expensive the insurance for them already is.
| rnk wrote:
| They seen to have highly optimized manufacturing over repair.
| Since tesla sells auto insurance for their cars, I wonder how
| that compares and handles repairability. I've had a few
| problems with my tesla that were fortunately not hard to
| repair. Someone clipped the front of mine in a parking lot
| and partly ripped off the right edge. I had to wait a month
| before the repair place got the parts but it was driveable. I
| had a few other minor things that were just typical drop
| offs.
|
| On the glass repair someone complains about $1200, glass is
| just expensive for front windshield. I have a non-tesla that
| got hit by multiple rocks and cost $2400. $2400! It was an
| electric pickup truck. Insurance paid for almost all. Then on
| my tesla, last year a huge rock hit the windshield, that cost
| about $1200 too.
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| I paid $300 to get my last windshield replaced. But I have
| an older car and no bullshit sensors that justify jacking
| up the price.
|
| I _hate_ newer vehicles. So much fluff and I can't disable
| 3/4 of it.
|
| I drove a newer Ford Escape that had a broken sensor
| somewhere. It has a feature called "adaptive cruise
| control" where it detects the distance between the driver
| and the car in front of them, and adjusts the spacing
| accordingly. It uses a sensor of some sort to accomplish
| this feat.
|
| A related sensor stopped working so, naturally it reverted
| to the regular kind of cruise control right? Wrong! Because
| the feature for the adaptive cruise control stopped
| working, it disabled ALL cruise control functionality.
|
| And don't even get me started on the fucking spyware built
| into that vehicle (and other newer ones).
| chriscappuccio wrote:
| Absolutely! Newer cars are a tech nightmare. I'm much
| happier keeping older vehicles on the road than even
| considering the issues on newer ones. The problem for me
| now is that if I don't do all the work myself, it is
| getting harder and harder to schedule a mechanic to do
| it. Everyone is booked up and I keep getting the
| impression they generally don't charge enough to feel
| like they are making good money even at crazy high rates.
| It's a west coast thing with the incredibly high cost of
| living.
| solarkraft wrote:
| > Because the feature for the adaptive cruise control
| stopped working, it disabled ALL cruise control
| functionality.
|
| Better be thankful that you could still drive :-)
|
| Failure modes seem to have gotten so much worse during
| softwareization. I suppose it's something about software
| culture and the expectation of "that can't happen" and
| expecting fixes to be simple ("if this happened they'd
| just have to re-install").
|
| One example that comes to my mind often since I learned
| about it is the Subaru module that would drain cars'
| batteries because it got stuck in a re-connect loop,
| costing many millions in repairs, brand damage and
| "inconvenience" (it literally bricked the car). It could
| all have been avoided by thinking about failure modes for
| a few seconds, yet the software team (likely one tired
| guy in the middle of the night) didn't.
| bouke wrote:
| My BMW's adaptive cruise's sensor was once covered in
| snow, causing the feature to be unavailable. Luckily,
| regular cruise control remained available.
| ksimukka wrote:
| My parent's waited 12+ months for a replacement bumper for
| their Tesla. They eventually decided to just trade it in for a
| new SUV. My dad is the kind of man who takes excellent care of
| things, and keeps vehicles in perfect condition.
|
| If Tesla was able to provide the replacement parts I imagine
| they would have kept the car, but the waiting and poor
| communication from Tesla was the deciding factor to go back to
| a SUV.
| paxys wrote:
| Lack of replacement parts
| 1shooner wrote:
| I thought Tesla's strategy was getting autopilot to the point
| that their cars would be utilized more hours in the day,
| essentially like these Hertz Teslas have been used. But
| apparently they can't stand up to that amount of use?
| rsynnott wrote:
| I'm not sure that's their strategy, as much as it is an
| obviously nonsense thing Musk said on Twitter.
| qbrass wrote:
| Their strategy is selling the idea to people, actually
| producing it is tertiary goal.
| robbywashere_ wrote:
| Surprised they aren't just printing warrants for arrest like the
| usual.
| p1mrx wrote:
| > Uber drivers also tend to drive their vehicles into the ground.
| This higher rate of utilization can lead to a lot of damage
|
| It's not just the "utilization rate", Ubers have to go
| everywhere. Imagine what your own car would look like if you
| spent a month driving to random addresses. The Uber heatmap of a
| city probably covers its worst-maintained roads, on days with the
| worst weather.
| brookst wrote:
| A very good point, and it's probably even worse than random
| distribution: people are more likely to call Uber in bad
| weather.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Unless you pick your route based on the quality of road
| surface* I don't see how that would make any difference?
|
| *yes I'm sure there are some HN types who will claim they do.
| spandextwins wrote:
| Sounds like hertz doesn't know what the F is going on. Next time
| do more research before you try to grab a headline.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _But Uber drivers also tend to drive their vehicles into the
| ground. This higher rate of utilization can lead to a lot of
| damage -- certainly more than Hertz was anticipating._
|
| I'm mainly curious how Hertz got this so wrong.
|
| They must have gathered some kinds of stats on Tesla repair rates
| per mile driven -- why did the math turn out to be wrong? Does
| driving an EV 10,000 miles over the course of a month damage it
| far more than driving 10,000 miles over the course of a year?
|
| Or if they knew there were big unknowns, I'm surprised Hertz
| didn't or wasn't able to offset a lot of the risk of higher
| damage rates to Tesla as part of a fixed-fee maintenance contract
| or something.
|
| There's always the possibility that a low-level analyst just
| messed up their spreadsheet, but it's hard to believe that passed
| executive review. When a team pitches their proposal to the
| execs, it's precisely the execs' job to look at the slides and
| challenge each and every number and say "hey wait a minute, these
| numbers for wear-and-tear seem in line with historical, but two
| slides ago you said 50% of the fleet will be for rideshare." If
| they missed it, that would be a _gigantic_ failure of management.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Hertz is the original meme stock, meming its way out of
| bankruptcy.
|
| Its not about being wrong, its about doing things that get
| investors to pump money into your company. Tesla is meme-
| adjacent and Hertz knew that making headlines with Tesla would
| attract investors.
|
| Now that Hertz lost money, its not their problem. Its their
| investor's problem. Or perhaps more accurately: its not the
| Board of Directors or CEO's problem that Hertz lost money per
| se, they did what they set out to do (ie: sell Hertz stock
| during a difficult time and raise money). All the Hertz
| shareholders who have lost real value are... well... that's the
| shareholder's problem now.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> All the Hertz shareholders who have lost real value are...
| well... that's the shareholder's problem now_
|
| Let's see them meme their way out of that one now.
| koolba wrote:
| > Or if they knew there were big unknowns ...
|
| It's possible the driving habits in a rental Tesla are unique
| as well. There's already the general principle, " _Don't be
| gentle on a rental_ ", but perhaps the novelty of an electric
| car with a unique pedal system (compared to a gas vehicle)
| leads to more aggressive driving?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > Does driving an EV 10,000 miles over the course of a month
| damage it far more than driving 10,000 miles over the course of
| a year?
|
| Assuming 10,000 miles over a 30 day month, driving every day
| that's over 300 miles per day. That's pushing the limit of the
| range if not more, so they are fully cycling the battery every
| day. That's not good for battery life.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> They must have gathered some kinds of stats on Tesla repair
| rates per mile driven_
|
| I mean - would they?
|
| Tesla is famously secretive about defects, not putting anything
| in writing to customers and asking them to sign NDAs - so I
| doubt Tesla is handing out honest numbers to potential
| partners.
|
| And even if they ran a small-scale trial before making a big
| purchase, there's a lot of ways a small trial can accidentally
| be unrepresentative.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Well that's what I'm saying -- if they couldn't, they should
| have negotiated a fixed-price maintenance contract.
|
| That's what companies do when one can't trust the other --
| they hold the manufacturer responsible for the cost of
| repairs/replacements rather than doing it themselves. And if
| a manufacturer refuses to agree at a reasonable rate, you
| don't do the deal because that's a huge red flag the numbers
| are dishonest.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Seems obvious that taxis are used heavily through the day. As
| rentals probably have more down time either by not being rented
| out or just sitting in parking lots when people renting them are
| doing something else. And long distance travel is less wear.
| ghaff wrote:
| It probably varies a lot. As others are noting, there's a meme
| that people are rough on rentals. On the other hand, as you
| say, it's also pretty common to get a rental because distances
| are far/you need enough local transport that an Uber isn't
| really practical but in practice the car sits at the
| resort/conference hotel most of the week. That's been my
| situation this week.
| vinni2 wrote:
| I don't understand why they had to go with Tesla and Polestar.
| It's not really the issue with EV ambition but because Teslas are
| expensive to fix. Plenty of other EVs out there.
| brianstorms wrote:
| Recently was at Baltimore Washington Airport and rented a Tesla
| Model Y from Hertz.
|
| The ordeals began long before we arrived at BWI.
|
| I forget the reason now, but I didn't trust Hertz with the
| reservation for the Y. Even though the site said yes we have them
| and your Y reservation is GUARANTEED! It was weird because the Y
| was cheaper than renting a 3. And something just didn't seem
| right. So I was determined to call. I didn't know their number so
| I went to their website.
|
| Hertz's website was full of problems, like, no way to find out
| the phone number for customer service. If you clicked on the
| Contact Us page, it led to some customer-avoidance links like
| most companies nowadays have, where, here, talk to our useless
| bot, or here, peruse our Knowledge Base, or here, read our FAQ,
| but no phone number. And when you finally found a link to a phone
| number and clicked it, you wound up at a 404 Not Found page. (I
| finally got the number from Google.)
|
| When I talked to a human at Hertz I asked to double-check on the
| Y reservation. They said oh yes, all is good, you're all set,
| yadda yadda.
|
| Day we arrive, big long line at the Hertz counter. One employee
| behind the counter (this counter is like a football field's width
| wide, with workstations every few feet, so they could easily fit
| 25 employees each taking a customer. But no. One.) We eventually
| get to the employee. I give my name, tell them I'm here to pick
| up the Y.
|
| Sorry sir, there's no reservation here for a Y. Let me check
| something. She then walks away. A minute goes by. Two minutes.
| Five. Ten. Suddenly some dude in a Hertz uniform comes out.
| Obviously the bearer of bad news.
|
| Sorry sir, we have no Model Ys. Well we have 25 of them but none
| of them are available, they're all at the Tesla shop and we don't
| know when they will be available.
|
| But, you guys said yesterday on the phone that yes my Y was
| guaranteed, reservation is all set, all is good, etc.
|
| Sorry sir, no Ys. We have plenty of 3s though.
|
| Crap, I didn't want a 3, but we decided to take the 3. That took
| the employee 15 more minutes to process at the computer. HUGE
| LINE now backed up behind us, while this guy takes his sweet old
| time finishing what should have been a 30-second task. Finally
| we're told where to go in the epically vast parking garage for
| the car. It's in spot number 325 or something. We look on the
| ground . . . we're at like spot number 1, 2, 3 . . . we keep
| walking, we cannot find the car.
|
| I ask a Hertz employee, where would spot 325 be? He looks at me
| like I'm an idiot, and responds in a tone he reserves for people
| he thinks are idiots: it's next to 324, right over there, and I'm
| looking and I only see spots in the 200s. Employee mutters "what
| an idiot" or something and walks away.
|
| We eventually find the 3, among many 3s, at the extreme far end
| of this garage that is easily the size of an airport hangar that
| could fit a dozen 747s.
|
| We get in, and it's the first time I've driven a 3... even though
| I'd driven an S for ten years. Tiny car in comparison, everything
| on this little toy screen (compared to the mighty S's) and in a
| different place.
|
| We thought, we've had a Tesla for ten years, and we're not quite
| sure where all the settings are. What about brand-new customers
| who've never driven a Tesla or even an EV before?
|
| The entire customer experience at Hertz was F-A-I-L. Just
| terrible. It's like the workers hate the cars. And I can imagine
| Tesla's service is a total nightmare for Hertz as a fleet owner.
|
| Tesla doesn't get customer experience either. Hertz has become so
| awful (at least the BWI Hertz) we can't imagine renting from them
| again.
|
| I think there's blame all around.
|
| Do better Enterprise, Budget, Avis, etc. Somebody, do better.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| > That took the employee 15 more minutes to process at the
| computer.
|
| I've always wondered what kind of software they're running on
| those terminals. It's like the employee is trying to hack into
| the mainframe, and manually execute some SQL queries.
| bsder wrote:
| _Never_ use Hertz. Never.
|
| I haven't used them in a while, but Avis always kicked Hertz's
| ass all over the map on customer service.
|
| Hertz only had the advantage that they were bigger. Nothing
| else.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| The other problem is they stocked on on Teslas on near-peak
| pricing and now the cars are depreciating extra fast due to price
| drops and used market softening due to rates. I believe they've
| taken some paper losses marking their inventory to their resale
| value.
|
| Teslas are fairly low maintenance but still above average repair
| cost for sure. Related issue is parts & service backlog means
| above average time a Tesla rental may be out of service. There
| are notorious stories in Tesla forums of many many month waits
| for repairs after seemingly non catastrophic accidents.
| lgkk wrote:
| Oof since everyone is giving their Tesla experiences I'll share
| mine.
|
| I got my P3D in Oct 2018 and it got bumper damage a couple months
| later because of a distracted driver. My car was in the shop for
| almost 1.5 months and the total cost was around 5.7k USD.
|
| Thankfully insurance covered all of it and I didn't pay anything
| out of pocket. However, it just shows these cars are very tech-
| heavy and the cost of sensors and supply chain issues add up.
|
| For me as a individual it wasn't a big deal that my car was in
| the shop waiting for parts shipments - I had a second car. For a
| business that invested in these cars having fixed assets
| collecting dust waiting for parts sounds like a nightmare
| scenario! Sure they have other cars too, but it is different
| scenario for them.
|
| I still think the Tesla was a fine car especially with all the
| tech. Maybe not the nicest car interior and issues wise (panel
| gaps galore), but fun to just kick the accelerator in and SCREAM!
| In 2018/2019 it felt really special. Now, I feel like every 3rd
| car is a Tesla (I live in California) so it isn't as special
| anymore but that's a good thing! I sold mine a couple years ago,
| and looking forward to what new innovation we get in the EV space
| next.
| hef19898 wrote:
| And now imagine the service of, say, VW would be at the same
| level...
| nullc wrote:
| > Thankfully insurance covered all of it and I didn't pay
| anything out of pocket.
|
| Tesla's fragility and high repair costs are presumably
| increasing insurance prices for everyone.
| dehrmann wrote:
| This brings up an interesting insurance debate. On one hand,
| you should have the right to drive around whatever expensive-
| to-fix car you want and be entitled to not getting hit, or at
| least reimbursed if you do. On the other, this doesn't set up
| good incentives. You have less skin in the game when it comes
| to repairs, so that's not a factor you look for when buying a
| car. The at-fault party's insurance should only be
| responsible for the repair cost of a median car with similar
| damage?
| pests wrote:
| That makes no sense to me either. Shitty cars could look
| for accidents to get above-average payouts and thrn, while
| this sucks, people tend to be more careful around more
| expensive things. Your way has everyone treating a $150,000
| sports car like a 'median sedan' when it comes to caution.
| solarkraft wrote:
| What's a P3D? Model 3 ... dual motor ... performance?
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