[HN Gopher] Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
___________________________________________________________________
Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
Author : saltysalt
Score : 75 points
Date : 2024-01-11 14:50 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| urdbjtdvbg wrote:
| I recently rented a car from Hertz. I knew I wouldn't need more
| than a single full tank of gas for my trip (and if I
| underestimated I could just stop at a gas station). I wasn't sure
| what might happen with the (cheaper!) Tesla. So I opted for the
| ICE vehicle.
|
| (Where could I charge it? The hotel? Do I need to find a super
| charger? Etc. Just more headache than I wanted on a vacation).
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| This seems to be an extension of the biggest problem with EVs:
| The edge cases.
|
| Even if the edge case is only 1% of your travel, do you want to
| buy a car that can't do it?
|
| It can be _anything_. You 're living in Minnesota and your dad
| in Chicago had a heart attack. An ICE can get you there in
| about ~7 hours. An EV... you're going to need 1 supercharging
| station at a minimum, probably 2. Or, you just decide you want
| a road trip from Minnesota to Texas. You pull over to the
| nearest supercharger in Arkansas to discover you're forced to
| hang out in a town where you really don't feel safe for an hour
| or two. That's great.
|
| EVs make far more sense in Europe than America, with the
| current range they can offer, combined with general proximity
| of relatives. I'm not saying they don't have a future in
| America, I just won't be surprised if we are the slowest
| adopters.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Sounds like a transformation issue. In the beginning (I
| assume) before widespread filling station networks getting
| gas was an issue. Now it's not. That's not a quality of gas
| vs EV, it's a quality of ubiquity.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| I agree; but nobody buying cars cares about what _kind_ of
| issue it is. It 's an issue ICE doesn't have and they don't
| want that issue.
| jsight wrote:
| True, and this is why sales for EVs basically
| automatically increase as infrastructure is built out in
| a particular area. Once consumers understand the
| capability and what is their, their buying patterns are
| fairly rational.
|
| In my experience, most people outside of the EV bubble
| underestimate how much infrastructure is already there.
|
| At least for Tesla. For CCS cars in the US, it isn't so
| great.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| At one point in time the pharmacy was the standard place to
| buy gasoline.
| nytesky wrote:
| There is also the fact that charging takes longer, even
| with supercharging, right?
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Improvement is tightly coupled with ubiquity. As things
| get better, they improve in a lot of ways.
| andrewla wrote:
| It's both -- the ubiquity would make things a lot easier,
| but you can fill up a car with gas in five minutes.
| jeffbee wrote:
| > you can fill up a car with gas in five minutes.
|
| Yeah, if you spend 4.5 minutes goofing off.
| pc86 wrote:
| Or you end up getting that one pump/station that takes 50
| seconds to spit out a single gallon.
|
| I had to rent a 3-row SUV one time and refilling that
| thing was torturous, thankfully I only had to do it once.
| brk wrote:
| It is a transformation issue. However EV's are being
| promoted as a viable alternative to ICE vehicles generally
| speaking. The reality is that this is far from true.
|
| For many people/families, an EV could be viable. For an
| even larger percentage of people or families with 2+
| vehicles an EV could be very viable. Still, in most
| scenarios the ICE vehicle is the safe choice, with the pros
| and cons well understood.
|
| IMO some of the EV pushback is from people (like me) who
| have nothing against EVs, but feel they are still a solid
| decade away from being a no-brainer choice, with much of
| the holdup being infrastructure related.
|
| I'm all for saving the planet (note: I don't believe that
| EVs overall are as net environmentally positive as they are
| portrayed), but I'm not going to do it while stranded at a
| charging station.
| jsight wrote:
| An hour or two? Noone is hanging out around superchargers for
| that long if they don't already want to be there.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Sure, if you buy a new Tesla, it's pretty good now.
|
| But not everyone can afford a new EV. If you buy almost any
| EV on the used market, such as a used Tesla...
| brianwawok wrote:
| A used 3 or Y will charge just fine. 15-20 minutes should
| cover most cases.
| jsight wrote:
| That still wouldn't be true for a used Tesla. Most used
| sales are Model 3 or Y. Both charge really well. Even
| older used Model S or X are more like 30 minutes than 2
| hours, especially if the location is bad and you'd rather
| get to the next one.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| You might be if you need to return the car at 100%, the
| last few percent of battery takes forever to charge due to
| chemistry. I don't know what Hertz requires, but returning
| it at 100% is stupid. It's hard on the battery and takes
| forever. Charging to 80% takes a lot less time and is
| easier on the battery, so hopefully that's all that Hertz
| requires.
|
| Edit: a different commenter says you need to return at 75%.
| That's reasonable.
| jsight wrote:
| Yeah, and tbh, I'm hearing that their return fees are
| actually pretty reasonable. If you can return at less
| than 75% for only $25, just do that. Supercharging isn't
| particularly cheap anyway, so you can't save that much
| money with a long wait.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I consider my probable edge case, driving to the capital for
| example airport there, 160km+something nearly all of it
| motorway so slightly worse range if I drive at legal limit.
| So I would like to get there in one go as being 2 hours early
| anyway is big time sink. And then when I'm coming back I just
| want to get to home not stop in middle to charge...
|
| Or I might want to do same with some client or relative
| there.
|
| Train station is very near, but not that near... And it still
| means connection to get to actual airport...
|
| And new EVs are pretty expensive, compared already paid
| car...
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| > And new EVs are pretty expensive, compared already paid
| car...
|
| My family has neighbors that just buy and repair older cars
| and sell them pretty low cost. The quality of their work
| has been considered very good by third-party mechanics. My
| parents recently bought a 2005 Pontiac with a V6 from them
| for about ~$4K with 135K miles. One accident (deer
| sideswipe), only body.
|
| Do you know what a 2013 Tesla Model S with 135K miles goes
| for around here? About $17K. If we're lucky, we could maybe
| negotiate it to $15K-$14K; but that's still almost four
| times the cost. And sure, the Tesla is eight years newer,
| but I make a similar comparison because it was very much a
| 1st-gen product... My money is on the Pontiac lasting
| longer.
| jsight wrote:
| That sounds like an easy problem to solve, tbh. 100 miles
| and l1 at the airport. It'd be nice if they all installed
| at least a few rows of those.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Even if the edge case is only 1% of your travel, do you
| want to buy a car that can't do it?
|
| Why not? If my car covers 99% of my needs, that seems fine. I
| can rent a vehicle for the other 1%.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> EVs make far more sense in Europe than America_
|
| As an European, no they don't. Europeans often use their cars
| for long travels cross borders for work, vacation or visiting
| relatives where public trasnportation doesn't serve them, and
| the lack or underdevelopment of charging infrastructre makes
| them viable only for people with their own house, garage and
| charger at home or for businesses which do short trips around
| town like deliveries or realtors. Everyone else has ICEs.
| zwily wrote:
| Same here. I'm a happy Tesla owner at home but have always
| skipped them when renting for all the reasons people have
| listed.
| nytesky wrote:
| Literally made the same decision last night for a rental. I had
| no idea how to charge an electric car and did not want to have
| to deal with figuring it out on top of everything else.
|
| They charge you $25 if you return it not fully charged, which
| is bananas, because why couldn't they just plug it in while
| they're cleaning the car? It's not like gas where they have to
| drive the car to a gas station.
| gnfargbl wrote:
| Is that a $25 recharging fee, or $25 for the electricity? A
| full tank of electrons is around $25 equivalent in the UK. (I
| realise it's cheaper in most of the US.)
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| You're likely going to spend more than $25 to put gasoline in
| your rental before returning it, and $25 is the approximate
| cost for a supercharger, so that charge seems very
| reasonable. You could have just taken the electric car and
| returned it empty.
| pc86 wrote:
| The last time I rented a car (2 months ago?) if you
| returned it less than whatever you receive it at, you get
| charged for an _entire tank of gas_ with the $3-4 /gal
| markup. So receive it full and return it at 15/16ths and
| you're looking at a $80-100 bill easily on the larger
| vehicles.
|
| It's likely similar where if you receive it at 100% and
| return it at 98% you're getting charged the full $25. It's
| just another revenue source for the company.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| $25 flat fee is reasonable. $25 + the cost of a full
| charge isn't. I'm not sure which the OP experienced.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The refill charge is nuts anyway even for ICE vehicles.
| Put an 1 m3 construction site tank+pump for diesel and
| one for regular gas on the site and that's it - these
| things cost about 1000EUR [1].
|
| From the start, refill charges have been an utter scam.
|
| [1] https://www.geratech-tankanlagen.de/tankanlagen-
| diesel-adblu...
| nytesky wrote:
| That may well be the case. But I'm not driving far, it's
| just while my car is in shop. Gas is $2.90 here, and the
| rentals was a Chevy bolt -- so not a Supercharger right,
| some non Tesla connector I have to track down?
|
| I think it was $25 flat if not as same level, so I can fill
| it to the level I received it and hope they kept accurate
| records (ie knew it wasn't full).
|
| I think if I had ample time during all this an EV would be
| interesting but I just don't want to make a mistake and
| make this repair even more expensive.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Their webpage suggests you have to return it at the same
| level of charge as you got it at, or pay a $25/$35 (depending
| on membership level) convenience fee to return it at any
| charge level.
|
| I recall a similar rule the last time I hired a gas car, but
| feels like for EVs it could use a tweak or two.
| oldpersonintx wrote:
| I've never driven an EV before. I don't want to learn about them
| when I am renting a vehicle...my relationship with rental cars is
| pure utility: get me from A to B
|
| By the same token I would never rent a diesel or a manual
| transmission vehicle...I don't want to learn about them via the
| rental experience
| masto wrote:
| I haven't driven a gasoline car in over 5 years, so similarly I
| don't want to have to try to remember how to work one, and I'd
| rather just rent an EV for familiarity.
|
| As more and more people have electric cars, it makes sense for
| the rental companies to transition to them, so that renting
| doesn't feel like you're being offered a horse and buggy.
| nolongerthere wrote:
| FYI, you appear to be shadowbanned, I had to vouch your comment
| to make it not dead. And most of your comments are dead when I
| look at your profile. I couldn't find ground zero for what
| caused your comments to become shadowbanned, but you can reach
| out to dang to find out why and ask if he'll consider unbanning
| you.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| I had to learn how to use an automatic when I rented a vehicle
| in Texas. That was the first time I'd ever driven on the wrong
| side of the road which was also interesting.
| brd529 wrote:
| I recently rented a tesla from hertz - I had made sure my hotel
| had charging in it's parking lot. I arrive at the hotel to find
| that the tesla was missing it's j1772 adapter, which is what the
| hotel charger required. I had to hunt down a supercharger and
| hang out there for an hour. Pretty lame. When I returned the car
| I complained and was told that there is no guarantee from hertz
| that the adapter will be included. Without the guarantee renting
| an a tesla is a scary prospect - I probably won't do it again.
|
| this from someone who has a model y at home as my daily driver
| and I love it.
| pc86 wrote:
| Sounds like it was your fault for not traveling with your
| adapter /s
| r00fus wrote:
| Recently rented an EV (Nissan Leaf) from Enterprise - they were
| happy to upgrade me from my economy, but one catch - it was at
| 20% battery. Luckily the hotel we were staying at did have a
| charger (called ahead) free.
|
| Amusingly the rental place told me as we were returning the car
| that it had been sold in the interim.
|
| It's amazing to me how little effort these companies take to
| resolve the charging questions - there wasn't even a charger at
| the rental place.
| astanix wrote:
| That seems pretty crazy to me they they would offer EVs and not
| have the ability to charge them on site.
| jsight wrote:
| Some have Tesla superchargers, but not necessarily Chademo
| for a leaf. It would take hours to charge on their L2 and
| they probably have fewer L2s than EVs.
|
| It is pretty easy for them to fall behind on charging
| vehicles during peak periods, especially something like the
| Leaf.
| nunez wrote:
| love the time I rented from Avis and got assigned a Kia Niro EV
| with, not shitting you, EXACTLY ONE PERCENT capacity left! I
| wasn't sure if I could get it off the lot! I exchanged it for a
| Bolt that fared better. Love that car.
| nelsonic wrote:
| We recently went on vacation to Germany and rented a Polestar 2
| from Hertz. The car was good but charging was infuriating. Had to
| download a new app for each charging spot and they didn't include
| a home-charging cable so we couldn't charge at family home we
| were visiting. Overall wouldn't recommend which is a huge shame.
| At home we drive a Tesla M3, charge at home from solar and
| supercharger network is flawless when doing road trips.
|
| Very puzzling that Hertz + Tesla hasn't streamlined the charging
| process for rental vehicles.
| cycrutchfield wrote:
| If you rent a Tesla from Hertz you can just charge at any
| supercharger and it will charge to your final bill. It's super
| easy, no friction whatsoever.
| thesimon wrote:
| Rented a Polestar 2 multiple times from Hertz in the summer. It
| included both a home-charging cable and a charging fob.
|
| The Hertz charging fob is quite expensive though, cheaper to
| signup to something like EnBW, which you can use for almost all
| charging stations [0].
|
| Supercharger in Germany are almost all open to third-party cars
| as well, though not as cheap as EnBW.
|
| [0]: https://www.enbw.com/elektromobilitaet/produkte/ladetarife
| steveBK123 wrote:
| EV owner 6 years here, rented an EV in Portugal and was a
| disaster.
|
| Nearly stranded at a rest stop, spent 2 hours trying to charge,
| apps wouldn't accept payment, apps wouldn't activate Ionity
| charger, spent an hour on long distance cellphone call to
| Ionity call center where they manually activated a charge for
| me after great difficulty.
|
| The other thing for people who think they can plan around it is
| that remember with typical rental agency you have no idea
| exactly which EV model they are going to give you at check in.
|
| So could be the one with 220/240/280mi highway range. And then
| they might hand it to you with the battery at 80% full.
|
| Your plans to safely get to your destination on 100% of the
| 280mi battery may be quickly spoiled by getting a a 240mi EV at
| 80% full and being -90mi short.
| cloudking wrote:
| I really enjoy Tesla vehicles, but I had a bad experience renting
| one from Budget. The cars require a Tesla account with a credit
| card attached in order to use Super Charging stations, which is
| managed by Budget and then they add the charging costs on to your
| bill at the end. Half way through the rental period the card they
| had attached expired, and I was locked out of using Super
| Chargers. I spent a long time on the phone with customer support,
| and they said because the cars are provisioned by a third-party
| company, there was nothing they could do other than offer me a
| replacement vehicle. It wasn't convenient to swap the vehicles
| because I wasn't close to Budget, so I had to use much slower
| chargers at a mall parking lot to get around. I complained to
| Budget when I returned the vehicle and they discounted me 50% of
| the bill for the inconvenience.
| jsight wrote:
| Yeah, I remember being really excited about this at
| announcement. It made perfect sense too, as Tesla does really
| well on Turo!
|
| But the rental companies overshot a bit. They didn't keep their
| processes and infrastructure up to pace with the number that
| they brought on.
|
| It isn't shocking that caused some issues.
| cloudking wrote:
| For sure, I thought it was crazy that customer support didn't
| have access to the Tesla account attached to the vehicle.
|
| This seems like a very basic process that should have been
| put in place for troubleshooting.
| smileysteve wrote:
| Next you're going to tell us that rental companies don't change
| ICE oil on time.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Slightly OT, but used Teslas are _dirt_ cheap these days
| (relatively) thanks to all the fleet sales. You can find a ~3
| year old Model S off lease now for under $30k.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Less off topic if you buy those used Tesla's from Hertz for
| $14K: https://electrek.co/2024/01/10/tesla-model-3-hertz-cheap-
| use...
| jsight wrote:
| The bad thing is that you'll likely have to spend a few
| thousand to get them into decent shape. It sounds like the
| cheaper ones are pretty rough.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I think you and I have different definitions of dirt cheap
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Owning an EV in US is still something of an enthusiasts niche. I
| have been an owner almost 6 years.
|
| Things that increase the riskiness - unfamiliar area, unfamiliar
| car, non Tesla, not knowing EVs.
|
| So rental non-Tesla while on a vacation is probably the worst
| possible scenario.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| https://archive.is/xGVbP
| dang wrote:
| Also https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/hertz-...
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/11/business/hertz-tesla-selling/...
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/11/hertz-sell-evs-tesla-fleet...
|
| (from other threads we've merged hither)
| cycrutchfield wrote:
| I'm surprised to hear that people have had some anxiety about
| charging when renting Teslas from Hertz. My experience was quite
| the opposite. Just use any supercharger and it bills to Hertz who
| bills to you. The hotel valet had EV charging and charged the
| battery up all the way every night. The only confusing part was
| figuring out what charge level I needed to return the car at (I
| think it was 75%).
|
| Otherwise it was great and I would love to rent a Tesla from
| Hertz again.
| jsight wrote:
| Yeah, it really varies. If you have a hotel with good ev
| charging, an EV can be a convenience. I've had the experience
| of renting a gas vehicle, and then realizing my hotel had EV
| charging and would have actually been more convenient. :)
|
| But plenty of hotels still don't have that.
| keane wrote:
| I second this. I've rented Teslas from Hertz about 5 or 6 times
| now for long trips across California and the experience was
| flawless. I couldn't believe how well everything just worked.
| The integration resulted in a seemingly Tesla-controlled
| experience where there was little friction reminding you the
| car belonged to Hertz.
| asne11 wrote:
| https://archive.is/xGVbP
| helen___keller wrote:
| Over Christmas I flew to another city and rented a car for week.
| Hertz had great deals on EVs but not so great for ICE so I
| specifically avoided hertz and went with Avis instead.
|
| I like EVs and have a charger at home for my own car, but maybe
| due to that I also understand the difficulty of finding a
| reliable charging situation in a new place. On top of that I was
| visiting and parking at my parents house, and they don't have a
| charger installed.
| jsight wrote:
| > On top of that I was visiting and parking at my parents
| house, and they don't have a charger installed.
|
| Yeah, and hertz doesn't tend to give you a mobile charger. I
| can't blame them, they are a separate cost and they tend to
| "get lost" with rentals, but it makes the EV option a lot less
| practical.
| jsight wrote:
| With the updated Model 3 on the market and these starting to get
| sold en masse, there will be some great bargains on used Model 3
| soon.
|
| Interestingly, they seem to be selling off more of the 3 than the
| Y too.
| nocoiner wrote:
| I've owned several EVs (though not at this particular moment) and
| generally think they're terrific. But I agree with several other
| posters - the typical scenario where I'm renting a car is exactly
| the one where EVs' current shortcomings are most prominent.
|
| Plus I can really only think of two types of vehicles that I'd
| ever want to rent - either an econobox to get me from point A to
| B to C in an area underserved by Uber/Lyft where I could not care
| less about what I'm temporarily driving, or a convertible. I
| guess maybe also an SUV - but in any event, those three
| categories are (as far as I am aware) just not yet well matched
| by any EVs on the market.
| bradfox2 wrote:
| We've been daily driving tesla exclusively since 2015.
|
| Too much uncertainty in a new area to rent one when on business
| travel with strict deadlines.
| mint2 wrote:
| Rented a car from hertz for a work trip, the travel platform
| called it a medium suv.
|
| Hertz apparently doesn't use standard classifications and it was
| actually a sub compact suv - the Chevy bolt euv.
|
| Their counter person was strangely gleeful in explaining how I
| would not be able to find a charger for it.
|
| I get the feeling hertz and car companies just hate electric
| vehicles
| zug_zug wrote:
| "due to higher expenses due to collision damage"
|
| I wonder if that means insurance, frequency of collisions,
| average damage in a collision, or cost to repair disparity
| parkererway wrote:
| Very likely cost to repair (which ends up a component in
| insurance cost)
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I imagine if you're operating on the scale of Hertz it's
| cheaper to self-insure. Anecdotally it seems like Teslas have
| higher damage in a collision (eg more expensive and fragile
| electronics in the bumper) and are more expensive to repair.
| The last body shop I went to even had a separate hourly rate
| for Teslas
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Isn't that just pure gouging? If a Tesla is harder to repair
| it'll take longer and be more expensive for that reason, no
| increased hourly rate necessary.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Or... you need a person who is specialized in working on
| EVs. EVs are still not the majority, so anything different
| from the norm will need different training, and thusly
| higher hourly rates to work on them.
|
| When Ford started making putting aluminum bodies on their
| F150s, they had special training programs for doing
| bodywork and repair on them. I guarantee that cost was
| passed down to you.
|
| It may not even take longer to do the repairs, it might
| take the same amount of time once you learn how to work on
| them. That said, I guarantee the shops and insurance
| companies are recuperating the costs of that extra
| training.
| bluGill wrote:
| When Ford makes a new car they write a large book on how
| to repair every body panel on it. For hidden parts how
| much damage was acceptable before you had to do
| something. All dealer body shops are required to have
| book before the dealer can on sell the fist car (along
| with books and training on other repairs). I believe most
| body shops don't buy this book, but at the time I worked
| for a company that made tools and those books were used
| to decide what special tools we needed to design/make
| next. I left before Tesla was a thing (2 years before the
| roadster), so I don't know what Tesla does, but I suspect
| this is one of those details they didn't realize was
| important.
| kbos87 wrote:
| If the people with the technical skills/certifications for
| a particular brand are harder to come by, I think it's a
| pretty pure supply/demand thing.
| kbos87 wrote:
| This is pretty common among more expensive brands from what I
| understand. When I had work done on my Tesla it was the first
| time I had encounter it, but the couple of repair shops I was
| referred to by Tesla also had individual hourly rates for
| BMW, Porsche, Land Rover, etc.
| bluGill wrote:
| A lot of that is those vehicles require special tools that
| are expensive. Nearly every car needs a 10mm socket to work
| on it, so every mechanic has a few and in turn they are
| cheap. Only VW and BMW need a triple square socket, so they
| are not common and more expensive, and you only work on a
| few cars that need that so you have to charge more.
| Mercedes requires all mechanics have a 4 wheel dynamiter
| and some repairs require the car be on that for calibration
| making those repairs more expensive. (Note that I haven't
| been in the business for 15 years so the above is probably
| out of date)
| lokar wrote:
| Not just more expensive, but much slower (ages to get parts).
| Every day not rented out is lost money.
| kube-system wrote:
| Loss of use is is a huge cost for a rental company.
|
| If you rent a vehicle out for $75 per day, and it needs a
| $1000 repair, and a repair takes 2 weeks, the loss of use is
| more expensive than the entire repair!
|
| Repair times have been getting longer across the entire
| automotive industry, as parts availability hasn't been great,
| but Tesla vehicles are notorious for long wait times for
| parts availability and availability of the specialized labor
| sometimes required.
| legitster wrote:
| This is Tesla that we are talking about. They are renowned for
| poor customer support, let alone fleet support.
|
| Rental cars get dinged up all of the time and you can get a new
| fender on a Malibu in under a day.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > and you can get a new fender on a Malibu in under a day.
|
| Is that because Chevy makes the more available or because
| they're much easier to find at a part reseller?
| olyjohn wrote:
| Insurance rates will be dictated by the other 3 factors you
| listed. Insurance doesn't care about physical damage, only what
| it costs to repair said damage. Whether the car is cut in half,
| or only a sensor that is broken, only the cost matters to them.
| So you're left with frequency of damage, and cost of damage per
| incident.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Actually that's a good point. People that aren't used to
| electric cars maybe can't be trusted with the absurd
| acceleration.
|
| Even my parents Leaf leaps like a fish when you start it, I can
| only imagine how many people get into fender benders when
| driving a Tesla for the first time without really having a
| chance to get used to the feel.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| So Hertz is continuing their narrative to blame EV's for their
| own executive mistakes.
|
| If you dig deeper you'll find that:
|
| - most of their EV's were rented to Uber drivers. - All Uber
| rentals, gas and EV, have higher milage, higher maintenance costs
| and lower resale values.
|
| In other words this state of affairs was highly predictable. That
| it wasn't taken into account is the fault of Hertz executives.
| They're trying to shift blame off of their own shoulders.
| bagels wrote:
| From what I read, they were mostly only able to rent them to
| existing ev owners, after which, they rented them to Uber
| drivers to try to at least get some revenue from them.
| lokar wrote:
| They put them in the Uber fleet because they were getting
| rented.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _blame EV 's_
|
| Wait, what?
|
| Hertz was basically bankrupt, and suddenly was a "good
| business" when it bought a bunch of Teslas. It was always a
| stretch.
|
| https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38052601/hertz-buying-100...
| thegrim33 wrote:
| But hey, they hired Tom Brady (who also got paid to shill for
| FTX) to do their EV-focused commercials. Surely it's a good
| business when their commercials don't, you know, extol the
| benefits of their company and products, but instead hire a
| celebrity in a pretty low-brow disgusting way to try to sell
| a product: by pandering to the people with "hey, this famous
| person is in our commercial and for money he says our product
| is cool, so that means you should like it too, if you want to
| be cool like Tom Brady". Surely their fundamentals are rock
| solid.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| i think you just described most marketing. its irrelevant
| legitster wrote:
| I don't understand the point. They are going to replace the
| Uber EVs with Priuses or whatever and still save a bunch of
| money. So what's the argument?
| legitster wrote:
| Car rental companies regularly rotate through their fleet. I
| suspect these are cars that are supposed to go up for resell
| anyway and they are just not replacing them with equivalents.
|
| EVs are already not a good fit for rental cars - I don't think
| travelers on vacation want to figure deal with a charging plan.
| It's also really hard to sell even a luxury sedan as an upgrade
| when everyone wants an SUV. I'd be curious to know if something
| like the Rivian would fare better as a premium option.
| asveikau wrote:
| > It's also really hard to sell even a luxury sedan as an
| upgrade when everyone wants an SUV
|
| I don't want an SUV. I get angry at rental companies when they
| try to give me one.
|
| I increasingly don't recognize this country I grew up in with
| the car culture. In the early 90s nobody wanted SUVs either.
| The truck and SUV craze was apparently sparked by an emissions
| regulatory loophole, where larger vehicles were excempt because
| they were meant for work.
| bluGill wrote:
| Unfortunately people who like small cars are a minority. Most
| people want whatever is the current fad, and small cars are
| out. I do not know how to change this. (come to think of it,
| even though I prefer small cars I drive a large truck because
| once in a while I need a truck and I don't drive enough to
| justify two vehicles)
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > Most people want whatever is the current fad, and small
| cars are out. I do not know how to change this.
|
| The only thing I can think of is to emphasize their
| superior fuel economy and get people to appreciate the
| superior handling.
|
| Make people drive an obstacle avoidance course in both a
| small car and a huge SUV. Maybe some people would accept
| that the safer car doesn't have to be the bigger car, but
| the one with enough agility and stability to avoid it
| completely.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| I would guess that for the most part safety is more of a
| function of attention and driving safely and predictably
| rather than relying on the superior handling to get out
| of scrapes.
|
| Many times people that prize handling of the car end up
| pushing the limits and driving dangerously aggressively
| accelerating and braking, following closely, aggressively
| lane swerving.
| jdp23 wrote:
| Yep. When I get upgraded to an SUV I exchange it for
| something along the lines of the _car_ I had originally
| reserved. I 've asked them to put something in my file saying
| "don't upgrade to SUV" but it appears beyond the capabilities
| of their system.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| My own car is a compact, and I would rent a SUV or other
| large vehicle for that exact reason. Sometimes, rarely, I
| need a big car, I don't have one, that's what rental is for.
|
| When travelling, I tend to prefer public transport, except
| when in a group or when I need to carry a lot of stuff, and
| again, for that I need a big car.
|
| And not an EV. EVs are ideal when you can charge at home.
| When renting a car, it usually means I don't have a "home",
| and planning for charging points in a place you are not
| familiar with is a hassle. And EVs are not ideal for road
| trips where each leg typically exceeds the maximum range.
|
| So yeah, I understand why rentals would be dominated by large
| gas cars and trucks.
| bombcar wrote:
| A nice "feature" for rental EVs would be hot-swap - driving
| around and your rented Model 3 is a bit low on charge?
| Bring it by any of the rental locations and be off in
| another one fully charged in minutes.
| legitster wrote:
| SUVs are popular _because_ of the death of car culture.
|
| Car enthusiasts still like small sedans with handling and
| looks and etc. But the average person just wants the biggest,
| most comfortable car they can get for the money.
|
| I had a millenial co-worker ask me why selling a 2-door car
| was even legal these days.
| smileysteve wrote:
| > But the average person just wants the biggest, most
| comfortable car
|
| They want the biggest, because it makes them _feel_
| comfortable, despite objective data and car parts that SUVs
| are more dangerous and less comfortable.
|
| One theory is that millennials have been taught that higher
| and bigger is better because of age related vision
| deterioration by their parents and it has now caught on.
|
| Anecdotally, I asked this line of questioning recently of
| family that had the choice of a 20 hour road trip - 2
| people in (solid rear axle) Cadillac Escalade versus a
| similar year Mercedes Mid Size SUV. The reasoning given was
| comfort. But objectively, the mid size has independent rear
| suspension, more responsive steering, quicker pickup, lower
| weight (and better center of gravity), lower miles, fewer
| maintenance issues, fits in more parking spaces, is not as
| tall to get into comfortably, better fuel economy, and more
| comfortable seating. The conclusion that the extra large
| SUV is more comfortable perplexes me.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| 1) bad drivers like being seated high and this helps when
| overloaded with information; and bad as beginner,
| constantly bad or just age-related
|
| 2) cargo cult culture in literally everything these days,
| including what some less-than-bright footballer buys for
| a car (or some famous dev or company uses for building
| their products), so these 'suv' are seen as luxury, and
| not garbage dump of companies making real cars (TM) like
| BMW.
|
| Severe rolling risk, slow reaction times and generally
| just a bad drive thanx to basic physics, high consumption
| and overall maintenance... not that great a choice for
| many
| legitster wrote:
| Well, the simple truth is that the best, most versatile
| car on the road is a minivan. But no one wants to admit
| that so everyone pretends they like SUVs despite being
| worse in almost every way for daily driving.
| kelnos wrote:
| Really? I dislike the feel of driving an SUV, but I find
| minivans to be lumbering beasts. Granted, I haven't had
| the displeasure of driving a minivan in many years
| (whereas I _have_ had the displeasure of driving SUVs
| recently), so maybe they 've gotten better.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| It's the long wheelbase and bigger wheels that have more
| impact on comfort than IRS vs. solid rear axles. A big
| vehicle just doesn't jiggle around as much which is
| surprisingly tiring when you are travelling.
| kelnos wrote:
| I dunno if I agree with that; I drive back and forth from
| the bay area to Tahoe area several times a year, mostly
| in winter months. In the past, I would rent a 4WD SUV for
| the trip (variety of makes and models). A year and a half
| ago I bought a Mercedes sedan (with 4WD) and that drive
| is _way_ more comfortable and stable now.
|
| Maybe I just had bad luck with the rentals I chose?
| asveikau wrote:
| I guess when I say car culture, I don't mean enthusiasts
| and tinkerers. I mean that general American culture is car-
| dependent. People think their car is very important and
| part of their identity. I see on social media all the time
| people say that lack of a car is a sign of struggle, that
| you haven't made it, that you can't be trusted. That sort
| of thing.
| legitster wrote:
| I don't necessarily love it as a characterization because
| Americans also have a love of huge refrigerators and
| couches and washing machines but no one says we have a
| refrigerator culture (even though it may be true). When
| you think about the number of boring base-level Corollas
| that get sold, it's hard to think of it as an identity
| thing.
|
| I think a fairer description would be that American
| culture values space, personal property ownership, and
| independence. Car ownership is a means to an end.
| kelnos wrote:
| I think the larger size of appliances and furniture in
| the US isn't because of any particular love of larger
| sizes for those things, just that suburbia tends to give
| people more room. I'm not sure of the direction of
| causation: do Americans value space and personal property
| ownership and independence on first principles, and then
| spread out in large house on large plots of land because
| of that? Or did those values grow out of the incidental
| ability to have lots of house space?
|
| Our fridge/freezer is on the larger size, but is also
| usually pretty full, so we definitely get good use out of
| it. Our washing machine is reasonably large, but,
| frankly, not large enough, as I can't fit our king-size
| bed's comforter in it, and have to use a laundry service
| to get it washed. Our couch is a pretty good size, but my
| partner and I want to be able to stretch out on it (at
| opposite ends) simultaneously, which doesn't seem like a
| wild or unreasonable thing to want to do.
|
| And I prefer a smaller car! I refuse to purchase an SUV,
| despite my need to drive in snowy mountains several
| months out of the year (I of course found a sedan with a
| 4WD option). I _hate_ driving SUVs; they feel bulky,
| unwieldy, and unstable to me. Before I bought my current
| car, I would rent a 4WD SUV when I needed to drive in the
| snow, and I hated the experience every time.
| bombcar wrote:
| The term "SUV" has changed tremendously, when I was younger
| an SUV was a Suburban or maybe the smaller Bronco - barely
| would apply to a Jeep.
|
| Modern "compact" or "crossover" SUVs are just hatchback cars.
| Some are quite small, they're just named differently to make
| people buy them.
|
| The real loser has been minivans, station wagons, and actual
| hatchbacks. There's no reason to buy a sedan when on the same
| footprint you can get an SUV with more room.
|
| Tesla Model 3 length: 185.8''
|
| Volkswagen Taos length: 175.8''
| kube-system wrote:
| > There's no reason to buy a sedan when on the same
| footprint you can get an SUV with more room.
|
| This is a popular opinion, but there are still advantages
| to a sedan. e.g. driving dynamics, weight and aerodynamics
| and therefore fuel economy, price, etc.
|
| It's just that many buyers don't prioritize these things.
| bombcar wrote:
| Sadly, we have so many cars available, but rarely can you
| find the exact combination you want, so you have to
| choose _something_ to give way.
|
| Most buyers only really compare efficiency after
| narrowing down other things they deem "irreplaceable".
|
| USED buyers, of course, are much more flexible because
| the main thing they care about is price. But nobody
| builds used vehicles, only new ones.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _There 's no reason to buy a sedan when on the same
| footprint you can get an SUV with more room._
|
| Sure there is, fuel efficiency being one.
|
| Also I just do not at all like driving SUVs. I like to be
| closer to the road, and sedans just feel more stable to me.
|
| The proliferation of SUVs is so profoundly disappointing.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| It baffles me... When I'm driving in an unfamiliar place, the
| last thing I want to be driving is a lumbering beast that is
| longer and wider than what I'm used to.
| njarboe wrote:
| The emission loophole is part of the reason but the main one,
| I believe, is that the US vehicle manufacturers have used a
| boat load of advertising and other methods to convince
| people, over the last 60 years, to buy trucks and then SUVs
| due to the 25% "Chicken Tax"[1] that was imposed on truck
| imports starting in 1964. Trucks were some much more
| profitable because they did not need to compete with imports.
| Ford recently has stopped selling all cars but the Mustang in
| the US.
|
| This tax remains in effect to this day with that trade war a
| distant memory.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
| kelnos wrote:
| > _I don 't want an SUV. I get angry at rental companies when
| they try to give me one._
|
| Same, but I think the GP is correct to say that most people
| _do_ want an SUV, in the US, at least.
| repiret wrote:
| The last time I needed to rent a car, I seriously considered
| renting an EV. I find them more pleasant to drive, my usage
| could have been accomplished on a single charge, and Hertz
| doesn't penalize you for returning a discharged EV like they do
| for returning a gas car on an empty tank, so it would have
| saved me having to find a gas station near the airport on my
| way out of town.
|
| But they wanted more than twice as much for a model 3 than any
| other compact sedan, so I ended up with a gas powered Kia
| instead.
| dawnerd wrote:
| > Hertz doesn't penalize you for returning a discharged EV
| like they do for returning a gas car
|
| depending on the branch they absolutely do. Many now have
| requirements you have to return it charged to a certain % or
| be charged just like gas.
| bhandziuk wrote:
| How much is the fee? It only costs like 7 $ to fully
| charge.
| legitster wrote:
| > But they wanted more than twice as much for a model 3 than
| any other compact sedan, so I ended up with a gas powered Kia
| instead.
|
| I mean, they were only going to charge twice as much for a
| car that costs 3x as much.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| > and Hertz doesn't penalize you for returning a discharged
| EV like they do for returning a gas car on an empty tank
|
| bollocks. they absolutely do, and I've been dinged on it
| before. last time I rent an EV
| ShakataGaNai wrote:
| My favorite rental car in recent history was a Fiat 500 we
| nicknamed "The Little Brown Toot" [1]. A 2 door with 4 seats,
| but we had to fold down the back seats in order to fit our
| suitcases. For my wife and I having a long weekend in upstate
| Mass for a friends wedding? It was perfect, we didn't need
| anything else. And it was a hell of a lot less stressful to get
| around and find parking in Boston at the end of our trip.
|
| I don't think I've ever rented an SUV in my adult life. Other
| than the one time I needed a vehicle to go to the snow (and in
| that case, we ended up with an AWD equipped minivan anyways).
|
| I would much prefer a Tesla Model 3 to most SUV options.
| Granted I have an EV so it doesn't scare me, but that's not
| everyone. A rental fleet _should_ be diverse. Just because I
| don 't want an SUV doesn't mean others don't. Different people,
| different wants and needs.
|
| [1] https://imgur.com/a/khw5Lx5
| kelnos wrote:
| > _EVs are already not a good fit for rental cars - I don 't
| think travelers on vacation want to figure deal with a charging
| plan._
|
| Agreed. Travel already involves enough work of having to figure
| out how to operate in a different location. Gas stations are
| everywhere and the time to fill is predictable across all ICE
| cars; I don't want to have to plan EV charging into my trip as
| well.
| camhart wrote:
| I tried renting an EV from Hertz a couple months ago. I reserved
| a Model Y. They waited until the morning of to call me and tell
| me they didn't have one for me. Said they might have a model 3
| (but not the model Y I reserved) 3-4 hours passed my reserved
| pickup time. I waited an hour or two, then found a model y on
| Turo that got the job done. Then Hertz tried to charged me for
| cancelling... they did fix that but I was furious when I saw it
| going pending on my card.
|
| I'm going to avoid Hertz from here on out as much as possible.
| Especially if I want an EV. Perhaps the problem isn't Tesla, but
| Hertz. At least based on my experience, that's what it was.
| bombcar wrote:
| Rental agencies don't actually "rent specific cars" - they sell
| rentals at specific price points and fill those obligations
| with whatever they have laying around at the time.
|
| Which is why it's almost best to just rent the lowest, cheapest
| thing, because they'll give you whatever they have.
|
| This stops working when you need a particular _aspect_ of
| whatever it is, especially if it 's an aspect nobody really
| "cares" about - like whether it is EV.
|
| Most people care it has enough seats, and enough luggage room.
| So a larger SUV works as well as a car for them.
| stilldavid wrote:
| My wife and I went to Kauai and specifically rented a Jeep so
| we could take it on some moderate trails to see waterfalls
| and whatnot. We were somewhat dismayed when we arrived and
| found we had been "upgraded" to a BMW X5 and there were no
| actual off-road vehicles available from the company. It was a
| nice car, for sure, but not what we had wanted.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| IME rental car agreements prohibit taking them "off road"
| which might include tracks. No idea about US (EDIT not
| Japan) specifically.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Japan_
|
| Nitpick: unless I just popped into an alternate timeline,
| Kauai is American [1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kauai
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Eh, my revisionist ideology mixed with late week
| tiredness... Caught red handed.
| ghaff wrote:
| I've never tried to take a rental truly off-road but I've
| definitely had them on very unpaved roads they probably
| shouldn't have been on. You can get true off-road
| vehicles in locales like Death Valley but they're very
| pricey compared to a standard rental.
| bombcar wrote:
| Drive it like a rental and don't destroy it, and you get
| away with murder.
|
| A lot of the "don't do this" rules on a rental are just
| so they can stick your insurance with the cost if you
| break it.
|
| In reality, if the damage is very slight and the person
| checking them in doesn't want to do the paperwork, it's
| going to slide.
|
| If you _do_ drive off-road in a rental, wash it before
| returning it.
| ghaff wrote:
| I've definitely had a number of minor scrapes etc. over
| decades and I've never once had an issue--though I've
| almost exclusively dealt with the larger companies for
| whom minor scrapes etc. are presumably considered normal.
| abeppu wrote:
| ... and sometimes they have no viable plan for having
| something close to what they've promised.
|
| Not so long ago Ireserved a car, from a large national
| company, to go on a backpacking trip. I picked an early
| pickup window, so I would have time to drive a substantial
| distance, hike, and get to my desired stopping point before
| nightfall. I arrive at the rental place at 8a, and find that
| they're fully staffed but had only a a single large van
| available for rent. If I waited around until mid afternoon, I
| was told, _maybe_ something would show up. One of the staff
| told me that the prior week corporate had decided to open up
| that site even though there were no cars.
|
| I'm surprised that Turo/Getaround/etc don't message more
| aggressively about "you'll actually get the car you want,
| when you want, which somehow most car rental companies think
| is unachievable."
| missingcolours wrote:
| Generally that's true, but Hertz specifically does have a few
| classes of vehicle that only contain one model, and they
| advertise those as something like "guaranteed make/model" /
| "reserve this exact car".
|
| And while they do run out, most of the time you will receive
| what you booked, and at larger airport locations they'll
| typically substitute something close in size and nature to
| what you booked if they do run out of your specific class.
| fuhcghxd wrote:
| Hertz is bottom of the barrel. I pay a little extra to avoid
| them.
| aweijrawiej wrote:
| Car rental companies generally don't guarantee specific models.
| Even if you select like a convertible Mustang, odds are they
| won't actually have it. They'll give you something that "meets
| or exceeds your reservation", like a chevy suburban.
|
| Turo is much better if you need a specific vehicle. In Alaska,
| Hawaii, and Utah I've rented 4WD vehicles when I needed 4WD.
| They almost all still say in the contract that you're not
| allowed to take it off road. I always contact the renter ahead
| of time to make sure it's okay if I go on dirt mountain roads
| that need 4WD and I've always found someone who approves. I'd
| guess you can get what you want on Turo.
| camhart wrote:
| When renting Tesla's from Hertz its advertised as a
| guaranteed model.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >I'm going to avoid Hertz from here on out as much as possible.
|
| Hertz having a history of unrepentantly reporting their
| customers as having stolen returned rental cars is another
| reason to avoid them.
|
| The fact that CostcoTravel.com does not have Hertz as an option
| also tells me that Hertz is not a good business.
|
| https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local-news/i-team-investi...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/us/herbert-alford-hertz-l...
|
| https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/hertz-false-arrest-cla...
|
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/03/02/rental-car-h...
| Tommstein wrote:
| At least they called you. I traveled a lot this last fall and
| pretty much always reserved a hybrid with Avis because I was
| going to drive long distances. What I actually got at the
| counter most of the time was "let me see if we have any hybrids
| available" followed by receiving some random car that was not,
| in fact, a hybrid (and often as far as you can get from a fuel-
| efficient hybrid, a regular gas SUV).
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| This is due to high body damage repair costs and has nothing to
| do with repairing an electric powertrain:
|
| >Let me share a bit more context on the damage equation. First,
| while conventional maintenance on electric vehicles remained
| lower relative to comparable ICE vehicles in Q3, higher collision
| and damage repairs on EVs continue to weigh on our results and
| negatively impacted EBITDA. For context, collision and damage
| repairs on an EV can often run about twice that associated with a
| comparable combustion engine vehicle. Second, where a car is
| salvaged, we must crystallize at once any difference between our
| carrying value and the market value of that car. The MSRP
| declines in EVs over the course of 2023, driven primarily by
| Tesla have driven the fair market value of our EVs lower as
| compared to last year, such that a salvage creates a larger loss
| and, therefore, greater burden.
|
| https://ir.hertz.com/static-files/75a583c0-90e0-496a-8b45-9f...
| smitty1110 wrote:
| Bloomberg has the same story and cites high repair costs as one
| of the reasons, so you may be onto something.
| bombcar wrote:
| That coupled with customer complaints and annoyance could
| definitely sour the company on it.
| adfm wrote:
| Adrian Cockcroft wrote about his Hertz experiences back in
| April.
|
| Update: Bad experiences renting electric cars from Hertz
| https://adrianco.medium.com/experiences-renting-electric-
| car...
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| Seems like a lot of random complaints, from mobile apps
| to lane-keeping software. Not much seems specific to EVs,
| more just about new technologies.
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| Was customer complaints cited as one of the reasons?
| moron4hire wrote:
| Hertz doesn't care about customer complaints, other than
| as a KPI that they A) still have customers and B) aren't
| "wasting" money on such luxury things as making sure the
| customer's rental is actually available when they
| contracted for it.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| The title says "EVs" but really it's "Teslas" they're not
| selling their Polestars.
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| Reuters included Polestars.
| llboston wrote:
| At the moment only 636 Teslas for sale.
| https://www.hertzcarsales.com/used-tesla.htm
| yreg wrote:
| Out of 675 electric cars on sale. We will see.
| schainks wrote:
| Had an awesome experience with a Hertz Polestar in Italy last
| summer.
|
| The trim was basic, but the suspension was superior to a
| Tesla, especially on Italian roads.
|
| Road noise was average at highway speeds with the cheaper
| trim.
| camhenlin wrote:
| Lots and lots of Bolts on there if you take a look
| NickM wrote:
| _where a car is salvaged, we must crystallize at once any
| difference between our carrying value and the market value of
| that car_
|
| Hang on though, this part has nothing to do with repair costs.
| This just sounds like an accounting issue, right? If anything I
| would expect this to _benefit_ Hertz since they could write off
| the higher loss in their taxes immediately, instead of waiting
| until future years to write the value off via depreciation.
|
| On the other hand, I can see how this would make their numbers
| _look_ worse at a glance since it shows up as though they lost
| money, but in fact no actual assets have been lost; they have
| the same car, it was repaired, and the repair was paid for by
| insurance, but now it _looks_ like they took a loss because an
| arbitrary accounting rule forces them to adjust their balance
| sheet in a different way than they would otherwise.
|
| Not sure if I'm understanding this right but it sure sounds
| like Hertz is flat-out admitting that they're making sub-
| optimal business decisions to make their numbers look better.
| Wouldn't that be a blatant violation of their fiduciary duties?
| londons_explore wrote:
| You may have discovered one of many reasons Hertz has been
| skirting with bankruptcy...
| nicoburns wrote:
| I would imagine the difference would manifest itself in
| higher insurance rates. You can't just "write off more value"
| for free.
| cyberax wrote:
| Hertz self-insures.
| hangonhn wrote:
| Is there a reason why body damage on an EV would cost more to
| repair?
| water-your-self wrote:
| A plug in is cheaper than a gas tank of fuel, and a rental car
| company is insulated from that fact until they get handed a car
| on empty.
| richiebful1 wrote:
| Hertz charges for an "empty" battery. I highly doubt they're
| losing money on recharges.
| bombcar wrote:
| Being able to "charge onsite" is a minor advantage, if any at
| all. They get to charge for cars brought back not full, and
| either they're active enough that they have on-site refueling
| (delivered by a gas truck) or they're inactive enough that
| sending the new guy over to the gas station isn't a major
| issue.
| RegnisGnaw wrote:
| Considering what they charge you for fuel, they make money on
| that.
| bombcar wrote:
| The years of these vehicles (2021) is about the same as all the
| other vehicles they're selling (though there are some older ones
| which I suspect might be trade ins?).
|
| The only thing really of note is that they're not buying more of
| them, selling off cars that are 2 years (or about 30k miles) or
| so old is standard rental car policy. Sell it whilst they can
| recover much of the capital outlay.
| happytiger wrote:
| This is exactly the point. This is really a non-reup on Tesla
| as a rental fleet option.
|
| It's important to note that they have been renting half this
| fleet to Uber drivers at approximately 1/2 their consumer
| rental rate, according to TheVerge:
|
| > _Hertz is scaling back its EV ambitions because its Teslas
| keep getting damaged / Also, Uber drivers, who are using about
| half of Hertz's Teslas, are damaging their cars more than Hertz
| expected._
|
| And:
|
| > _repair costs are about double what the company spends on gas
| car fixes, Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr told Bloomberg._
|
| Apparently they tried to pull more vehicles into the leisure
| category (aka consumer rentals not Uber driver rentals) to
| mitigate repair costs, but it didn't work.
|
| Also, the price cuts Tesla has been making are turning the
| company off on renewing:
|
| > _Price cuts have taken another toll on Hertz. "The MSRP
| [manufacturer suggested retail price] declines in EVs over the
| course of 2023, driven primarily by Tesla, have driven the fair
| market value of our EVs lower as compared to last year, such
| that a salvage creates a larger loss and, therefore, greater
| burden," Scherr said._
|
| Your analysis seems spot on.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/27/23934691/hertz-tesla-ube...
| bombcar wrote:
| It's a cascade of issues, but it really comes down to "people
| didn't want EVs when offered". For want of renters, the Uber
| was used. For want of Uber gentleness, the repairs mounted,
| etc.
|
| I honestly can't fault them, they tried a thing and they ran
| into real issues.
|
| I suspect that Tesla themselves could manage a (smaller)
| rental EV fleet for those who wanted them, and do decently
| well (they could rent out used cars they've prepped for
| sale).
| elliotec wrote:
| This is interesting. Last summer my family had a trip to LA and
| rented a car through Hertz.
|
| I'm a Gold member through Delta status (which is 1000% better
| than trying to use Hertz without the status), so they had an
| upgrade for me - a Tesla Model 3, which was by far the cheapest
| option.
|
| I live in Utah, drive a (hybrid) F-150, and had never driven a
| Tesla. It was fun and novel but a PITA to figure out charging (at
| Disneyland no less).
|
| When returning the car I was a little surprised to see what
| seemed like hundreds of Teslas on the lot.
|
| We have another SoCal vacation this summer, and I expected to see
| a Tesla at the top of the list again, but I was surprised to see
| that it wasn't even an option, and the other EV (I think a Bolt)
| was 50% more to rent than the standard Jetta. So we got the Jetta
| /shrug
| bombcar wrote:
| It's the people who wanted to "rent a car" and ended up with a
| Tesla without understanding the difference and got
| annoyed/angry that will really sling the deal.
|
| Even if 10% of the customers would be fine with it (I'd love to
| rent one to see what it was like) it's not worth bifurcating
| the fleet.
| bearjaws wrote:
| A rental Tesla has to be one of the worst ideas, people crash
| rentals way more often than their daily driver. Teslas have a
| high cost to repair and long down time...
| ShakataGaNai wrote:
| This is not really surprising due to the business model Hertz was
| going after. They expect their used vehicles to have better
| resale values than what they currently have... which is a bunch
| of Tesla's bought at more or less the peak of pricing and now to
| be sold when prices have come down to sanity. They rode the
| market and lost.
|
| Also they got a LOT of EV's, I give them props for doing so...
| but rental cars should be a little more diverse of fleets. I
| realize it's easier to maintain a few types of vehicles, but
| that's not the business they are in. Additionally, Tesla is not
| yet the type of company that can readily support fleet
| purchasers. It'll be a while before they are, so until then
| you're looking at a lot of pain.
|
| Its really no different than buying Apple for business use in
| 2010 (give or take). Lots of companies were starting to do it,
| but at that time there were only 4 Apple stores in the US that
| even had a "business team". Apple was not setup to handle it and
| still, to this day, are very very slow to roll out business
| centric features and functionality.
| bombcar wrote:
| Companies like Hertz have a lot of issues that people don't
| consider, and making _another_ division in the fleet makes it
| worse.
|
| Over time, one-way rentals tend to congregate specific vehicles
| in specific areas, and so you have to have ways of "undoing"
| that. Having EV cars slowly pool in an area is going to be
| perhaps MORE annoying than just having too many SUVs, because
| most people will say "ooo free SUV upgrade" but will balk at
| "ooo free EV upgrade".
|
| That with the double-whammy of dropping resale value (because
| new ones are cheaper) along with additional customer
| complaints, means they really have no major reason to continue.
|
| If the EVs were working for them, they'd buy more to replace
| the ones aging out of the fleet.
| verisimi wrote:
| > Also they got a LOT of EV's, I give them props for doing
| so...
|
| Why give them props?
|
| It sounds like an obvious waste of their money and resources,
| one that could easily have been foreseen and calculated. How
| can a company that specialises in cars like they do, make such
| an obvious error, like buying 20k EV cars? They are not
| consumers making lifestyle decisions, they are meant to be
| running a business!
| ShakataGaNai wrote:
| > Why give them props?
|
| Because they were trying to be forward-thinking and do the
| right thing, environmentally speaking.
|
| > they are meant to be running a business!
|
| By this logic we should still be using coal for all power or
| maybe crude oil. And kids should still be working in
| factories. Not everything is _just_ about running a business.
| You can be a successful business and still make good choices
| for the world.
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| > but rental cars should be a little more diverse of fleets. I
| realize it's easier to maintain a few types of vehicles, but
| that's not the business they are in.
|
| Why do you say this? I get frustrated when I rent a car, not
| knowing exactly what I'll get. It's just another stressor while
| traveling. I'm actually a fan of Hertz being pretty consistent
| with their models across locations.
| orenlindsey wrote:
| Apparently the big problem is repair costs. They should buy
| Cybertrucks, those things are indestructible. One got in a head-
| on collision recently and didn't even get dented, no one in
| either car was hurt
|
| Edit: this is a joke, by the way
| remh wrote:
| that's not how physics work
| FlyingAvatar wrote:
| It can work if the other car took more of the damage than it
| would have compared to a collision with a "squishier" car.
| Would be interested to see a Cybertruck vs Cybertruck crash.
| remh wrote:
| parent said: "no one in either car was hurt". If the
| cybertruck didn't have any damage it means that no energy
| was dissipated by "squishing it", basically it made the
| impact twice as bad (compared to a regular squishier car)
| for the occupants of both cars. Maybe indeed no one got
| hurt, but then it means that the crash was at super low
| speed.
| theultdev wrote:
| I saw the twitter post of what they're talking about.
|
| It was just the way the car hit it I guess, CT was
| basically untouched, everyone was fine, but it was high
| enough speed to total the other car.
|
| It's not really an indicator of anything, just an
| interesting happenstance.
|
| CT didn't crumple because it wasn't hit where it needed
| to crumple.
| adolph wrote:
| _Cybertruck vs Cybertruck crash_
|
| Postulate two spherical cybertrucken in a vacuum suspended
| from the same point by wire under Earth gravity
| acceleration. After contact each vehicle moves away from
| the point of contact with the energy equivalent of 1/2 the
| sum of each vehicle's input kinetic energy.
| orenlindsey wrote:
| > Cybertruck vs Cybertruck crash
|
| An unstoppable force hitting an immovable object.
| pedantsamaritan wrote:
| N=1. Cybertruck driver reported minor injuries:
| https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/28/24018383/tesla-cybertruc...
| rpcope1 wrote:
| I really doubt that, but one thing that stands out is the usage
| of stainless steel body panels, which make repairs both harder
| and more expensive. Go ask anyone that had to repair a Delorean
| what they think of stainless for body panels..
| kcplate wrote:
| > Edit: this is a joke, by the way
|
| Once again the HN community fails to spot obvious sarcasm.
| Y'all really need to get out more.
| elintknower wrote:
| This is an absolute dream for anyone with a services business
| ready to re-up or replace their fleet of vehicles.
|
| Most of these hertz teslas were barely driven and those with
| defects are generally pretty easy to catch and they're desperate
| to get rid of them at bottom of the barrel prices.
|
| It almost makes me want to quit my dev job and start a plumbing
| or electrical biz.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _It almost makes me want to quit my dev job and start a
| plumbing or electrical biz._
|
| Ummm...I think there's a little more to running a plumbing
| company than the type of vehicle you're driving to service
| calls in.
| jetrink wrote:
| I would think that car rentals would be one of the slowest areas
| for electric adoption. You're immediately limited to people only
| intending to drive short distances, which is less common for car
| rentals than day-to-day car ownership. Of those, many will be
| people far from home where they're not familiar with the charging
| infrastructure. Maybe they can stay at a hotel with chargers, but
| what if there are only a couple and they don't get one one night?
| It just sounds like a way to make planning a trip more
| complicated.
| legitster wrote:
| On the other hand though, rental agencies can normally get away
| with offering a broad set of options and price points for any
| niche.
|
| https://www.hertz.com/rentacar/vehicleguide/index.jsp?target...
|
| So it's moreso that they can't find a profitable price point to
| justify keeping it in the general car pool.
| apapapa wrote:
| EVs cost more in almost every way... I had to pay $900 for 3
| weeks of super charger ... And since it was a rental the cost was
| a surprise at the end.
|
| In addition to that, they gave me a model 3 when I was trying to
| rent the most basic gas model (for the same price). I'm glad I
| got to try it but never again. I thought I was getting a good
| deal...
| houseatrielah wrote:
| CNBC did a better job than this low-density article.
|
| Why Hertz's Bet On Tesla Isn't Paying Off In The U.S.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfbkvUXTV_I
|
| "pricing troubles, skyrocketing repair costs and low resale
| value"... They turn their fleet over every 2-years or so, so
| resale value is important, and with prices of new EVs coming
| down, the resale value will be significantly lower than a new
| model.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _with prices of new EVs coming down_
|
| Prices of new _Teslas_ coming down. This is incredibly specific
| to Hertz 's bet on Teslas.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Are other brand EVs selling at high prices? Or are they
| sitting on lots at high prices?
| zardo wrote:
| For a resale impact it doesn't matter much if the price is
| low or high, it matters if the price drops.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _a resale impact it doesn 't matter much if the price
| is low or high_
|
| If you're actually trying to sell them, it does. If
| you're marking your assets on a balance sheet, the
| "price" matters more than the price.
| maronato wrote:
| If Tesla lowers their prices, other EVs manufacturers are
| forced to do the same to remain competitive.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/tesla-...
| throw7 wrote:
| But I was told EV's would be much more reliable and cheaper to
| repair?
| tanseydavid wrote:
| YMMV
| belltaco wrote:
| Hertz says conventional maintenance is lower cost on EVs
| compared to similar ICE cars.
| samketchup wrote:
| Granted they're dumping the fleet with degraded battery
| packs before doing the 15k+ replacement, sure.
| belltaco wrote:
| Where does this myth come from? Looks it's about 10%
| battery degradation after 200K miles. Tesla is rating
| their batteries for 300K to 500K miles.
|
| Most American company ICE cars are scrapped by then. Not
| to mention all the ICE related maintenance costs over
| that time like oil changes, transmission fluid, timing
| belts, hoses, etc. etc.
|
| You can look at 6 to 10 year Model S cars.
| samketchup wrote:
| It's not a myth at all, and Tesla's "rating" is a lie.
| Look at data on Prius battery packs and what Toyota rates
| them for(100-150k). I understand I'm comparing a hybrid
| to an EV, but there is much more data and I actually
| trust Toyota.
|
| Buying an EV with 100k miles and the original battery
| pack for 20k is a bad idea.
| gridspy wrote:
| Lithium-ion battery lifetimes are based on charge-
| discharge cycles.
|
| The Prius battery is far smaller (about 5-10x smaller)
| than a Tesla battery, so it is cycling charge / discharge
| far more often.
|
| So you'd expect the same quality battery to last 5-10x
| less miles in a Prius than a Tesla driving the same
| distance. It's likely that Tesla's investment in battery
| quality and active temperature controls mean the Tesla
| battery is also treated better and higher quality.
|
| Topping that battery up with a generator in the Prius
| complicates things, both reducing kWh used per mile (some
| from generator) but also allowing a discharge - recharge
| cycle to occur multiple times in the same trip.
| mcguire wrote:
| Tesla's repair and spare parts model?
| slg wrote:
| It generally is, but that could be the difference between
| owning one and running a fleet. They are low maintenance and
| rarely require repairs, but when they do, they can be awfully
| costly. That could result in a low median cost but higher
| mean cost. Owning 20k means you are going to have to deal
| with that average, but an individual owner probably lucks out
| with the median cost.
| dxbydt wrote:
| Can confirm. For a fleet owner, cost to repair vehicle is
| generally modeled as an [1] exponentially distributed rv,
| which has a positive skew, so [2] mean > median.
|
| [1]
| https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/187618/finding-
| comb...
|
| [2] https://i.stack.imgur.com/2w6it.png
| bdcravens wrote:
| Personal ownership, typically yes. Rental cars are a
| different beast, with the amount of miles and abuse they
| receive. When I had a gas car on Turo, I had to deal with all
| kinds of weirdness that never happened when I drove the same
| car.
| hibikir wrote:
| And they tend to be, along with needing less maintenance.
|
| Tesla, however, has a ludicrous parts system compared to any
| traditional car company, for parts that have absolutely
| nothing to do with the fact that the car is using an electric
| powertrain. Ask for the cost of a new front bumper... it's
| not pretty.
|
| And as far as fender bender risk goes, it also doesn't help
| that a Tesla is, in practice, far more powerful at low speeds
| than the typical car the renter is used to. Pressed the gas
| pedal when you meant to brake? You'll be in for a surprise.
| They are also probably unaccustomed to the car's behavior
| when you lift the gas pedal completely: Being able to do one
| pedal driving is great if you know the car, but probably a
| big surprise for someone renting.
| ado__dev wrote:
| I have had an EV since 2018, love it to death, but would
| absolutley never rent one. The biggest pain point with EVs imo is
| charging infrastructure. My personal car, I can charge at home so
| it becomes a non-issue.
|
| But if I'm traveling to a new city that I'm not super familiar
| with, I do not have any desire to plot out where charging
| stations are, is the hotel going to have charging, is it going to
| be operational, etc. Too much headache and cost of public
| chargers on top of premium cost to rent an EV just doesn't make
| much sense.
| aweijrawiej wrote:
| I charge my Tesla at home and I love it. But I visited family
| over christmas and driving around in their Rivian I was
| reminded how absolutely shit non-tesla charging still is. I'm
| not at all surprised EV sales are dropping when charging is as
| awful as it is.
| bdcravens wrote:
| I have a non-Tesla EV (Kia EV6). I'm pretty sure I wouldn't
| have gotten it if I didn't charge at home. (We've done a
| couple of long trips in it, including cross-country, but I
| had lower expectations of what the experience would be like)
| pengaru wrote:
| Didn't I read in the news that Tesla had opened up its
| supercharger network to other brands?
| dangrossman wrote:
| Yes, but not in a way that benefits anyone immediately.
| They made deals with each individual brand (I think every
| US make except Stellantis now), in which those brands will
| start putting Tesla charging ports on the cars in future
| model years, and in some cases offer adapters to existing
| owners starting in 2024 or 2025. Each brand also needs to
| integrate with Tesla for payments in some way, since 99.9%
| of their charging stations don't have screens or payment
| terminals. The predictions I've read are that will mean new
| versions of each company's mobile apps, rather than having
| non-Tesla owners use Tesla's app.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > is the hotel going to have charging, is it going to be
| operational, etc. Too much headache
|
| Remember when hotel wi-fi was like that?
|
| I expect this situation to change (slowly) over time.
| ado__dev wrote:
| I do. And yes, when the infrastructure is there and is
| reliable, I'll be happy to switch.
| alphanumeric0 wrote:
| I only rent EVs, if possible. I've gotten by just fine.
| Plugshare app makes it easy to find working chargers.
| bdcravens wrote:
| I've rented out a couple of cars on Turo, one an efficient
| 4-cylinder gas car, the other an EV. The EV renters seemed to
| have a realistic expectation of what to expect in terms of
| charging (I also included a level 1 charger for those with
| access to a plug).
| Tommstein wrote:
| Same here. A few years ago I rented a local Tesla on Turo for a
| day trip that was several hours away, but since I just needed
| to drop it off "whenever" (by the next morning), I could find
| somewhere to charge it at my leisure. Then this fall I flew
| somewhere and was asked by the car rental company whether I
| wanted an electric car instead of the one I had reserved. With
| a return flight to catch under possibly tight time constraints
| and no idea where I would charge the car or how long it would
| take (both right before return and just driving around; I was
| going a long distance to a pretty rural area), I declined that
| sweet sweet offer in favor of a car I could fill up anywhere in
| under five minutes. If car rental companies actually want to
| rent electric cars, they would be wise to say you don't have to
| worry about recharging them, they'll do it themselves either at
| no extra cost or at whatever the cost would be if you did it
| yourself (not the "we'll refuel it for you at the low low price
| of $15/gallon!" that they offer for gas cars).
| ballenf wrote:
| > it would sell about 20,000 electric vehicles, including Teslas,
| from its U.S. fleet due to higher expenses related to collision
| and damage, and will opt for gas-powered vehicles.
|
| The repair costs and turnaround time seems like Tesla's achilles
| heal right now. Insurance costs on a Tesla were the primary
| deciding factor in me putting off a Tesla purchase. From my
| preferred insurer, the premium was 50-60% higher than for a
| similarly priced ICE vehicle. And Rivian is way higher than Tesla
| to insure.
|
| I really think EV makers need to prioritize repairability in
| their next push. It's more important to me than extra range. It
| will both lower initial costs and reduce EV depreciation. An out-
| of-warranty EV has to be _very_ cheap for it to make sense.
| etimberg wrote:
| Unfortunately for consumers repairability would harm efforts to
| treat cars like subscriptions so I doubt EV manufacturers care
| eptcyka wrote:
| I was under the impression that EVs would be a better fit for
| exactly this kind of a purpose - they're easier on the
| consumables other than tires and more resilient to abuse. Is it
| the lack of 3rd party part availability that makes damage repair
| more expensive?
| yabones wrote:
| Copying this over from the other thread - It makes sense... EV's
| pay for themselves over the long run, much longer than rental
| cars stick around for. They typically lease them for up to three
| years and then flip them for newer vehicles. EV's have lower TCO,
| but only if you keep it for a decade. With a higher sticker price
| and insurance, it makes sense the rental sector is having cold
| feet.
|
| Anecdotally, the exception was Japan, where my wife and I rented
| a pristine ten year old Aqua direct from Toyota, but that sort of
| vertical integration seems to be rare here.
| harshaw wrote:
| We are 5-10 years too early to be renting EVs. I have seen folks
| in Vermont who have rental EVs because those were the last on the
| lot. There is not enough infra, you need a bunch of apps, you
| need to understand how EVs work with weather and driving
| conditions, etc. This just hinders EV adoption because all of
| these people will never get an EV for the forseable future
| because they aren't early adopters but were forced into it. So
| yeah, it's kind of obvious why Hertz would dump these cars.
| s0rce wrote:
| I rented a Tesla from Hertz once in Houston and the whole
| experience was terrible.
|
| Got to the counter and the agent first suggested that I take a
| gas car for $25/day. I was confused because that was so cheap,
| although the Tesla was already heavily discounted. Apparently,
| this was $25/day above what I had paid for the model 3 and it was
| for a compact economy car. I stuck with the Tesla.
|
| The agent warned me that repairs were very expensive and I need
| to have insurance, which I had bought and my company also
| provided. Stuck with the Tesla.
|
| I was told I need to return the car charged or I would be billed
| for "filling it up". I was confused why they couldn't charge at
| the airport and also explained that if I charge near my hotel it
| will likely not be 100% when I get to the airport. They couldn't
| say if that was ok.
|
| I went outside to get the car and they had to go get it, a few
| people asked me what I was waiting for while I stood there.
| People getting gas cars were quickly served.
|
| I got the car and was again told that I need to return the car
| charged, explained again that it won't be 100%. The agent said
| that 85% is fine. He asked me if I had driven a Tesla before, I
| had not, I expected he would show me the vehicle and provide some
| guidance. He simply handed me a QR code and wandered off.
|
| I got in the car and it was only at 80% charge. I figured out how
| to drive it on the way out of the parking lot.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| I am not a huge tesla fan but to expect that car rental
| employees will babysit every customer and show them all the
| cars in detail is... unrealistic.
|
| I was once spending maybe an hour to figure out how to start
| and move a rental mercedes after picking it up, and next to me
| was some german guy in exactly same situation with same model.
| Eventually we managed to figure it out with phones.
| s0rce wrote:
| I agree, if it was just the issue with showing me the car it
| would have been excusable, although I'm not sure what would
| happen to someone less tech-savy, but anyways. It was the
| combination of issues at every step along the way that made
| the experience less than stellar.
| Zanni wrote:
| I had a similar process the first time I rented a Tesla from
| Hertz (about a year ago). Counter-person was surly, gave me the
| key for the wrong vehicle (!) and gave me incorrect
| instructions on how to use the key. Hertz did send out an email
| in advance on how to use a Model 3/Y, including key entry
| (incorrect, unfortunately), door operation and charging.
|
| Recently I rented one again, and the process was much improved,
| which I take as an indicator that (despite this sale), they
| haven't turned completely bearish on Tesla. Counter-person much
| more knowledgable and agreeable. No mixups. Also, the software
| has improved. The rental now provides an _on-screen_ tutorial
| on using the car, and you can now use your phone as a key. Huge
| quality of life improvement.
|
| Hertz could still do better. They _need_ fast chargers at their
| location. All cars should be available "fully" charged (80%)
| with no need to bring the car back full. And they need to get
| rid of that ridiculous key-cover for the physical key that
| prevents you from just slipping it into your wallet like God
| intended.
| ParacelsusOfEgg wrote:
| I'm not sure that experience would have been any better if you
| had tried to rent a gas vehicle. I had almost the same
| experience as you (attempts at backwards up selling, poor
| communication about returning the car fueled up, and customers
| served in a random order), but with a gas vehicle in Denver in
| 2019 at a Hertz.
| lend000 wrote:
| [delayed]
| nixass wrote:
| Sixt is dumping Teslas for same reasons as well. On the other
| hand they are increasing their Chinese EV fleet in Germany at
| least
|
| https://cleantechnica.com/2023/12/08/sixt-dumping-teslas-due...
| peteforde wrote:
| Hang on... people rent cars to drive for Uber?
|
| How can the economics come even remotely close to working out? I
| was under the strong impression that Uber drivers make dirt and
| that it's difficult to do much more than break even, assuming you
| own/lease your own car.
|
| Either Hertz is insanely cheap or Uber pays more than I thought.
| neverminder wrote:
| I live in one of those upscale glass tower estates in central
| London. There is fancy valet underground parking for some 500
| cars. There are 2 slow chargers in total that don't even work 50%
| of the time. Owning an EV is a fucking joke for most people and I
| don't see that changing any time soon. Rebuilding entire world's
| power grid is gonna take forever.
| bdcravens wrote:
| It may also have to do with the fact that the refreshed Model 3
| is now available for order in the US, and the Model Y is probably
| not too far away. I feel like the used market is about to be
| flooded with those cars, tanking resale value. (which has already
| dropped substantially)
|
| Resale value is a big aspect of rental car companies'
| profitability models.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| So you're saying it's a good time to buy a cheap electric
| vehicle?
| alexb_ wrote:
| More accurate headline: Hertz is selling 20k Teslas because Tesla
| as a brand is an absolute cancer who wants to be the "Apple of
| Cars" via making unmaintainable pieces of garbage.
| TOMDM wrote:
| There are ways to make this criticism where people would take
| you seriously.
| leoh wrote:
| Your comment is equally inflammatory to me. Behind the
| diction and emotionality of the poster, there are some
| entirely reasonable points that recapitulate the article
| itself.
| TOMDM wrote:
| I agree that there are reasonable points, that was the
| purpose of my comment, I thought the poster had something
| to offer, but am of the opinion that people won't take them
| seriously because of their approach.
|
| Emotion is even a valid addition to the conversation if
| they thought it added to their point. What is unproductive
| is expressing that emotion by calling a car brand "absolute
| cancer".
|
| I think it's valid to be upset about Tesla as a brand. I
| think it's valid to call out repairability issues. Coming
| across as hysterical means that people won't take you
| seriously despite that.
| stcredzero wrote:
| Really, because my understanding, based on an earlier Hertz
| president interview, was that the maintenance cost was 1/2 what
| their typical fleet vehicle was.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| he was probably just repeating what Musk had told him to make
| the sale, but of course Musk speaks only in varying degrees
| of B.S.
| stoddur wrote:
| I own a 2017 Model S and the maintenance cost over these 6
| years has been 1000 USD (change brake calipers at the end of
| year 6). For EV owners it's definitely lower but damage
| collision repairs are probably more expensive.
| tontonius wrote:
| Keep it classy and refrain from emotional outspurts.
| leoh wrote:
| It's not very classy imo to call out someone else for not
| being classy.
| penjelly wrote:
| that isnt logical. A tramp bursts into your store and tries
| to sleep on the floor. Telling him thats not cool isnt
| classy? Thats not the world we live in in either case.
| supportengineer wrote:
| I looked at some of the Hertz listings this morning. I saw a
| lot of cars with 50k - 80k miles on them. Isn't that about the
| time they let go of rental cars anyway? I get a lot of rental
| cars and they usually are new or have ~2,000 miles on them.
| imglorp wrote:
| Tesla also sold 1.8 million EVs in 2023. Nobody else is even
| close to that scale. A fleet buyer would not want any low
| volume manufacturer.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| Not sure about the economics for the rental companies, but for a
| consumer, there are practical reasons why electric aren't quite
| as attractive.
|
| When you rent a car, more than likely you will be in unfamiliar
| territory. So it seems that it just adds to the stress of travel
| and yet another thing you have to pay attention to.
|
| Will my hotel have charging spots? Will I be able to charge at
| the client site I'm visiting? How do I plan this long leg of the
| trip that I need to drive?
| stcredzero wrote:
| _When you rent a car, more than likely you will be in
| unfamiliar territory. So it seems that it just adds to the
| stress of travel and yet another thing you have to pay
| attention to._
|
| _Will my hotel have charging spots? Will I be able to charge
| at the client site I 'm visiting? How do I plan this long leg
| of the trip that I need to drive?_
|
| As a Tesla owner, driver, and 3 times Hertz Tesla renter, let
| me attest: - Hertz staff are poorly trained
| for Tesla rentals - The "must use same credit card"
| thing is worst than an absolute nightmare if one
| doesn't have the exact same credit card, landing late at night
| on a holiday weekend. The experience is so extremely
| bad, it sounds fictional!
| gumby wrote:
| FWIW I rented an electric volvo in november and its built in
| map (displayed by default even if you weren't using its nav
| system, which I did not) displayed charger sites. As it
| happened my hotel had a charger in the parking garage and the
| valets plugged my car in for me.
|
| One anecdote does not data make, and I didn't know at the time
| of reservation that my hotel would be adequately equipped.
| rondini wrote:
| As a second anecdote, I also rented one from Hertz (Polestar
| 2) and while it could navigate me to charging stations, at
| least 50% of the time I was unable to charge at a given
| location due to technical issues. It was bad enough that I
| had to divert 30 minutes off my planned route to find a
| working charger.
|
| I look forward to owning an EV someday but the rental
| experience right now and in my state was VERY stressful.
| pton_xd wrote:
| I had the same experience... in Sunnyvale / SF, of all
| places! I was shocked at how bad the charging
| infrastructure is for non-Teslas.
| mgiampapa wrote:
| Level 2 Tesla destination chargers are everywhere in SV
| and you can use them with with any J1772 car using a
| simple adapter.
|
| There are now also adapters for fast charging Tesla
| connectors to CCS1, but that is relatively recent.
| akira2501 wrote:
| Which city were you in?
| infamouscow wrote:
| The greatest barrier to EV adoption is the obstinance of
| early adopters that lack the capacity to understand why
| someone would use an ICE vehicle. Consequently, it hampers
| improvement in areas that need to be improved upon for wider
| EV adoption. It's quite ironic.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| At least one great barrier is the reactionary response to
| anything associated with 'liberal', including anything that
| has to do with climate change. IIRC there's a correlation
| between politics and EV purchases. If even Musk can't
| persuade other reactionaries ...
| wannacboatmovie wrote:
| > my hotel had a charger in the parking garage and the valets
| plugged my car in for me
|
| So they just put the charging fee on your bill with the
| little bottles of gin from the minibar? I'm sure hotel power
| is reasonably priced...
| jliptzin wrote:
| I have never been charged by a hotel to charge my car
| atkailash wrote:
| I don't see how that's different than needing to figure out gas
| station locations and not knowing how much you'll use between
| points since you don't know traffic or efficiency of that
| vehicle.
| rconti wrote:
| Yup. I own a Tesla and it's been a great car. I charge it at
| home, and I know how the supercharging network works.
|
| I've been OFFERED electric rentals in:
|
| * Tromso Norway (on a roadtrip through the Lofoten)
|
| * Nelson NZ
|
| * Brisbane AU
|
| The reality is, when I rent a car on vacation, I'm typically
| doing more miles per day than when I'm at home. That's because
| I'm not sitting at work 9 hours a day! Plus, I don't know their
| charging situation. Even if it WAS Tesla, no doubt these places
| have fewer Superchargers per capita than California (even
| though of course Norway has a TON of good EV charging). I have
| no idea if I can charge at my (multiple!) homes throughout the
| trip.
|
| I'm already dealing with the cognitive load of a different
| country, a different currency, often a foreign language,
| different driving standards (maybe on the other side of the
| road). Finding places to stay and eat. I don't need one more
| chore!
|
| To put it simply: An EV is more convenient as our primary car,
| full stop. An EV would be _less_ convenient as a rental car
| while on vacation.
| penjelly wrote:
| i distinctly remember an article from 2 years ago about them
| buying like 100k teslas. Look like theyre now up for 14k a pop
| drcongo wrote:
| Given how many times this story has appeared on HN today, should
| we assume oil lobbyists?
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| > While Hertz isn't directly pointing a finger, it appears that
| Tesla has been largely to blame.
|
| > Tesla has been aggressively cutting its vehicle prices leading
| other automakers to do the same for their electric vehicles. When
| automakers reduce the prices of new vehicles, that pushes down
| the value of those models in the used car market, causing rapid
| depreciation.
|
| How dare Tesla reduce their prices without asking Hertz first
| kloch wrote:
| There is a massive disconnect between the attitudes toward EV's
| of people who have owned EV's and those who have not. Range
| anxiety tends to dissipate after a short time of real world
| driving experience.
|
| You're just not going to rent EV's to many non-owners, even if
| they are going to be driving less than 100 miles (typical
| business trip where you fly then rent a car).
| penjelly wrote:
| > Range anxiety tends to dissipate after a short time of real
| world driving experience
|
| disclaimer: havent owned. but i disagree with this, and others
| have mentioned in thread already. range anxiety dissipates for
| most people because 1. they mostly drive daily commutes of
| areas they know and 2. they become intimately familiar with the
| Tesla and how it finds the next supercharger for you on route.
| Both of these dont apply when renting a car most times.
| drzaiusapelord wrote:
| "[C]ollision and damage repairs on an EV can often run about
| twice that associated with a comparable combustion engine
| vehicle," Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr said in a recent analyst call.
|
| ---
|
| This is concerning. These cars are essentially delicate ipads
| with wheels and repairs for them are costly and specialized.
| Driving, in general, is dangerous and accident prone. Waking up
| to twice your repair cost or insurance premiums must not be great
| for Hertz.
|
| Also the article doesn't mention the EV value cut-off unrelated
| to MSRP. When the battery reaches 50-60% of its top capacity,
| then range anxiety is back. No one wants a 150-100 mile Tesla, or
| worse in the winter with the heating on.
|
| Range issues aren't a big deal with regular owners as with
| regular use they only lose 10-15% range in the first few years,
| but Hertz drives theses hard everyday, unlike someone with a
| suburban commute who gets groceries on the weekend. Who knows
| what their internal data is suggesting. Id be very, very hesitant
| to buy a Hertz used Tesla. I'd want to see how bad the battery is
| first, especially what its real world range is in the winter. I
| wouldnt be surprised because how hard these cars are run, they'll
| have more battery degradation per year/per mile than a well kept
| car babied by someone who loves their Tesla.
|
| I just took a look on their website and the long range sedan I'd
| be interested in at that trim level 2024 model is going to be
| about $50k. Hertz has a 2022, a less than 2 year old car, with
| 80k miles for asking $31k. A 40% depreciation in 2 years is very
| rough.
|
| Their resale value is particularly punishing. Hertz doesn't keep
| cars for all that long, so a tough depreciation isn't something
| they can ignore.
| cameldrv wrote:
| Teslas are extremely expensive to own. As the article says,
| collision repairs are extremely expensive, partially because of
| the design, partially because Tesla essentially fully controls
| the repair market. Also as mentioned in the article, depreciation
| is very high. I'm not fully sure why this is, but there is to
| some degree the same effect with luxury brands -- BMW, Mercedes,
| etc, where a lot of the signaling value is lost when the car is
| old, but the parts/maintanence are still extremely expensive.
| stcredzero wrote:
| _Teslas are extremely expensive to own._
|
| BS. Cheaper by far than any gas car, in time and money! Half
| the cost to fuel. No more emissions check. No more oil changes.
| No more visits to the gas station.
|
| _As the article says, collision repairs are extremely
| expensive_
|
| I suspect this is also BS. That's par for the course with media
| outlets w/Tesla.
| t3rabytes wrote:
| My own experience with having our (now-lease-returned) Model
| 3 backs up collision repairs being more expensive. I live a
| major metro that has a single repair shop certified to work
| on Tesla vehicles. They have a multi-month wait, and they
| charge more to repair Tesla vehicles than the equivalent
| luxury vehicle because they can.
|
| A newer luxury SUV with an MSRP 2x of our Model 3 had a lower
| collision premium on our car insurance policy.
| cameldrv wrote:
| I'm not a media outlet. Friends of mine with Teslas that have
| been in accidents had large bills. Auto insurance for Teslas
| is expensive for this reason.
|
| As for the fuel cost, it depends where you live. In
| California, if you have PG&E, it's roughly a wash despite our
| very high gas prices (electricity is even more outrageous)
| nosequel wrote:
| Interesting tidbit at the end.
|
| > Besides costing more to repair when they're damaged in a crash,
| Scherr also said, EVs are also getting in more crashes.
|
| then
|
| > Our work with Tesla is to look at the performance of the car,
| so as to lower the risk of incidence of damage
|
| I'm curious if they are working with tesla to <reduce> the
| performance? Are people getting into accidents because they
| aren't used to teslas' acceleration vs. a typical gas car? Or are
| people getting into accidents for other performance reasons, eg:
| cornering / braking?
| stcredzero wrote:
| _Are people getting into accidents because they aren 't used to
| teslas' acceleration_
|
| Most likely. Even the lowest end Tesla can scare the pants off
| of a passenger who has never been in an EV before. I know this
| from personal experience. An EV driver noob who stomps on the
| pedal has a chance of panicking and death-stomping on the pedal
| more.
| kyleee wrote:
| Yeah I actually wish they offered a Tesla with about 1/3rd of
| the power and better range / smaller battery
| david422 wrote:
| > they have higher damage-repair costs
|
| People tend to treat rentals with not a lot of care. That seems
| like it could certainly add up.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Is that really a thing? I'm super paranoid when I have a rental
| car, the idea of taking it back and having them basically able
| to charge you what they like for any damage gives me the fear.
| InvertedRhodium wrote:
| I drive an EV every day in NZ, but even when I went on a road
| trip through Arizona/Nevada/California I rented a petrol car
| simply to avoid the additional overhead of having to worry about
| the availability of charging infrastructure.
|
| I completely understand why they don't work well as rental cars.
| louwrentius wrote:
| I wonder what the impact of 20K Teslas flooding the second-hand
| market would be...
| Animats wrote:
| This article doesn't mention that, apparently, Uber drivers are
| renting or leasing cars from Hertz. Hertz markets this to Uber
| drivers.[1] This is apparently terrible for Hertz. Uber drivers
| put a lot of miles on the vehicles. Plus, Teslas are expensive to
| repair. On top of that, the auto rental business is a speculation
| in used car futures. That's why it hurt Hertz when Tesla reduced
| prices.
|
| This all reflects on Hertz's accountants, who should have seen
| this coming.
|
| [1]
| https://www.hertz.com/rentacar/misc/index.jsp?targetPage=ube...
| Zanni wrote:
| I've rented Teslas from Hertz twice, about one year apart. The
| process has improved considerably in that time, so I don't think
| this is an indication that Hertz has turned bearish on Tesla.
|
| The improvements include an on-display tutorial for how a Tesla
| differs from other models in their fleet (including door
| operation, use of keys and charging) and the ability to use your
| phone as a key. This last is very nice quality of life
| improvement.
| gcanyon wrote:
| I've rented Teslas from Hertz and Avis. The experience was
| nominal; the only issue the first time was my lack of familiarity
| with Teslas, and Hertz's onboarding for them was weak. But
| otherwise everything has been fine whenever I rented them.
| screamingninja wrote:
| I tried renting one in Hawaii last month. Figured it would be a
| great idea on an island where I could drive all day and easily
| charge overnight. Wrong.
|
| - Our hotel (and many others) did not offer EV charging. In most
| places, there was no assurance that the chargers would be
| functional.
|
| - Oahu has very limited level 3 charging. Finding a supercharger
| meant driving out of the way.
|
| - Hertz wanted me to top-it-off before returning. I was mindblown
| when I realized that they had a fleet of EVs but no in-house
| charging equipment.
|
| Had Hertz offered to charge it themselves upon return, I would
| have still taken it, but asking me to sit around for a few extra
| hours at an L2 charger just before returning the vehicle was
| definitely a deal-breaker.
| leroy_masochist wrote:
| I feel like there's a big market opportunity to create an EV-only
| rental car agency that will eventually get rolled up by an Avis
| or Hertz.
|
| Besides the body damage repair cost mentioned in the article, one
| other reason for Hertz' decision has to be customer complaints.
| Car rental agencies frequently have to give people a different
| car than the one they reserved and for whatever reason, a lot of
| Americans have a bone to pick with electric vehicles. Having
| traveled extensively for work over the years, I've seen some
| pretty stunning meltdowns from the people ahead of me in the
| Hertz line when they got, e.g., a Traverse instead of a Tahoe
| (i.e., a marginally smaller SUV than the one they reserved).
|
| Imagine the theatrics that ensue at the Honolulu airport when an
| entitled boomer out of central casting (sorry to stereotype) gets
| a Bolt instead of the Malibu they reserved. I could totally see
| how such incidents, at scale, would bubble up to Hertz leadership
| and drive decisions.
|
| It doesn't seem like there are any electric-only agencies out
| there except for the Tesla plan to let owners monetize their
| vehicles during owner downtime. Feels like a good market
| opportunity and the US Gov would probably subsidize the shit out
| of it.
| nunez wrote:
| I have been almost exclusively renting electric cars since late
| 2022. This makes total sense.
|
| Tesla is very strict about their parts distribution. They will
| only send parts to authorized Tesla service centers, of which
| there aren't that many.
|
| This is extremely unfortunate for rental cars, as they get beat
| to absolute shit and are in a near constant state of repair.
|
| I've rented several Teslas from Hertz and Avis. Almost all of
| them have had at least one visible non-OEM replacement part on
| them, and half of them had that part installed incorrectly.
| Examples:
|
| - A replacement backup camera that was pointed way too far
| downwards. Because this car didn't have ultrasonic sensors, it
| couldn't do distance estimates reliably. Parking that thing was
| like going straight back to 2006 every time.
|
| - A passenger-side window that didn't align with the top of the
| window frame, causing air to leak into the cabin and kW/h
| averages to skyrocket.
|
| - Heaps of el cheapo tires. This isn't a problem specific to
| Tesla, but it's a worse problem with Teslas since their cabins
| are already loud as they are and non-EV-rated tires throw off
| energy consumption.
|
| It's not _as bad_ with Hertz since they are a Tesla partner, but
| it's the wild west with other rental car companies. Teslas
| offered by Avis are almost entirely bought individually from who
| knows where and I think every single Tesla I've rented from Avis
| has had something up with it.
|
| I can also believe their claim regarding low customer adoption.
| Most of Hertz and Avis's customers are business travelers on
| corporate expense accounts. When they want to rent a car, they
| need a car _now_ and do not want to worry about things like
| fueling and parking the car.
|
| Teslas are a completely different experience from a "normal" car.
| Their interior is also very polarizing, especially now that Tesla
| is experimenting with a stalk-less steering wheel cluster. This
| makes it not only more difficult for rental car companies to put
| those cars to work, but it also adds toil in the backend from
| dealing with car returns and clogging the (almost always
| understaffed) reservation desk with exchanges.
|
| Non-Tesla EVs are also impacted by this. Many business travelers
| just _won't_ with charging apps, especially when they only fuel
| the cars either just after getting them or just before returning
| them.
| jsight wrote:
| Also, with business travel, I generally haven't been allowed to
| expense fees to returning it with less than a full tank. With
| EVs, this would mean that I couldn't pay even a reasonable fee
| for this service.
|
| That'd be enough to make me avoid them on business travel, even
| though I also tend to rent EVs when traveling for leisure.
| Yhippa wrote:
| Yesterday I went to their website looking to hopefully rent a
| Cadillac LYRIQ to try out before buying and I was shocked to find
| that their website is stuck in the early 2000's. Unbelievable.
| kelnos wrote:
| Regardless of the repair issues they cite, I wouldn't ever rent
| an EV.
|
| Last summer I was attending a wedding in slightly-upstate New
| York. I flew into Newark airport, and went to rent a car that I'd
| pre-reserved. They tried to give me an EV. I had no idea what the
| charging situation would be where I was going, so I declined and
| asked for and ICE car instead. Good thing, as I didn't see any
| kind of charging infra at my hotel or at the wedding venue, or
| anywhere nearby.
|
| Renting an EV would mean planning ahead of time and becoming
| familiar with the charging infra in whatever place I'm visiting.
| That seems not worth the effort or potential stress.
|
| On top of that, I've read of plenty of situations where people go
| to rent an EV, and find that it's barely charged, and then have
| to waste an hour or more finding a place to charge it before
| going about their day. The rep at the rental place will just
| shrug and say they didn't have time to charge it fully after it
| was returned.
| tedk-42 wrote:
| Hertz putting the square block in a circular hole and then
| blaming the square for being a square
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Where do we buy them?
| gkfasdfasdf wrote:
| https://www.hertzcarsales.com/used-tesla.htm
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