6 ms·

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

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 3y ago
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 3y ago
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 3y ago
  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 3y ago
    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 3y ago
      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.
    - AlbertCory 3y ago
      Indeed: for awhile I was going to a place on Saratoga near Doyle in west San Jose, and they had a non-Tesla charging station in the parking lot. Almost always, every spot was occupied, even in the middle of a weekday.
- akira2501 3y ago
  Which city were you in?
  - gumby 3y ago
    Austin
- infamouscow 3y ago
  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 3y ago
    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 ...
  - AtlasBarfed 3y ago
    Naw, you just need to buy a PHEV. That is what YOU, special unique snowflake (non political variant) would like.
- wannacboatmovie 3y ago
  > 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 3y ago
    I have never been charged by a hotel to charge my car
    - wannacboatmovie 3y ago
      Power isn't free, you're paying for it somehow.
      - gnicholas 3y ago
        True, but in the sense that all guests subsidize EV users.
  - gumby 3y ago
    It was included.
atkailash 3y ago
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.
- cyberax 3y ago
  Realistically, unless you're in Manhattan or in the middle of nowhere, you're never more than 10-20 minutes away from a gas station.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    I still remember the “last chance gas, no services next 90 miles” that you can still encounter in the high desert. But most places people drive there are stations everywhere. And if you ARE going into the wilderness, you can easily bring a few Jerry cans.
- afavour 3y ago
  Primary difference is that fueling up with gas is very quick. Charging is not (and is very variable depending on which chargers are available)
- smsm42 3y ago
  Efficiency is mostly irrelevant - unless you're going into the wilderness, you have a gas station within minutes of driving, and unless you are extremely careless, the chance you may end up in a place where you can't drive to a gas station is pretty much non-existent. Gas station locations are available on any phone that has internet connection, which again unless you are into extreme roughing it, is everywhere. I don't remember any time where I needed ever to plan around filling up, unless a) I am driving very long distance for hours (even then it's pretty easy) or b) I need to fill it up before returning the rental (usually there's a gas station right next to the entrance, with a properly inflated price to punish the fools that couldn't plan it in advance, but sometimes you may need to make a detour to get to it). With EV, it looks like much more of a chore.
  - 3y ago
rconti 3y ago
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: * Tromsø 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.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  No doubt? :-) Norway has 503 Superchargers, 1 per 11,000 people. California has 307, 1 per 130,000. I haven't checked NZ or Oz, or looked at a map for Norway. There are also 10 times that many non-Tesla chargers, of which some will be the highest power. All three countries have 230V domestic electricity, so in the worst case you can charge at about 2.5kW (more, e.g. 3kW, if you're more confident of the wiring).
  - relevant1 3y ago
    You could even be so lucky to have 400V available in new housing in Norway, allowing up to 22kW home charging.
  - rconti 3y ago
    Thanks for the correction. BTW when I mention housing, I meant hotels :) Of course chargers at hotels are common, but, again, one more thing to worry about (especially if it's pay-per-use and requires some app/membership situation).
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mulmen 3y ago
I have rented several electric vehicles and while charging is more difficult than getting gas it isn’t really an issue. The most challenging experience was an electric camper. It had a 100 mile max range. I drove it from LA to Seattle without major issue. The only pucker factor was around Silicon Valley where I struggled to find functional fast chargers. No shortage of chargers, just very few that work. The state of chargers is atrocious. Many of them do not work and the apps are horrible. Signup flows that ask for too much information and don’t set form metadata for auto-completion. Just endless papercuts. I used A Better Route Planner which does a good job of tracking what chargers actually work but still has an infuriating UI. For a regular rental car situation I would not hesitate to get an EV. In fact that’s my preference now that I am over the learning curve.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  > It had a 100 mile max range. I drove it from LA to Seattle without major issue. uhhhhhhhh, you stopped to charge every ~2 hours (12 charging stops minimum)?
  - mulmen 3y ago
    Yes. It’s a camper van. I took five days to do the trip, mostly on 101. It was an older conversion, not intended for long range travel. This is a once a year thing to relocate from Joshua Tree to the Olympic Peninsula. I made a snack or took a quick nap in the back when charging. Travel days were 1-2 charge stops. One problem with such a small battery is how quickly it charged. I was often done charging before I could make food, eat, and do dishes.
rootusrootus 3y ago
I'd be reluctant to rent an EV at this point. But I own one, and I for sure won't ever being going back to gas. I can't see myself giving up the convenience, or paying $50 every week to fill it up. And only at special locations that stock gasoline. That's a hard sell.
- Mountain_Skies 3y ago
  In the US, the Kroger grocery chain offers discounts on gasoline depending on how much you spend on groceries during the month. Wonder if at some point they'll start offering discounts on charging, especially if you're shopping while charging. When I had a Nissan Leaf, I used to charge at a Kroger halfway between home and the office, but that was a third party charger with no association with the store. It would have been nice if my Kroger Fuel Points could have discounted my charging instead.
  - jtriangle 3y ago
    I think it's an eventuality that Gas stations pivot to charging stations in a tangible way. They already don't make much on fuel, so, provided they can get sufficient utility power, and a future exists where charging an EV is as fast as filling up a gas tank, they'll probably happily continue to exist selling snacks and drinks as they do now.
- jtriangle 3y ago
  Good on you, you're an early adopter of electric personal transport tech. We need people like you to tough it out until the R&D dollars yield something that's actually at feature parity with what already exists currently.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    Does "parity" mean "equal or better in every possible way"? Because overall, if you ignore old and new and just analyze both on their merits, I'd say we have rough parity already.
kmeisthax 3y ago
I accidentally booked an electric vehicle a few weeks ago. I was halfway to looking up charging spots on Long Island when the guy at the Hertz counter offered me a Dodge Charger instead. For the record, my hotel did not have charging spots, and the only ones I saw driving around were at the Broadway Commons Mall[0]. All of them looked full. I'm very skeptical of "charging infrastructure" being a prerequisite to suburban EV adoption - you have a house with a spare 220V circuit, right?[1] - but in this case my home is an eight story hotel building. Either it has chargers or I'm not renting an EV. [0] Specifically, near the back next to the Round1 entrance. Said mall also has an Avis/Budget office. No clue if the LIRR lets you carry luggage onboard, but if they do I probably should just take that instead of paying extra to rent at JFK... [1] "My landlord won't let me plug in my car charger" is the usual response to this
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  > Said mall also has an Avis/Budget office. No clue if the LIRR lets you carry luggage onboard, but if they do I probably should just take that instead of paying extra to rent at JFK... protip: lots of rental agencies only charge the premium for airport/train station pickup, but not for dropping off at one. YMMV.
phantom784 3y ago
On a recent trip, I reserved a gas car, but at the airport they tried to give me an EV. I went to the counter and asked for a gas car instead, since the place I was staying didn't have charging, and I didn't want to spend my vacation figuring out EV charging for the first time. I would've considered the EV if I knew ahead of time, so I could've researched the charging situation before the trip.

stcredzero 3y ago

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 3y ago

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 3y ago
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 3y ago
  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 3y ago
    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.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    Indeed: for awhile I was going to a place on Saratoga near Doyle in west San Jose, and they had a non-Tesla charging station in the parking lot. Almost always, every spot was occupied, even in the middle of a weekday.
akira2501 3y ago
Which city were you in?
- gumby 3y ago
  Austin
infamouscow 3y ago
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 3y ago
  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 ...
- AtlasBarfed 3y ago
  Naw, you just need to buy a PHEV. That is what YOU, special unique snowflake (non political variant) would like.
wannacboatmovie 3y ago
> 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 3y ago
  I have never been charged by a hotel to charge my car
  - wannacboatmovie 3y ago
    Power isn't free, you're paying for it somehow.
    - gnicholas 3y ago
      True, but in the sense that all guests subsidize EV users.
- gumby 3y ago
  It was included.

atkailash 3y ago

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.

cyberax 3y ago
Realistically, unless you're in Manhattan or in the middle of nowhere, you're never more than 10-20 minutes away from a gas station.
- bombcar 3y ago
  I still remember the “last chance gas, no services next 90 miles” that you can still encounter in the high desert. But most places people drive there are stations everywhere. And if you ARE going into the wilderness, you can easily bring a few Jerry cans.
afavour 3y ago
Primary difference is that fueling up with gas is very quick. Charging is not (and is very variable depending on which chargers are available)
smsm42 3y ago
Efficiency is mostly irrelevant - unless you're going into the wilderness, you have a gas station within minutes of driving, and unless you are extremely careless, the chance you may end up in a place where you can't drive to a gas station is pretty much non-existent. Gas station locations are available on any phone that has internet connection, which again unless you are into extreme roughing it, is everywhere. I don't remember any time where I needed ever to plan around filling up, unless a) I am driving very long distance for hours (even then it's pretty easy) or b) I need to fill it up before returning the rental (usually there's a gas station right next to the entrance, with a properly inflated price to punish the fools that couldn't plan it in advance, but sometimes you may need to make a detour to get to it). With EV, it looks like much more of a chore.
- 3y ago

rconti 3y ago

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: * Tromsø 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.

Symbiote 3y ago
No doubt? :-) Norway has 503 Superchargers, 1 per 11,000 people. California has 307, 1 per 130,000. I haven't checked NZ or Oz, or looked at a map for Norway. There are also 10 times that many non-Tesla chargers, of which some will be the highest power. All three countries have 230V domestic electricity, so in the worst case you can charge at about 2.5kW (more, e.g. 3kW, if you're more confident of the wiring).
- relevant1 3y ago
  You could even be so lucky to have 400V available in new housing in Norway, allowing up to 22kW home charging.
- rconti 3y ago
  Thanks for the correction. BTW when I mention housing, I meant hotels :) Of course chargers at hotels are common, but, again, one more thing to worry about (especially if it's pay-per-use and requires some app/membership situation).

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

mulmen 3y ago

I have rented several electric vehicles and while charging is more difficult than getting gas it isn’t really an issue. The most challenging experience was an electric camper. It had a 100 mile max range. I drove it from LA to Seattle without major issue. The only pucker factor was around Silicon Valley where I struggled to find functional fast chargers. No shortage of chargers, just very few that work. The state of chargers is atrocious. Many of them do not work and the apps are horrible. Signup flows that ask for too much information and don’t set form metadata for auto-completion. Just endless papercuts. I used A Better Route Planner which does a good job of tracking what chargers actually work but still has an infuriating UI. For a regular rental car situation I would not hesitate to get an EV. In fact that’s my preference now that I am over the learning curve.

Scoundreller 3y ago
> It had a 100 mile max range. I drove it from LA to Seattle without major issue. uhhhhhhhh, you stopped to charge every ~2 hours (12 charging stops minimum)?
- mulmen 3y ago
  Yes. It’s a camper van. I took five days to do the trip, mostly on 101. It was an older conversion, not intended for long range travel. This is a once a year thing to relocate from Joshua Tree to the Olympic Peninsula. I made a snack or took a quick nap in the back when charging. Travel days were 1-2 charge stops. One problem with such a small battery is how quickly it charged. I was often done charging before I could make food, eat, and do dishes.

rootusrootus 3y ago

I'd be reluctant to rent an EV at this point. But I own one, and I for sure won't ever being going back to gas. I can't see myself giving up the convenience, or paying $50 every week to fill it up. And only at special locations that stock gasoline. That's a hard sell.

Mountain_Skies 3y ago
In the US, the Kroger grocery chain offers discounts on gasoline depending on how much you spend on groceries during the month. Wonder if at some point they'll start offering discounts on charging, especially if you're shopping while charging. When I had a Nissan Leaf, I used to charge at a Kroger halfway between home and the office, but that was a third party charger with no association with the store. It would have been nice if my Kroger Fuel Points could have discounted my charging instead.
- jtriangle 3y ago
  I think it's an eventuality that Gas stations pivot to charging stations in a tangible way. They already don't make much on fuel, so, provided they can get sufficient utility power, and a future exists where charging an EV is as fast as filling up a gas tank, they'll probably happily continue to exist selling snacks and drinks as they do now.
jtriangle 3y ago
Good on you, you're an early adopter of electric personal transport tech. We need people like you to tough it out until the R&D dollars yield something that's actually at feature parity with what already exists currently.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  Does "parity" mean "equal or better in every possible way"? Because overall, if you ignore old and new and just analyze both on their merits, I'd say we have rough parity already.

kmeisthax 3y ago

I accidentally booked an electric vehicle a few weeks ago. I was halfway to looking up charging spots on Long Island when the guy at the Hertz counter offered me a Dodge Charger instead. For the record, my hotel did not have charging spots, and the only ones I saw driving around were at the Broadway Commons Mall[0]. All of them looked full. I'm very skeptical of "charging infrastructure" being a prerequisite to suburban EV adoption - you have a house with a spare 220V circuit, right?[1] - but in this case my home is an eight story hotel building. Either it has chargers or I'm not renting an EV. [0] Specifically, near the back next to the Round1 entrance. Said mall also has an Avis/Budget office. No clue if the LIRR lets you carry luggage onboard, but if they do I probably should just take that instead of paying extra to rent at JFK... [1] "My landlord won't let me plug in my car charger" is the usual response to this

Scoundreller 3y ago
> Said mall also has an Avis/Budget office. No clue if the LIRR lets you carry luggage onboard, but if they do I probably should just take that instead of paying extra to rent at JFK... protip: lots of rental agencies only charge the premium for airport/train station pickup, but not for dropping off at one. YMMV.

phantom784 3y ago

On a recent trip, I reserved a gas car, but at the airport they tried to give me an EV. I went to the counter and asked for a gas car instead, since the place I was staying didn't have charging, and I didn't want to spend my vacation figuring out EV charging for the first time. I would've considered the EV if I knew ahead of time, so I could've researched the charging situation before the trip.