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Im bullish on EVs but I feel like rental cars are one of the worst places for the current generation of EVs. EVs are best for the types of driving we do on a d

• mbreese 3y ago
  > or im somewhere new and I don't know about the local charging infrastructure. When I’m traveling for work and need a car, it’s usually for smaller quick trips where I wouldn’t even need to refill a tank of gas. For these types of trips, a single charge on an EV makes sense. But otherwise, I agree with you. EV rental doesn’t make much sense to me for long trips or vacation travel where you’ll be driving a lot in a place you don’t know.
  • nordsieck 3y ago
    > When I’m traveling for work and need a car, it’s usually for smaller quick trips where I wouldn’t even need to refill a tank of gas. For these types of trips, a single charge on an EV makes sense. That might make sense a lot of the time. But there's plenty of exceptions - for example winter time in cold climates can transform a single charge rental into several charges needed. Even with just a few short trips taken.
  • ghaff 3y ago
    And honestly, for the former type of trip, given Uber/Lyft, I'm less inclined to rent a car than I used to be--especially if work is paying--unless I'm doing short side trip(s) that aren't as amenable to just grabbing a ride from an app.
• Varriount 3y ago
  This was the situation I found myself in recently. I would have been more than happy to rent an electric car, but charging infrastructure was a big, unknown variable.
• m463 3y ago
  My experience renting a model 3 from hertz was both positive and negative. At first, it was hard since I've never owned a model 3. Even if you are a model 3 owner, you are probably used to using your phone as the key. They give you a keycard. anyway, I didn't know how to lock the doors. finally I figured out the lock symbol on the central display and locked the doors. But when I got out, they were unlocked again. The trick was to open the door first, press the lock icon, get out and close the doors. The easy way to lock the doors... Well, you can google it and find out, it is not intuitive, but easy once you learn. Now renting a car that can drive itself was wonderful. I had to put a lot of miles on and it helped. Finding charging is easy -- it is all built into the display. You can navigate and it will integrate charging into your trip. I was already familiar with this, but if you're unfamiliar it might be something to learn. There ARE superchargers everywhere, and L2 chargers everywhere else. I had to do level 2 charging (J1772) and it I had to call hertz to figure out where the adapter was. (It was in a bag in the footwell of the trunk). Once I had that I could charge at hotels. Hertz did spam me with lots of "get to know the model 3 before your trip" stuff. I should have read it a bit.
  • sytelus 3y ago
    Also, Hertz models are watered down low range ones.
  • jnalley 3y ago
    >was both positive and negative. I see what you did there...
    • thruway516 3y ago
      A charged experience so to speak
      • lelanthran 3y ago
        One that hertz.
  • citiguy 3y ago
• mattmaroon 3y ago
  You actually can charge at the San Diego zoo, which I discovered last week when I (against my wishes) got an EV as a rental. It is terrible. The charger network is brutal for a non-Tesla.
  • jquery 3y ago
    Hertz is ditching their Teslas, not their other EVs, apparently. I don't blame them when the suspension keeps falling apart randomly.
    • mattmaroon 3y ago
      I think most people will only rent a non-Tesla once. If you don’t have the option of charging at home it’s a truly miserable experience. It made me convinced the charging network is the missing piece.
• kirse 3y ago
  I feel like rental cars are one of the worst places for the current generation of EVs. This was my recent experience. I was offered an EV car as a rental upgrade in a major city because the local rental place didn't have an EV charger. I figured what the hell because it was a relaxed holiday vacation. Turns out that was a hilariously bad idea. Ended up spending at least 5-6 hours of my week vacation trying to avoid the EV going to 0% battery. Half of that time was spent on Google Maps - trying to find chargers with the right plug, ones that aren't broken, ones that were available, downloading various apps, etc. Then when I did find a charger I sat in the parking lot waiting for it to juice up. All of that effort and I still could only give myself the miles back that I spent finding chargers, it was even funnier when the cold weather took miles away. Finally ended up luckily finding one at a local movie theater and asked family to shuttle me back and forth because of how long it took to charge. Not a knock on EV's really, mostly the charging infrastructure and the rental experience.
  • kbos87 3y ago
    I'm sorry that happened to you. I can say that having an EV in a place you know and as part of a familiar routine is a very different experience.
    • computershit 3y ago
      As long as you live where you can place your own charger. I've ridden with countless Uber drivers who rent EVs from Uber whose experience would disagree with such a blanket statement.
      • bigshot 3y ago
        Uber drivers are not representational of all drivers
  • paganel 3y ago
    It is a knock on EVs as longs as the missing/lacking/very deficient charging infrastructure is what literally makes the EVs work or fail. No suitable (and fast) charging means EVs are meant to fail, and deservedly so.
• cptskippy 3y ago
  I never rented an EV but everyone I encountered with an EV rental had received it unexpectedly from Hertz and was struggling to charge it. It you want to give people a poor opinion of EVs, dump them in a rental EV and tell them it needs to be returned with 80% charge and don't offer any support on how to do that.
  • jlangenauer 3y ago
    Oh that sucks. I recently rented a Model 3 from Sixt in Australia, and they said bring it back with any level of charge you want, which was great - I only had it for 3 days, and the initial charge was enough for that.
• dukeofdoom 3y ago
  I saw a funny picture of a guy that was driving with a gas power generator strapped to his Tesla (On Hitch Mount Cargo Carrier). Just curious how much he could extend his range. And if this would be a practical alternative.
  • bzzzt 3y ago
    That’s called a hybrid with range extender.
  • SargeDebian 3y ago
    Every hybrid and EV I've ever been in refused to move if they detect a cable is inserted.
  • callalex 3y ago
    It’s a mistake to believe every picture you see on the internet is real.
• sytelus 3y ago
  Every time I wanted to rest car, I wanted Tesla but I always ended up getting gas vehicle because price difference was usually more than 2X. Hertz simply couldn’t beat price proposition of Kia, Toyota etc.
• snarg 3y ago
  I wholeheartedly disagree that rental companies are a bad place for EVs. When I'm traveling and I know that I'm going to have to do a week of heavy driving, I prefer an EV to save on gas. I've rented a Tesla Model 3 from Hertz a couple of times for this purpose: when I did the calculations, the cheaper per-mile cost of using superchargers more than made up for the difference in rental price vs. an economy rental (the addition of free destination chargers when i found them was a bonus). The general driving experience was obviously better than an economy rental, as well. I know it's not the case everywhere, but along my routes, I was able to find convenient superchargers in parking lots of stores that I wanted to visit (bubble tea, Target, etc), and the car was usually finished charging before i was finished in the store. The couple of times that i stopped at superchargers that didn't have a useful establishment nearby, i was able to appease the kids with the built-in video games. When it was time to return the car, there was no run-around trying to find a gas station to fill up near the rental center: you can return the car with a quarter charge, and it's no problem, Hertz doesn't charge any additional charging fee. It would have been nice if i didn't have to use key cards, and if i could use the app to, say, precondition the car. It also would have been nice if the videos saved by "sentry mode" were easier to batch clear. But these are quibbles; the rentals were absolutely worth it for me.
• zpeti 3y ago
  > but I feel like rental cars are one of the worst places for the current generation of EVs. How could hertz not have known this? I think this was probably not a business decision but a management decision done so they can call the company green, basically virtue signalling when clearly it was a terrible business decision. Sustainability is great but I feel like we’re making a lot of bad decisions to pretend like we are sustainable.
• namdnay 3y ago
  I rented a polestar from hertz uk for a summer holiday, it was wonderful. i just let it charge overnight on the mains socket of the cottage, which gave me 200 miles a day, more than enough for a family holiday
  • kybernetikos 3y ago
    I think the driving an EV experience is massively better if you can cheaply charge where you sleep.
  • mixmastamyk 3y ago
    Looks like UK has 230V on the standard outlets, probably why it charges reasonably. Note this person taking days when on 120V: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38967392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38967392
  • perryg 3y ago
    Yeah, it’s highly dependent on the country. I rented a car in Norway this past summer. I didn’t even ask for an EV, that’s just what most cars there are. We drove a ton. It was delightful. My vehicle charged up in 30 mins at a fast charger, the chargers were all over, and most charging locations had cafes or fun things to do nearby. I loved it! In the US, I have a PHEV but when I’m not at home, I don’t even bother to charge it because there are so few chargers, they’re slow, and the ones that exist are often broken.
• globular-toast 3y ago
  I drove an EV once as a courtesy car and something struck me immediately: EVs are electric wheelchairs.
• chx 3y ago
  To be fair, the current generation of electronic vehicles are a terrible idea. Sure, at first sight you are not burning fossil fuel in your car so you are slowing down climate change. Plenty of studies show the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions are significantly lower for an EV than an ICE vehicle. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-a-mid-size-bev-and-ice-vehicle https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-l... Although perhaps a mere half is not what people would think at first when they just compare tailpipe emissions... and it depends on how carbon intensive is the electricity you are using for charging. And there's more than just emissions to consider. 1. Lithium mining needs water. The typical amount given is 500 000 gallons per one ton of lithium. Think of fracking. 2. Mining waste for base metals such as copper or nickel is 20-200 tonnes but rare earth minerals like platinum make a million tonne of waste per tonne extracted. 3. The lifetime of the battery which is the problematic component is significantly lower than the lifetime of a typical ICE car. And more. The solution is, of course, to reverse the dependence on the automobile. https://unevenearth.org/2018/08/the-social-ideology-of-the-motorcar/ https://unevenearth.org/2018/08/the-social-ideology-of-the-m... this might be old but it is still relevant.
  • Shrezzing 3y ago
    > the current generation of electronic vehicles are a terrible idea... Although perhaps a mere half is not what people would think at first when they just compare tailpipe emissions The methodolody used by IEA for that chart uses the 2021 global average grid carbon intensity to calculate its electricity generation. If you live in Iceland, Sweeden, UK, Vermont, or similar regions with highly decarbonised grids, the majority of the chart's Electricity co2e isn't generated for that vehicle. You've got to consider your local average grid carbon intensity, and how that will change across the 20 year lifecycle of the vehicle.
    • hnbad 3y ago
      Critics love to also cite the resource cost for manufacturing PV modules or wind turbines to point out that green electricity isn't emissions free either but that ignores the even worse resource costs of fossil power and the continuous environmental damage from mining/drilling the fuel. All things considered, green energy is better than fossil and EVs are better than ICEs. Of course where we really need to go is reducing individual transport by expanding public transit infrastructure, electrified buses, trams and trains easily beat personal EVs when it comes to resource use per person. FWIW a bigger concern than the increased energy demand from EVs is the load this puts on the grid infrastructure. But this is also very much true for rooftop PV.
• mihaaly 3y ago
  I can hardly imagine Hertz was introducing EVs based on parcticality and prudent deliberations. I can imagine they wanted to have a rapid publicity stunt boarding the trend train of 'Hey! We are so cool and modern and mindful and everything, we have EVs!'. Only to be slapped by reality pretty soon afterwards. As it is ubiquitous with marketing bs.
• Xenoamorphous 3y ago
  > Charge at home over night If you have a private garage. I live in a (non-US) city where there's shared garages (those who do have a garage, a lot of them just park outside) which are old and not always have power sockets. And even if they do, I don't think you're entitled to use them to charge your car. And do EVs work with standard power sockets, or needs some special stuff? I've never driven an EV.
  • mmaurizi 3y ago
    They work with standard power outlets, just very slowly. Our Hyundai gets 50 miles of range every 24 hours its plugged in at home. Mostly I charge at work not at home, which uses 240v power (think an electric dryer), and that can charge the car fully in 8-10 hours.
  • hnbad 3y ago
    Most EVs seem to come with cables that work with regular power sockets, they're just more limited on output even compared to regular charging (not fast charging, which btw reduces battery life). I don't know where outside the US you live but in some countries tenants have the right to install a charging station. Of course they're not exactly cheap, especially if the wiring isn't set up to handle that kind of load (from personal experience: charging your car while the washing machine is running on the same circuit in an old house is an easy way to trip the breaker). Private charging stations can also be installed outdoors just fine and strangers stealing your power is not a problem either (the plug can't be removed if the car is locked and you can literally switch the charger off if you're not using it). Most public chargers don't have a roof so charging your car in the open isn't exactly odd. Also in many countries even more rural areas now have charging stations. Often you can pay a flat fee per month to freely use charging stations on the same network or to do so at significantly reduced rates. In my case there's even a nearby charging station that charges approximately the same rate I pay for my home electricity provider - although the speed is also similar so it's not very useful if you don't plan to leave your car for a few hours.
  • HDThoreaun 3y ago
    Vast majority of Americans have a garage. You can charge on a normal outlet but it's easy enough to bring an electrician in to upgrade to 240v.
• irrational 3y ago
  Yes. Recently I rented a car and put nearly 3,500 miles on it in a week, most of that in very desolate places in the Western USA. In Nevada, we would drive for hundreds and hundreds of miles without seeing another car, much less a EV charging station. I’d hate to be out there in something with as limited a range as an EV.
• yyyfb 3y ago
  The way you rent cars isn't necessarily the way that other rental car customers rent cars. If you're going on a road trip you don't want an EV. But I rent cars about 12x a year for trips of just a few days with very little mileage, just so I don't have to depend on taxis, and EVs are a great choice for me. I don't usually drive more than 50 miles on those trips, and strongly prefer EVs because I find them to provide better driving comfort (more responsive acceleration, better handling) than most ICE cars.
  • thehappypm 3y ago
    For low mileage trips, why not Uber or take public transit?
    • yyyfb 3y ago
      Public transit is not an option in these places (midsize US cities: no subway, very sparse bus service). Vs Uber: I personally prefer driving myself. No wait, and freedom (shoot, it's 10pm and I realize I forgot to pack toothpaste, I might not want to pay Uber $20 for a stupid round trip to CVS to buy a $2 tube of toothpaste). Also I tend to get carsick if the driver's not smooth.
      • kjkjadksj 3y ago
        Also most cities that are small and aren’t college towns have pretty terrible uber experiences. Not enough drivers and the ones that are there will probably reject your ride if they think they won’t get another fare easily wherever you get dropped off.
• rjmunro 3y ago
  > rental cars are one of the worst places for the current generation of EVs. They make more sense for the short term car-club type rentals, where they can be charged the whole time when not in use, then borrowed for an hour or 2 booked on an app. But if you can't charge at home, it makes little sense to use an EV at the moment. It might make sense for small fleets of rental EVs to be based at hotels. You could just take whichever car was charged when you go out in the morning. The other problem Hertz had was repair costs. EVs are more expensive to repair both because there are less repairers qualified to repair them and because parts are more expensive and more valuable etc.. I expect people driving unfamiliar cars are more likely to have accidents with them, so this would be worse for rental companies than for normal people.
• thebasic 3y ago
  100% agree - I now have 2 EV's as our primary vehicles. They are amazing for normal trips, as I charge them in our garage. But every time I go on a road trip I get a bit of anxiety. I have to pre-plan charging locations on the route, many times I've had issues (all chargers full, multiple not working). It's not for the faint of heart, as filling up at plentiful gas stations doesn't require any thinking. I wouldn't recommend EV's for my older family members, especially if they plan on taking longer drives. If running errands, commuting to work, they are fantastic. While I think the criticism is fair, gas infrastructure has had a huge headstart, so I think we'll continue to see improvements in charging infrastructure and range, which should remediate most of these problems. I still think we're in a bit of the early adopter phase, unless your variables are controlled. Edit : After reading other comments, I think part of my issue was that my first EV was our Audi, Tesla seems to remediate some of these issues with their network. Looking forward to taking a roadtrip with my Tesla and comparing the experience, but I think the point still stands for many EV companies and the consumer experience.
• blonder 3y ago
  As an EV believer that happily owns a Tesla Model 3, I grimace thinking about peoples first EV experience being a rental car. When I went on a 4 day vacation that would include a decent amount of driving (going from Fort Lauderdale out to Key West & back) I specifically chose the Nissan Altima in the corner of the lot, rather than the fancy EV Mercedes that wouldn't have cost me any more money due to my status with Hertz. If there was a Tesla I probably would have been fine picking it due to the robustness of the supercharger network, but someone's first EV experience being a Chevy Bolt while on vacation is setting the EV movement back years.
• latentcall 3y ago
  I am planning on buying an EV for in town driving and keep my gas car and truck for long trips. I frequently drive through Western Nebraska and I don’t think I’ve ever seen one EV out driving around. When the infrastructure is there and reliable, and range is consistent with gas vehicles, I’ll make a full switch.
• foofie 3y ago
  > Im bullish on EVs but I feel like rental cars are one of the worst places for the current generation of EVs. I don't agree. It really depends on what usage you're aiming for. For instance, if you rent a car right out of an airport so that you can drive to the hotel and then to an meeting somewhere in the city and afterwards perhaps somewhere else and then back to the hotel, you're renting a car so that you are completely free to travel across town to get where you need to be. These are relatively short drives zig-zagging across town which can include a few hours of parking between rides. It sounds like an EV is the ideal vehicle for this use pattern. If instead you need to go on long rides that take hours and you can't afford wasting hours charging then EVs are not as well suited as ICE-powered cars.