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Maybe I just have a warped view of the market. I use rental cars about a dozen times a year. Inevitably, I am picking up the car at the airport, at midnight,

Maybe I just have a warped view of the market. I use rental cars about a dozen times a year. Inevitably, I am picking up the car at the airport, at midnight, and then driving 100 miles to the place I need to be. In a few weeks I am going with a team to the UK. They have us landing at Heathrow, picking up five rental cars, and then driving three hours north. (That was deemed cheaper than a more direct flight.) There is absolutely no way I would accept EVs for this trip as I have zero confidence that we would have access to chargers. We normally end up fighting just to get our cellphones working properly. Paying for parking with an out-of-country credit card is bad enough. I don't want to attempt getting a charging station working after midnight, in the rain, after already spending a dozen hours on planes.

iknowstuff 3y ago
Teslas don’t have issues with superchargers, they’re billed straight to Hertz and reflected on your final bill. They’re everywhere.
- sandworm101 3y ago
  >> They’re everywhere. Lol. Maybe in the UK or California. Google maps tells me the nearest Tesla charger to my apartment is 114 miles away, as the crow flies.
  - Retric 3y ago
    You only need high speed charging on a long trip at which point having one by your house is useless. Pick somewhere 1000 miles away then see how long going several super chargers adds to the trip. They are along interstates, that’s ‘everywhere’ in the US when you actually need one.
Retric 3y ago
> Then driving 100 miles to the place I need to be. Driving 100 miles in an EV isn’t even close to needing a recharge. The UK is covered in chargers and 3 hours is again fine on a single charge for any decent EV. So what exactly is your concern here?
- sandworm101 3y ago
  Three hours and the cars will be nearly dead. And the hotel will not have a charger, not for all of us. So we are going to be up all night at commercial chargers, reducing our sleep time before our first meetings from a few hours to zero. And that is if we can find working commercial chargers. The UK is notorious for needing various apps for parking/charging. The headaches are just not worth our time. Maybe if we were on vacation, but this os work.
  - Retric 3y ago
    UK national speed limit is 70, 75 MPH * 3h is only 220 miles so hardly nearly dead. Not having a full charge or renting something with an anemic range might be an issue if the rental place isn’t handing you a fully charged long range car that’s on them not the technology.
alibarber 3y ago
This was almost exactly my last UK rental car experience - something like 4 hours north (380 miles). For some reason I booked an electric car first, and then saw sense and changed my mind. People claim that the UK is covered in chargers - but all the big ones seemed to be at least about 20 mins off of the motorway, then waiting to charge, then driving back to the motorway (burning up the charge to get there and back). On my holiday too, there's a long list of things I'd rather be doing. I was there last week too (not driving) and I saw so many 'chargers' in public car parks that were just either covered up or needed some specific app to work - no way to use a credit card. The whole thing is improving and if you had a house in which you could fit a proper charger then owning an electric car wouldn't be too bad, but actually renting one and driving it on a long trip - no way. It's not specifically the UK either, I'd say the same for most places I've been in and had a need to rent a car.

iknowstuff 3y ago

Teslas don’t have issues with superchargers, they’re billed straight to Hertz and reflected on your final bill. They’re everywhere.

sandworm101 3y ago
>> They’re everywhere. Lol. Maybe in the UK or California. Google maps tells me the nearest Tesla charger to my apartment is 114 miles away, as the crow flies.
- Retric 3y ago
  You only need high speed charging on a long trip at which point having one by your house is useless. Pick somewhere 1000 miles away then see how long going several super chargers adds to the trip. They are along interstates, that’s ‘everywhere’ in the US when you actually need one.

Retric 3y ago

> Then driving 100 miles to the place I need to be. Driving 100 miles in an EV isn’t even close to needing a recharge. The UK is covered in chargers and 3 hours is again fine on a single charge for any decent EV. So what exactly is your concern here?

sandworm101 3y ago
Three hours and the cars will be nearly dead. And the hotel will not have a charger, not for all of us. So we are going to be up all night at commercial chargers, reducing our sleep time before our first meetings from a few hours to zero. And that is if we can find working commercial chargers. The UK is notorious for needing various apps for parking/charging. The headaches are just not worth our time. Maybe if we were on vacation, but this os work.
- Retric 3y ago
  UK national speed limit is 70, 75 MPH * 3h is only 220 miles so hardly nearly dead. Not having a full charge or renting something with an anemic range might be an issue if the rental place isn’t handing you a fully charged long range car that’s on them not the technology.

alibarber 3y ago

This was almost exactly my last UK rental car experience - something like 4 hours north (380 miles). For some reason I booked an electric car first, and then saw sense and changed my mind. People claim that the UK is covered in chargers - but all the big ones seemed to be at least about 20 mins off of the motorway, then waiting to charge, then driving back to the motorway (burning up the charge to get there and back). On my holiday too, there's a long list of things I'd rather be doing. I was there last week too (not driving) and I saw so many 'chargers' in public car parks that were just either covered up or needed some specific app to work - no way to use a credit card. The whole thing is improving and if you had a house in which you could fit a proper charger then owning an electric car wouldn't be too bad, but actually renting one and driving it on a long trip - no way. It's not specifically the UK either, I'd say the same for most places I've been in and had a need to rent a car.