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I know this is anecdata, but of a couple of friends that had Tesla rentals from Hertz, the number one issue was charging availability, or lack thereof. The flee

by brk 3y ago

I know this is anecdata, but of a couple of friends that had Tesla rentals from Hertz, the number one issue was charging availability, or lack thereof. The fleet maintenance issues may have also been a factor, but from what I observed I would not take an EV as a rental car myself, solely because of the charging issue.

jandrese 3y ago
Charging issue being that they couldn't find any available superchargers using the in-car navigation? Or was the in-car navigation not working because it was a rental? That would be a serious problem on a Tesla where the software stack is critical to running the vehicle properly.
- resters 3y ago
  The in-car navigation to the nearest supercharger worked, but: - some markets don't have an abundance of fast superchargers. It can take > 1 hour to charge. - vehicles would often get returned mostly discharged, which forces the next customer to deal with it. - I rented a few that appeared to have been driven really hard, leading the remaining charge calibration to become mis calibrated, which caused me to have to stop for some unscheduled charges. - the vehicles lose a few percent of charge per day even when not driven (worse in hot weather) - Hertz locations are typically not equipped with any kind of charging infrastructure -- if they were, EVs would be far more convenient to rent. I wish the program would continue, and I would still prefer to rent a Tesla over the other options, but I think the aforementioned things factored into the failure.
  - Rebelgecko 3y ago
    >the vehicles lose a few percent of charge per day even when not driven (worse in hot weather) Is that a Tesla thing? Or does Hertz have some sort of battery draining telematics? I have a non-Tesla EV and even in warm weather (100°F+) that hasn't been the case for me. If the weather changes drastically the SOC might change ±2%, but when I've left my car sitting for weeks it seems to average out
    - resters 3y ago
      It could have been the aforementioned mis-calibration as well, not sure. I consulted some help/documentation at the time and it said it was normal. With respect to telematics, I think the only change to the vehicle was that a few menu options were unavailable. I updated the software on one of the vehicles, renamed a few, added some to the app, etc. In my opinion, a Hertz office with sufficient charging capacity could be great with EVs. (I also don't understand why traditional gas stations aren't already featuring a few high capacity charging stalls)
- brk 3y ago
  From the accounts I saw it was mostly that the available charging locations were too far out of the way, and too slow. When someone is renting a car for business meetings you don't want to spend a bunch of time on a charger scavenger hunt and then be forced to sit there killing time.

by brk 3y ago

jandrese 3y ago

Charging issue being that they couldn't find any available superchargers using the in-car navigation? Or was the in-car navigation not working because it was a rental? That would be a serious problem on a Tesla where the software stack is critical to running the vehicle properly.

resters 3y ago
The in-car navigation to the nearest supercharger worked, but: - some markets don't have an abundance of fast superchargers. It can take > 1 hour to charge. - vehicles would often get returned mostly discharged, which forces the next customer to deal with it. - I rented a few that appeared to have been driven really hard, leading the remaining charge calibration to become mis calibrated, which caused me to have to stop for some unscheduled charges. - the vehicles lose a few percent of charge per day even when not driven (worse in hot weather) - Hertz locations are typically not equipped with any kind of charging infrastructure -- if they were, EVs would be far more convenient to rent. I wish the program would continue, and I would still prefer to rent a Tesla over the other options, but I think the aforementioned things factored into the failure.
- Rebelgecko 3y ago
  >the vehicles lose a few percent of charge per day even when not driven (worse in hot weather) Is that a Tesla thing? Or does Hertz have some sort of battery draining telematics? I have a non-Tesla EV and even in warm weather (100°F+) that hasn't been the case for me. If the weather changes drastically the SOC might change ±2%, but when I've left my car sitting for weeks it seems to average out
  - resters 3y ago
    It could have been the aforementioned mis-calibration as well, not sure. I consulted some help/documentation at the time and it said it was normal. With respect to telematics, I think the only change to the vehicle was that a few menu options were unavailable. I updated the software on one of the vehicles, renamed a few, added some to the app, etc. In my opinion, a Hertz office with sufficient charging capacity could be great with EVs. (I also don't understand why traditional gas stations aren't already featuring a few high capacity charging stalls)
brk 3y ago
From the accounts I saw it was mostly that the available charging locations were too far out of the way, and too slow. When someone is renting a car for business meetings you don't want to spend a bunch of time on a charger scavenger hunt and then be forced to sit there killing time.