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From Hertz perspective, that car is now out of commission for half a day. Car rental companies rely on getting cars back on the road as quickly as possible once

From Hertz perspective, that car is now out of commission for half a day. Car rental companies rely on getting cars back on the road as quickly as possible once a rental period ends. A fleet that is parked, charging or waiting to be charged, is actively costing them money.

imtringued 3y ago
Out of commission? Is this some kind of joke? You know you can just charge money for the services that you are offering, right?
ein0p 3y ago
What “half a day”? With proper infra it takes less than a couple of hours to charge even when charging 2 cars per charger.
- znkynz 3y ago
  you still have to clean and process ready for next customer. adding 2 hours to other work may make it half a day
  - TheCoelacanth 3y ago
    You can't clean the car while it's plugged in?
    - Arrath 3y ago
      It would seem ideal to have the line-up area where cars are turned in, inspected and cleaned set up with a bunch of retractable charger leads in the ceiling, ala shop air. As soon as you pull up, the attendant pulls down a lead and plugs the car in. Bam.
- dev_tty01 3y ago
  2 hours is still a lot longer than 5 minutes. Rapid turnover is important for these folks. I've seen rental companies run out of cars numerous times. Two hours is tough. Plus, how about when dozens of cars have been turned in and are waiting on a charge? If anything, they are most likely to levy a higher fee for returning uncharged because of their lost time.
- mfer 3y ago
  The article pointed out that some airports don’t have the electrical infrastructure to support enough super chargers. It’s partly a charging problem
  - paulddraper 3y ago
    No one said "supercharger." If I can get a Level 2 charger installed at my house, surely it can be installed at at car rental business? No way my house has better electrical infrastructure than an airport.
noodlesUK 3y ago
I’m pretty sure that if they’re using even remotely fast chargers, cleaning and inspection (and associated queuing) would take most of that time. I also suspect that most rental places aren’t so close to capacity that someone returning a car a few hours late would block a customer from pickup. There’s a certain amount of slack in the inventory.
- phatskat 3y ago
  I rented from an airport car rental once and the lot was _full_ of unused cars, and this was RDU which is a fairly high-volume airport. I can imagine you’d maybe have issues if you wanted a very specific kind of car, but even then I doubt you couldn’t find something comparable for around the same price
ulfw 3y ago
It's going to get charged to 80% only. That takes half an hour if they install DC fast chargers. That's how long a walk around inspection for damage and cleaning of the car inside/out takes. That costs money of course. Let's pretend we're NOT on hackernews where we all love to talk technicalities. This isn't about tech or practicalities. This is a decision about money. It's not worth installing all the infrastructure, it's not worth getting repairs slowly done out-of-house, it's not worth taking on depreciation of epic proportions, it's not worth having to educate customers and employees on how to use new cars and new processes. It is just not cost effective for them.

imtringued 3y ago

Out of commission? Is this some kind of joke? You know you can just charge money for the services that you are offering, right?

ein0p 3y ago

What “half a day”? With proper infra it takes less than a couple of hours to charge even when charging 2 cars per charger.

znkynz 3y ago
you still have to clean and process ready for next customer. adding 2 hours to other work may make it half a day
- TheCoelacanth 3y ago
  You can't clean the car while it's plugged in?
  - Arrath 3y ago
    It would seem ideal to have the line-up area where cars are turned in, inspected and cleaned set up with a bunch of retractable charger leads in the ceiling, ala shop air. As soon as you pull up, the attendant pulls down a lead and plugs the car in. Bam.
dev_tty01 3y ago
2 hours is still a lot longer than 5 minutes. Rapid turnover is important for these folks. I've seen rental companies run out of cars numerous times. Two hours is tough. Plus, how about when dozens of cars have been turned in and are waiting on a charge? If anything, they are most likely to levy a higher fee for returning uncharged because of their lost time.
mfer 3y ago
The article pointed out that some airports don’t have the electrical infrastructure to support enough super chargers. It’s partly a charging problem
- paulddraper 3y ago
  No one said "supercharger." If I can get a Level 2 charger installed at my house, surely it can be installed at at car rental business? No way my house has better electrical infrastructure than an airport.

noodlesUK 3y ago

I’m pretty sure that if they’re using even remotely fast chargers, cleaning and inspection (and associated queuing) would take most of that time. I also suspect that most rental places aren’t so close to capacity that someone returning a car a few hours late would block a customer from pickup. There’s a certain amount of slack in the inventory.

phatskat 3y ago
I rented from an airport car rental once and the lot was _full_ of unused cars, and this was RDU which is a fairly high-volume airport. I can imagine you’d maybe have issues if you wanted a very specific kind of car, but even then I doubt you couldn’t find something comparable for around the same price

ulfw 3y ago

It's going to get charged to 80% only. That takes half an hour if they install DC fast chargers. That's how long a walk around inspection for damage and cleaning of the car inside/out takes. That costs money of course. Let's pretend we're NOT on hackernews where we all love to talk technicalities. This isn't about tech or practicalities. This is a decision about money. It's not worth installing all the infrastructure, it's not worth getting repairs slowly done out-of-house, it's not worth taking on depreciation of epic proportions, it's not worth having to educate customers and employees on how to use new cars and new processes. It is just not cost effective for them.