4 ms·

Yeah I've wanted to and the "bring it back fully charged" requirement is hopeless. I rent for convenience and have zero interest in solving this problem for the

Yeah I've wanted to and the "bring it back fully charged" requirement is hopeless. I rent for convenience and have zero interest in solving this problem for the agencies. "bring back >80%" would be easier and tempt me on certain missions where I have the free time to navigate Plugshare and figure it out. In thinking about it this morning, this is probably where one could use the "prepaid fuel" upsell option. I might consider that next time I rent something away from home. There have been some really dirt-cheap "manager specials" that are apparently code language for "EV rental we can't rent out otherwise" -- like $6, $8/day cheap. :)

steveBK123 2y ago
Oh its not even the "bring it back 100% or 80%" or whatever for me. I rented a car in Europe , I had to drive 165mi exactly. I reserved what I expected to be a ~260mi range model - tons of buffer! They actually gave me a ~240mi range model that was maybe 70% charged. So now I'm thinking OK very very close but I'll charge along the route if needed.. there's a few rest stops on the highway! Unfortunately guess-o-meter was very optimistic, the in car nav did no charge routing plus gave zero "you aren't going to make it" warning, and finally a non-trivial factor - the local traffic was going about 75mph+ so after some spirited driving I realized I was in trouble. The local chargers were on charge networks that either didn't work via apps (required NFC cards I did not possess), or took credit cards directly but not US cards, or required pre-loading Euros into the app but gave obtuse app errors with US credit cards. The chargers themselves were in a sorry state and needed to be remotely rebooted. Finally on the phone with Ionity they remotely activated a charging session and gave me a courtesy charge so I could make it to hotel. The courtesy charge probably cost me 1 hour and $75 in overseas cell phone use. On return discussing with the rental agency they told me they do have NFC charging cards but customers had trouble so they don't give them out anymore, lol. Another fun fact for Americans - while Teslas in Europes use the same plug as non-Teslas (unlike here), in some countries they still maintain Tesla-only charging stations!

steveBK123 2y ago

Oh its not even the "bring it back 100% or 80%" or whatever for me. I rented a car in Europe , I had to drive 165mi exactly. I reserved what I expected to be a ~260mi range model - tons of buffer! They actually gave me a ~240mi range model that was maybe 70% charged. So now I'm thinking OK very very close but I'll charge along the route if needed.. there's a few rest stops on the highway! Unfortunately guess-o-meter was very optimistic, the in car nav did no charge routing plus gave zero "you aren't going to make it" warning, and finally a non-trivial factor - the local traffic was going about 75mph+ so after some spirited driving I realized I was in trouble. The local chargers were on charge networks that either didn't work via apps (required NFC cards I did not possess), or took credit cards directly but not US cards, or required pre-loading Euros into the app but gave obtuse app errors with US credit cards. The chargers themselves were in a sorry state and needed to be remotely rebooted. Finally on the phone with Ionity they remotely activated a charging session and gave me a courtesy charge so I could make it to hotel. The courtesy charge probably cost me 1 hour and $75 in overseas cell phone use. On return discussing with the rental agency they told me they do have NFC charging cards but customers had trouble so they don't give them out anymore, lol. Another fun fact for Americans - while Teslas in Europes use the same plug as non-Teslas (unlike here), in some countries they still maintain Tesla-only charging stations!