A few weeks ago I rented a Model 3 from Hertz in San Diego, and the car didn't come with an SAE J1772 Charging Adapter (this covers most level 2 stations). That's crazy. I was staying primarily at UCSD for cancer treatment, and there are a million level 2 chargers that I couldn't access without the SAE J1772 dongle. The Tesla my wife and I have always has a SAE J1772 dongle in the center console. I complained about the lack of this essential part.
Hertz would charge for the dongle and then refund upon its return. The car itself was good!
I parked my Model Y in a garage in LA about a year ago and was sitting in the car charging from a J1772 port while my family shopped. Two women in a Model 3 parked next to me and tried for 20 minutes to plug their car in. I watched but didn't intrude. Finally they saw me and knocked on my window to ask me how to charge.
I asked them if they had a J1772 adapter and they had no idea what I was talking about. They said they had rented the car. They looked everywhere in the car but no adapter. I suggested a supercharger and showed them how to find one on the car's screen. This was also the first time they had heard the word "supercharger."
Whoever they rented the car from (likely Hertz but I didn't ask) had done absolutely nothing to describe the charging procedure to these unfortunate customers.
Every time I've rented a Tesla from Hertz, I've been bombarded with emails I could not opt out of all about how Teslas operate differently than normal cars and how to charge them.
And I can guarantee most people ignore them. Any time you book anything on travel, hotel, or airlines you get a daily stream of useless “prepare for your trip”, “we’re so happy to have you”, “there’s still time to upgrade to first class”, etc. emails that can be safely ignored.
It’s no surprise that an actually important message gets lost in that stream of junk.
I'm not aware of any email service what would allow you to tag some incoming messages with an "expire in 30 days" or something rule. Except the spam folder.
But again, the main purpose of Gmail is to harvest your behaviour data, not providing you a good email service.
That’s surprising. I rented a Bolt from them and they were very clear it was different. I figured that I could work it out so I told them to skip it and I’d just go work it out if I needed to. They handed me a pamphlet with instructions or link to. I paid no attention because I didn’t need to charge the car.
Perhaps these women did the same thing as me but they did need to charge the car.
I rented a Tesla from Hertz last summer. They sent me several emails before the trip explaining about an EV, how to find a charger, and how to charge. There were also videos showing the processes. When I picked up the car, the desk person asked if I had any questions about using an EV.
I've seen many posts in the forums sharing similar experiences. People are given the car with no instruction and have no idea where to go to charge them or how to charge them.
Every thing I’ve ever rented was the same. I do believe you would be laughed at if you had to ask how any tool worked when you picked it up from the rental desk. Or that they would just deny you from renting it, since you obviously don’t know what you’re doing.
Why should machinery that comes in a vehicle shape be different?
I do find it annoying that Elon Musk redefined a well-understood automotive term to refer to a completely different automotive term.
Of course we're not innocent here. What does gate mean in electronics? What does persistent mean in computer science? What does memory mean in computer engineering?
To me, the issue with renting an electric car is the news stories where they either don’t give you the car fully charged or they expect you to return it fully charged or at the same level of charge as when you receive it.
They should build recharging the car once into the price and only give the customer a fully charged vehicle.
In theory, I would love to try out an electric car and rent a Tesla. When I read the news stories about the hassles, I don’t want to add dealing with charging hassles to my busy trip.
To be fair, that's their model for gasoline as well.
Every car rental company I've used charges you $10 for every missing gallon when you return the car. But most don't actually refill it before they hand it off to the next customer.
Hertz's fees for recharging (if you return with less than 80%) are pretty reasonable in my experience. It's a bit more expensive than using a fast charger, but often worth it for the convenience.
My most recent car rental this month from thrifty at lax:
They definitely have several gas pumps on the premises. And car chargers. You are not getting a car without a full tank.
At the desk you are told to bring the car back filled to the same level or they will indeed charge you $10 a gallon. Alternatively, you can pay some extra fee upfront and not have to worry about bringing it back full. I didn't really pay attention to this offer but I suspect it could have been cheaper than the $50 of gas I had to put in at the end.
They don't assign you a car. You ordered a medium sedan? Those are in so and so section of the lot, head out there and jump into whatever car catches your eye. The keys are on the dash. If it's not full of gas, you hop out and get into the next car over.
I will ding them a bit for two of their shuttle busses driving past me at the airport. In the end I just hopped on an Avis bus without talking to the driver and walked the last few hundred meters from Avis to Thrifty.
I also strongly recommend not getting on a shuttle by terminal 1 at lax. You will sit in traffic in the airport for 30 minutes. Much faster to drag your bags across the road, across the middle of the airport and across the road again to the shuttle stop in terminal 7.
I think the model makes sense for gasoline, because gasoline is a fluctuating in price commodity, so if you had to include it in the price of the rental, the rental company would have profit or lose money based upon what you used and it’s price at the time of rental.
However with electric vehicles, you pay more upfront to have a lower operating cost. Most people purchasing an ev don’t worry about charging infrastructure, because they intend to just charge it in their garage. The rental car company knows how much the electricity will cost to fill up their vehicle as the price doesn’t fluctuate and the cost is way lower than gasoline, and they can easily add some chargers to their locations.
Also, electric vehicle chargers often require you to have an account and download an app and really just aren’t designed to be used by someone renting a car.
I think the business model simply makes way more sense if the rental car company deals with the first and last charge for an EV.
I get the impression that it's actually not that big of a savings compared to a gas vehicle. Charging a Tesla Model 3 can cost anywhere from 50% to 75% of the cost to go the same miles in an efficient gas-powered vehicle, depending on regional electricity pricing. When you factor in increased tire wear on the Tesla, it starts to really cut into the savings on operating costs.
> I think the business model simply makes way more sense if the rental car company deals with the first and last charge for an EV.
Totally agree with you there. I would be pretty pissed if I rented an EV and the battery was significantly less than 100% when I got it, and even more so if they demanded me to return it charged up. Suppose I don't have time to wait for it to charge before catching my flight. That's definitely something the rental place should be taking care of.
I rented gas cars probably hundreds of time at this point and I got car without full tank exactly once. It’s just not a thing. Every rental place has built in gas station and car is cleaned/refilled before every rental.
Yes but filling up gasoline is trivial where as charging an electric car is an infuriating task that has you sitting around waiting potentially 30 minutes for the car to be charged so you can get on with your trip. No patience for that shit after a long flight.
I typically rent a car to go between LA and the bay area. All modern gas cars can make that trip on one tank. An EV can not.
At this point someone usually pipes up with "well you were going to be stopping for an hour somewhere anyway". No I was not. I stopped for less than 5 minutes at a rest stop to pee. And I stopped at a gas station to buy a quarter tank because that's all the room I had. Price seemed right and the milage estimate said I wasn't going to make it without. Turns out I filled up only 3/4 of a tank in San Jose before drop off so that stop wasn't needed after all.
Yeah me and my wife rented an electric car once, and we'll never do it again. Recharging it before returning basically adds another hour to the return process (between the detour and the charge).
At least for now rental cars just don’t work as EV’s economically
the idea of a rental car is a cheap shitty car that I can trash without too much concern. The car goes to shit in a year or two and gets pawned off for nothing. This is fine because the car was the cheapest possible option for its price point anyways. Also using gas is much more convenient than EV charging although it is more expensive but this is offset by the car being cheap
An EV is cheap over the long run through cumulative savings but the purchase price is higher and they have to pass this off to consumers. The car still goes to shit in the same time but this is worse for the environment because the expensive part of the car hasn’t really degraded in value.
Overall the model just doesn’t make sense. EV’s are perfect as a daily driver for those with commutes that allow them to charge at home and gas cars are great for occasions where an EV doesn’t work. Most rental car scenarios don’t make sense for an EV IMO
In my experience the cars seldom go to shit but are usually nearly new and ok models depending on what you rent.
Economically the manufacturers often sell to rental agencies at less than the usual price to the public. This benefits the manufacturers as they get their cars test driven by people who may then buy one, and the agencies as they don't lose much when they sell.
I think EVs may not work as well economically due to depreciating faster over the first year.
It's very dependent on which car and where you are. A Tesla (any model) is best because their charging network is very reliable. And in most major US cities there will be many of them. In cities far from interstate highways, not so much.
Now days in the UK & Europe you can use most of the Tesla superchargers with any car. That will soon be the case in the USA too, especially now that NACS is becoming the charging plug standard.
Opening a supercharger location up so that it can be used by all vehicles is probably just a software switch / config file change in Europe. Tesla doesn't need hundreds of staff to do it!
It's funny that the reasoning seems to be drivers not being able to run the cars properly. I assume most of them are Teslas, which makes me wonder how things would've looked like if Tesla didn't decide to do everything backwards in terms of driver-car interface.
As a Tesla owner, couldn't agree more. The interface of the car itself is actively hostile to new users. Without instruction, most people cannot get into or out of a Model 3 without significant struggle. Regular door handles and a regular gear selector would go a long way. And they seem intent on making it worse. Why would I EVER want the car to decide if I should be going forward or back? Happy to have helped (however little) in making electric cars more mainstream. Doubt I'll buy another Tesla.
Yes, so true! I listened to the lady at the counter rent out a Tesla and she had no training or clue on how to even open the car, much less operate. I'd pay money for the video of this poor couple, once actually in the car, trying to operate it. When you buy a Tesla, you want to figure out all the features. When you rent a car, you just want to get to the dang hotel before you pee yourself.
Other car brands manage to make retracting door handles that aren’t as confusing.
Just like they can make instrument clusters separate from the main infotainment touch screen.
Hyundai already sells EVs with cameras for side mirrors in regions of the world where it is legal to do so (it ain’t in NA) Those models have dedicated screens on the A pillars instead.
Tesla designers subscribe to the software school of design, where purpose follows form, rather than the other way around, and it shows.
I rented an EV a while back, and it was great. The main annoyance was that the EV charging station near our airbnb (a few hours drive from the airport) was a trickle charger that didn’t allow overnight parking, but then I figured out I could charge in the garage with the supplied 120/240V cable (costing the host a few dollars, tops).
The rental company (avis) charged market rate to recharge it when I returned. They also let me select EV ahead of time, and I confirmed it would work before selecting it. FWIW, I’d rented a tesla “or similar” and ended up with a bolt, so there weren’t any issues with charge dongles, etc.
The savings in gas meant the rental upgrade more than paid for itself.
Got forced into an electric car on a trip. The experience was all around awful. I had to learn how to manage the regenerative braking, the car was a nagging beeper which took even more time to figure out, finding charging stations and then paying for the privilege was a pain, and the biggest FU hertz did for me was I prepay fuel so I can expense it out easier for work. They charged me me 35$ for having it 10% below the charge. Previously the charge for a fuel return at a 1/4 tank prepaid would have been 15$ at most.
I will purposefully not be selecting an electric car for my next rentals. Awful experience all around.
People need to think about the special use case that is car rental. Having to figure out an unfamiliar car in an unfamiliar city with tight time constraints like being on time for meetings or a flight, the car takes 30+ minutes to “fill up”, is a much bigger challenge than switching your 40 miles a day commute car to an EV, where you can work your way up to longer trips etc. I’m super excited for EVs in general, but rental? I want the simplest guaranteed to work appliance!
In my experience every single EV "debate" goes the same way.
People who mostly return to their home with a driveway, and mostly use their car to drive around town, vs people who travel away from home. Each trying to convince the other.
It's the same as public transport advocates vs car advocates.
It feels like a kind of tremendous blind spot. I mean personally I've spent periods in which I've split my time between my place and my partner's place. I doubt this is particularly uncommon. Even if one of us had a charger, the other wouldn't, so suddenly it all falls apart.
Last week on a trip to Florida I rented a Polestar 2 from Hertz.
It was in abysmal shape. Both tires on the left had been installed backwards, with the inside on the outside, and something was badly wrong with the front left wheel, I suspect the rotor was warped because it scraping, loudly, with every rotation.
I read about Hertz having problems with EV maintenance but experience leads me to believe that it's nothing to do with being EVs. They're simply not maintaining them.
I told them about the problems on return, and the guy just shrugged.
The Polestar 2 that Hertz gave me last time kept flashing warning messages on the dashboard about problems with the airbag (yikes) and the cooling system. The front seat headroom was totally inadequate for a tall person like me. When I tried to recharge it before returning it just said "Error" and refused to charge at all (tried multiple chargers). A total piece of junk.
When I complained upon return the Hertz employee was nice about it and gave me a voucher that covered the cost of the rental.
This seems like a problem with a lot of places now, not just rental cars. Employees just don’t give a shit anymore, if anything they hate their jobs and customers.
I agree, and how did that happen? It’s incredibly hard to find a painter who will actually paint, even when it takes exactly less time to do it properly than do a thin layer and be summoned to come back( Did we go to far into commoditizing everything, such that people don’t care about their reputation anymore, and don’t care about the poor schmocks who will have to live in half-built houses, and therefore, the only important thing is the plausibility that the job was performed?
People that get business from the Internet don't care about reputation. You can always just buy fake reviews, sometimes you can pay to have negatives removed, or you can just start a new company name and buy fake reviews.
Also so many businesses have sufficient barriers to entry that there is a considerable under supply of service providers.
Same in Canada. I worry that we’ve become too comfortable and will need to be reminded why it’s important to care.
In the defence of people who don’t care right now, our culture is not conducive to caring whereas it seems it was more so in the past. There was more social and family cohesion. There were more readily available evidence and reasons to care on a day to day basis. Things appear objectively different for most people now.
On top of that there is increasing wealth disparity which people are confronted with on a hyper-frequent basis. Just take a peak at instagram and you’re reminded that you’re just a serf with every ad and every few posts.
In the 'good old days' a person could work their way up in a company from the sales floor into a leadership role. The company would encourage this to create a pipeline of experienced managers with first-hand knowledge of customer needs.
That era is long dead. Companies don't care about their customers, they care about maximizing shareholder value above all else. That means doing things like slashing staff to the point where 2 people have to run the entire store. How are they supposed to provide good customer service in a situation like that?
They’re not able to or supposed to, so it’s completely understandable why many people stop caring. I definitely don’t place the responsibility of caring on the people working closest to the customer. They need to be given the training, tools, compensation, and flexibility to have a life in order for that to be realistic. They really aren’t, though. Without that, the immediate responsibility is on corporations and governments to establish baselines which allow workers to have jobs that aren’t totally soul crushing and thankless.
Jobs like that shouldn’t exist at all in my opinion. They’re the result of regulatory failure as far as I can tell.
I feel you're onto something, and like others on the thread, I've got too many anecdotal observations of service providers blatantly being in-your-face apathetic in the US vs, say, Japan where even if forced by convention, people do need to at least appear to really care. Is there formal research on this phenomenon?
The average American has never been materially wealthier. Even the poorest Americans that are housed have a fridge, a TV, a cell phone, many have a car (or two) and a majority of Americans own their own home/condo.
This isn't the 1950s where a TV was a signifier of the strength of the American economy. TVs are dirt cheap now, whereas rent, food, education, healthcare, all of which are more important for survival, have all skyrocketed.
Hahahahahahaha yeah that’s the problem, the employees! Why don’t they “give a shit” about their jobs that barely pay their rent and groceries and give them zero chance of ever retiring?
If you fire them and pay is the same why would you expect higher performance from the new person? You said it yourself, the problem exist everywhere now. You get what you pay for.
I've rented Polestar 2s from Hertz more than 10 times in the UK.
One of them had a service message that intermittently popped up related to the collision avoidance system (IIRC), and one had a slightly dodgy multi-way switch on the drivers seat that made it difficult (but not impossible) to adjust the seat position. Other than those they were all excellent: a really great car, with great software. One of the best I've ever rented from Hertz. I hope they don't sell all of them!
Meanwhile, I rented a Model S from Turo (essentially Airbnb for cars) and had a great experience.
The car was clean, well maintained, fully charged and already parked in my hotel’s parking lot. Charging was free at any Tesla charger over the three days I had the car…I just had to plug it in and tell the car how much charge I wanted. When I was done with the car, I just had to snap a few photos and leave it in the same lot. And because the pickup/drop off point was at my hotel, I avoided paying for the car for the day I flew in and out since the hotel provided a shuttle to/from the airport.
It’s amazing that some guy named Marco who bought 6 used Teslas can do a more competent job of renting EVs than a multibillion dollar rental agency with huge economies of scale.
How to make electric cars fail; established entities can intentionally neglect and drag their feet, half ass implementation. Over time it fosters routine of negative experience, fostering a viral meme that ultimately squashes demand.
Incorrect. Hertz was the biggest corporate supporter of EVs other than the manufacturers themselves. Two different Hertz CEOs essentially bet their careers on an EV future. Your characterization of intentional neglect or feet dragging is absolutely not the case, they made big, bold Tesla purchases and aggressively deployed them in the field. The problem was that customers simply did not want to rent them.
Obviously technology since 1960-ish has made flights cheaper, but I don't really care about long term trends. I'm talking about now and into the future.
If you think the imposition of Net Zero, Carbon Taxes, energy transition etc etc is going to make flights cheaper I'd be interested to see how you think this will be achieved [1]
Still, as the saying goes "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges". All the FAANG employees and VCs and other tech bros will be able to fly to the Caribbean and Europe. It will only really effect your average blue collar employee, and who cares about them, right?
Don't be ridiculous. Hertz is a for-profit corporation. They're not intentionally trying to lose money in order to sabotage EVs as some sort of grand conspiracy. They're just incompetent.
No, they just aren't as convenient yet. Who wants to rent an EV on a vacation and worry about where to charge it. Eventually they will be better in general but they aren't yet.
I last rented in FL a good 10 years back, Coral Springs - I'm UK based so only have a couple of anecdotes to go on. I was treated courteously and upgraded because the car I ordered wasn't available.
Obviously back then EVs were largely off the menu.
However, how on earth do you mount a wheel backwards? What is a rotor in an EV? I own a Chinese "Morris Garage" marque car - it's not from 'round 'ere boy.
I can’t speak for the OP, but a “rotor” can mean the brake rotor on a disc brake, which can warp due to excessive use/heat. They are common on most cars, and usually need to be “turned” (ie. machined to be flat) when they are out of tolerance.
I've got a 2012 Toyota with regenerative brakes that's had its rotors turned twice (by independent shops) after they've become rusty/noisy around every 5 years or so. But it still has all the original rotors and pads! The mechanics wouldn't replace them since there wasn't enough wear. It's almost bizarre at this point. Maybe in 2027?
>However, how on earth do you mount a wheel backwards
Put the side of the tire rim that has the car's company logo that normally faces out to the world so that it faces into the wheel well instead, with the tire itself sticking out far more then normal.
Assuming the wheel spokes doesn't grind off part of the brake calipers, it unfortunately can work. It'll drive badly mind you, and does significant cosmetic damage to the rim once you realize the mistake, but it does "drive".
Volvo is a publicly-traded Swedish company, in which Geely have a majority stake. Volvo cars are designed and manufactured in Sweden, as well as in China and elsewhere.
Polestar is also a Swedish company, designed in Sweden but mostly manufactured in China. They're expanding production in the USA and Europe (Belgium).
Rented a Kia EV6 and had to spend 3+ hours trying to charge it. Joined several charging networks--one crazy network signup made me put in the damn VIN from the windshield. Several stations failed to ever start charging. All this to put energy in a car I had for a day. It was miserable. I completely understand why no one wants to ever rent an electric car. I'm as EV as they come and I'll never, ever do that to myself again.
EVs could work as rentals but it would have to be a total end-to-end experience, thought out with the actual customer in mind. An app for a specialized car already paired to your phone and easy to charge on the Tesla network by just plugging in.
I’ve rented Teslas from Turo three times and the experience was seamless and delightful. The car was dropped off and picked up from my house and everything just worked. Phone keys, supercharger access, full charge when dropped off (basically).
I think the traditional rental places are just incompetent or under investing.
> An app for a specialized car already paired to your phone and easy to charge on the Tesla network by just plugging in.
No. No apps, no charging network accounts, no brand lock in or lock out.
Contactless payment is the minimum acceptable standard (also having the ability to pay by cash would be even better). You can still have your app if you want to but everyone must be able to pay without signing up for apps and accounts from multiple charging providers just to put electricity in a car battery.
I don't have an app to fuel my ICE vehicle, I shouldn't need one to charge my EV.
Europe has mandated contactless payments. Even Tesla is following the rules on their new V4 dispensers. Tesla will need to fix up its old dispensers:
> "I read about Hertz having problems with EV maintenance but experience leads me to believe that it's nothing to do with being EVs."
It's not so much that EVs require more maintenance/repairs (if anything, the opposite is true!), but the high costs of parts etc when repairs are needed. This is particularly a problem with Teslas, which also leads to higher insurance premiums.
TBH Hertz having EV is a good thing for me as a customer because they are cheap. It’s difficult to rent a gas car for $50/day near NYC but they are renting out EV at this rate. Although recharging is a hustle, I tried several times and never get a Tesla, and there’s no enough fast charger for other brands.
I'm surprised they bought a fleet of EVs in the first place. The battery tech still has a bit to go before it can be reliable for enterprise fleets. I think we're more than halfway there based on the range and serviceability of the latest and greatest batteries. Once they're comfortably at 1,000 miles range per charge even in the winter, then I think EVs will be better for enterprise fleets. Heavy usage and heavy recharging are bound to reduce the battery's reliability, so to have a fleet car that is comfortably still at...say, 500 miles of range per charge...they'll most likely need at least 750 to 1,000 miles of total range so that battery degradation even after a few years is not noticeable.
Yeah, electric cars definitely don't make sense for car hire. The main advantage of electric car ownership is cheaper fuel costs long term if you charge at home overnight. That obviously isn't going to happen for a hire car, and even if it did the fuel cost of a hire car is insignificant compared to the cost of the hire itself.
On top of that, charging is still way less convenient than refueling an ICE car, and when you hire a car it's usually in a situation where you can't afford inconvenience.
I think electric cars are the future and hopefully I'll never buy an ICE car again, but car hire has got to be the last domain to transition surely?
1. The rental company has car chargers on the lot and keeps their cars charged at a reasonable level.
2. You are staying at a hotel/location with car chargers.
If those two things are in play, then electric rental cars make a TON of sense. Even shorter range ones as you are likely mostly puttering around the location where you are renting. In that case, you are likely to want to do the "drive around all day, charge while you sleep" that most EV owners do.
Unfortunately, while some hotels do have chargers, they tend to be the more expensive hotels and they tend to only have 1 or 2 slots for charging.
> On top of that, charging is still way less convenient than refueling an ICE car
Really depends. Charging is more convenient if you the place you park your car has a charger. Charging is less convenient if you are driving long distances or you need to recharge with no room for downtime.
> I think you’re underestimating the number of people who fly into an airport and their destination is 1-4 hours away by car afterwards.
I probably am, because I don't think that's super common. Airports are everywhere.
Even for my extreme rural hometown, there's a commercial airport 45 minutes away (Though, granted, we'd go to the airport 2 hours away because it's bigger and we'd have to fly there anyways to get to the 45 minute airport).
The full flights and large planes I've been on haven't been to Pocatello Idaho. Which is what gives me the impression that people aren't typically flying to rural destinations. On the other hand, a flight to Atlanta, Ronald Reagan, or Dallas are always filled to the brim.
Travellers may choose less optimal airports at their destination for a bunch of reasons. There may be limited connectivity, for example. If I'm flying to San Jose, I'm landing in SFO because to fly to SJC from my nearby airport at the departure side would require a flight connection.
Even when there are flights from departure city to arrival city directly, they might be avoided because of other reasons like cost or flight times.
Or you know, you might just be flying Ryanair who will fly you to Frankfurt Hahn airport (nearer Luxumburg than Frankfurt) or Paris Beauvais (nearer Normandy than Paris)
It is definitely possible to live three hours away from an airport that won't charge you an arm and a leg for flights to bigger airports that will just get cancelled. Many rural airports barely get air service anymore.
Yuma Arizona has it's own airport.
Yuma Arizona has four Hiltons (the only brand I checked)
So if you're flying into Yuma for work and you're flying into an airport 4 hours away and staying in a hotel 45 minutes away, you are really doing something wrong.
You're saying there's no American Airlines near where you live? I find that hard to believe.
Regardless, even if you fly into phoenix, that's not a 4 hour drive away.
Regardless, even if a few underserved locations in the US are a 4 hour drive away from their nearest airport, it doesn't mean that EVs don't make sense as a rental car.
I suspect fewer people putter around a location though. At one point if I was just doing a trip with some stops in core Silicon Valley I’d have automatically rented. Generally more likely to Uber it these days.
> the fuel cost of a hire car is insignificant compared to the cost of the hire itself.
That’s not true everywhere. I’m currently on holidays: the car rental for 6d was 130euros, insurance 40, and gas will be about 60 for 10-15h of driving. Gas doesn’t dominate the price but it’s far from insignificant, and it only gets worse as price increases
But you save a lot more time traveling with a gas car since you're not looking for charring stations along the route every 150-350km and waiting hours to charge.
Also, charging at public chargers isn't that cheap or frictionless. At home yeah, but at stations not so much. Not compared to filling up with gas and being on your way in less than 5 minutes.
> But you save a lot more time traveling with a gas car since you're not looking for charring stations along the route every 150-350km and waiting hours to charge.
While I'm sure it happens, that's never been my experience. You plug your trip into the car's navigation system and it'll plan out the charge stops for you. It's quiet frictionless. Tesla's is really good as it will even plan on sending you to less busy charging stations vs more busy ones (and reroute if that changes).
> Also, charging at public chargers isn't that cheap or frictionless.
Depends on the network. Tesla's isn't terribly expensive and is extremely frictionless. Electrify America is horseshit, both on cost and ease of use.
This is a solvable problem.
> Not compared to filling up with gas and being on your way in less than 5 minutes.
Behavior ends up changing here if you road trip with an EV. Rather than just getting fuel then going somewhere else to eat you'll usually charge while you eat, use the restroom, or go for a walk. If you really don't have anything else to do, you'll probably just catch a tv show on your phone.
That coveted 5 minutes ends up just not being a big deal because you are multitasking with the charging. (Which for me is typically 20->30 minutes).
Assuming you have an EV as a daily driver. 30 minutes of waiting to recharge vs the hassle of renting a gasoline car? I think you are overestimating the problem here.
If you are renting a car with the intention of traveling long distances, you are free to pick the most suitable one though.
>Tesla's isn't terribly expensive and is extremely frictionless...
I'm sure Tesla is great, but my ICE is excellent in both those categories and cost me 6000 Euros used in mint condition with only 4 years and 40k KM of usage. Which used Tesla can I get in that budget?
K. That wasn't a part of your original post. Did you want me to start debating the economics of buying EVs?
If I were to advise someone for the best EV to buy, I'd probably suggest holding off for 5 or 10 more years. Even if I were suggesting a new EV to buy, I'd suggest holding off for 1 maybe 2 years in north america because everything is switching over to NACS.
If we are talking about someone in the EU, I'd still probably suggest waiting a couple of years if you can, but if you can't you can probably grab a Nissan leaf for roughly that 6000 euros and that mileage. If you can wait a few more years, especially in the EU, then the used market options are going to explode. I'd probably look at some of the Chinese second hand EVs as they are already pretty cheap and will likely be super cheap used in a few years. And if you are in the EU, EVs that are roughly the same prices as an ICE are going to make a lot of financial sense because of the high petrol prices.
Would I suggest someone get a Tesla today? Eh, depends. I probably will not get one for my next vehicle, but I plan on running this one into the ground (currently at 130,000 miles and I plan to keep going until something gives). In the US, I'd suggest today you take a good look at the iconiq if you are buying new. But again, in the US, I'd strongly suggest waiting for a couple of years at this moment.
>Did you want me to start debating the economics of buying EVs?
Well, EV growth and adoption is all about economics (can you afford them in your business/lifestyle to replace your ICE or not?) Herz's decision to drop EVs is about economics (is it profitable for them or not?). So yeah, Economics are very important in this discussion so why not talk about it?
You pointing out Tesla, the most premium EV brand with the best chagrin network, as the competition to cheap ICEs is like telling peasants who can't afford bread that they should eat cake. EU voters aren't gonna be happy with this come 2035 if the EV market isn't full of cheap models with long range by then and we might see an exertion of the ICE life, especially since the post 2022 conditions has decimated the purchasing power and disposable income of the average European. We might have counted our chickens before they were hatched on this one.
>you can probably grab a Nissan leaf for roughly that 6000 euros and that mileage
Unfortunately, the Leaf's range is pitiful compared to even the most econobox ICE. And range is very important to EU buyers.
> You pointing out Tesla, the most premium EV brand with the best chagrin network
I pointed out 2 very specific aspects of tesla, the charge network and the ability to route plan with charging stops. 2 things any EV brand can pull off.
And, particularly in the case of the EU, 1 thing that affects all EV brands as there are public charging access laws which mean anyone can use the tesla charging network. It's not just for the uber wealthy. I did not say or suggest in my post that "lol, the poors should just buy teslas" as you suggest. Rather, I rebutted 2 specific points you made, that you have to search for charging stations which are far apart (not true in the EU, btw) and that the charging experience is always terrible.
You then went on a wild tangent about how much it costs to buy EVs, which was completely out of scope of the prior discussion and goalpost moving.
> as the competition to cheap ICEs is like telling peasants who can't afford bread that they should eat cake.
Like, sorry, I did not nor have I suggested that the peasants need to go out and buy EVs. Nor am I suggesting that owning one isn't something that today requires more money (as I outlined in my previous post). Owning an EV is not the right move for everyone yet every EV debate is framed as "If it's not good for everyone it's not good for anyone".
> EU voters aren't gonna be happy with this come 2035 if the EV market isn't full of cheap models with long range by then.
I agree. It's still a relatively young industry. My suspicion is that by 2035 things will be a lot more competitive as battery manufacturing has been growing exponentially and we are starting to see EV sales lag. Exponential growth in a supply with a lag in demand translates to lower prices. I can't predict exactly when (or if) this will happen. It's my best guess that it will.
> Unfortunately, the Leaf's range is pitiful compared to even the most econobox ICE. And range is very important.
Important to some, not to all. I wouldn't buy it as a primary car because range is important to me. As a secondary car, sure, it'd work great as a commuter.
But again, in case you want to reframe what I'm saying in a less charitable way, I'm not saying "EVs are for everyone and everyone should own them". Nor am I saying "everyone should buy a tesla". I'm not even saying "Used EVs are fine and there's no reason why someone shouldn't buy them."
We can both agree that ICE boxes aren't without their drawbacks right? We can both agree that there are pros and cons to EVs and ICE right? Or do you just want to say that there is never a good reason to buy an EV?
The article says the cars are unreliable. I thought one of the selling points of electric cars was reliability over an ICE engine. Anyone knows what they are refering to?
> I thought one of the selling points of electric cars was reliability over an ICE engine.
They are if you take car of them. Hertz notoriously did not have chargers in their lots and I've read plenty of stories of EV renters getting an EV with 20% of the battery.
If they are letting the cars sit and discharge to 0, yeah, that will look like them being "unreliable" and will ultimately wear the battery.
I rent EVs in Europe all the time, both for long and short trips, and it's never been a problem. (I don't own a car, so it's the only kind of driving I do these days.) You charge the rental overnight or find a fast charger somewhere if you can't find a spot. It's annoying when there's a line, but it's not an actual problem. Reliability has also not been a problem.
We use Zipcar for a second car at the moment and the closest one is an EV. I’ve only used it to go (at most) 10 miles round trip, but I’ve picked it up at 15% charge before and had anxiety the whole time… I agree that EV is a poor choice for rental.
Can you not see the charge amount before renting it?
The equivalent services in Copenhagen show the state of charge of the cars on the map, before paying anything. (There's also free minutes for leaving the car plugged in to a charger at the end, and perhaps because of that it's rare for them to be at a low charge.)
You _can_, but if I have a reservation a week in advance, then it’s not much use. Someone could return the car with no batter at 3:15, for my 3:30 reservation.
Ok, so I see the Zipcar system is set up quite differently to the car sharing I've used elsewhere.
Here, there are many more cars, but it's not possible to reserve far in advance. You can reserve for free for enough time to walk to the car (20 minutes?) or pay to reserve for longer.
The FAQ on Zipcar's website says "Our Electric Vehicles are charged overnight by our team, so they’re good to go whenever you are" — but this isn't the case for the GP, so the failing is with Zipcar.
For anyone otherwise accustomed to vehicles that even at 5% of capacity can be refilled within 5 minutes once a petrocharger's been found, the suggestion to check the charge level is risible.
Fuel costs aren't insignificant, low MPG cars can have fuel be a solid % of the overall rental cost. I think for a moderately efficient (30ish MPG) rental I used for an afternoon a few weeks ago fuel was ~15% of total cost to me. Like $55 in rental fees, $10 in fuel. A rental a had last year for multiple days was closer to like 20%, but I got stuck with a gas guzzler.
There's situations where they make sense to rent and vice versa.
Business traveler who just needs to go between the hotel and the airport? Great; may not even need to charge.
If I'm flying into Vegas to do a roadtrip to the Mighty 5? Nope.
Rental companies already have lots of different categories, so it's fine to have a mixed fleet. Just requires some extra infrastructure and consumer education. Which, I know, is in short supply, but can be done.
Certainly affordable wouldn't work for rural because range is really needed. However, it's doable now with 300+ range EVs (assuming there's a city within 100/150 miles of your location).
One thing that would change this quickly is if V2H ends up taking off. Then you can ditch your backup generator and use your EV in the event of a power outage. For very rural places or off grid places that could be really valuable.
Pretty good deals to be had buying an EV from Hertz. I bought one a few weeks back; they had a bunch to choose from and some had low miles and in near mint condition, with little or no apparent wear, priced near the bottom of KBB.
> as it reports a $392 million loss for the first quarter of 2024.
Is there any insight regarding the primary reason for that loss? They cite EVs being expensive and unreliable but surely that can't be the primary factor behind a loss of 1/3 of a billion?
Forget about stealing copper, a lot of outdoor public chargers are just defective. Either the connector, the charger, the payment system or the app is wonky. Compared to the speed, ease and reliability of filling up a gas tank, public charging an EV is hell.
Until we fix this, people without a house and garage to have their own charger are going get screwed badly by the forced EV transition.
They're fine even without it if there's infrastructure. Supermarkets around me have fast chargers, so I just recharge during my weekly shopping (BEVs don't need to be plugged every day).
How many hours do you spend at the supermarket? I'm usually in and out in 10 minutes, that isn't much of a charge.
Also, how many charging stations are there compared to the number of parking spaces? The markets I've seen have 2 charging stations with about a hundred parking spaces. The stations are always in use, so they're fairly useless unless you want to hang around for most of the day.
Public DC chargers are orders of magnitude faster than domestic or "destination" chargers.
Modern BEVs typically need 30 minutes to charge from 10 to 80% (it slows down asymptotically above 80).
I have 150kW chargers around here (southwest UK), which add 80 miles of range in 10 minutes. My weekly shopping usually takes longer than the car needs to fully change.
It varies of course. The good one is a recent build of 10x 150kW. Older deployments were 2x 120kW, 1x 50kW, and 4x 11kW AC.
I've had EVs since 2019, and in the meantime the infrastructure in the UK went from one broken charger per city, to every McDonald drive thru having a DC charger. In the western EU it's even better with a good 300kW charger coverage along all highways.
150kW * 10/60 = 25kWh. That's 80mi at 3.1mi/kWh.
Charging used to be dirt cheap before the Russian invasion. Rapid charging prices have increased 4x since then, and per mile they're unfortunately on par with petrol now.
I have a garage and I made a conscious decision to buy an ICE car over a BEV, even though I could afford it.
Last time I ran the numbers is was 8 to 10 years before I hit break for an ICE vs an equivalent EV (in feature set that I cared about) given my driving habits and operating costs for either. And there's some electrical work that needs to be done to properly support charging a BEV without juggling what's drawing power when all the time. Upgrades to happen either way but they'd have to be rushed if I had bought a BEV, vs taking the time over the next few years.
So at least to for my situation it makes more sense to stick to ICE for now. If the BEV evangelists are right and battery prices drop down to the point where the purchase price of a BEV is the same as an ICE, then it makes more sense to wait. Buy ICE now, get everything in place, evaluate everything again in a few years.
> Last time I ran the numbers is was 8 to 10 years before I hit break for an ICE vs an equivalent EV
That assumes your time is worth zero.
The best feature about having an EV or plug in hybrid is that if you can charge at home, you never have to waste time going to the gas station, except for road trips.
That's an odd way of looking at it, and I don't it's terribly valid but sure let's run with it for a bit.
The gas station is right on the route home. Any which way I used to go home, it's on the route on the right side of the road. When I was commuting every day it I was refuelling roughly every 3 weeks taking 3 to 6 minutes depending on if I had to wait for a gas stall to open. I work from home now so it's not entirely valid but use this for the sake of easy comparison.
Let's say it takes 10 seconds to unplug/close door/stow cable when you leave, and another 10 seconds when you get back. 5 days a week plus weekend trip for errands or whatever, so 6 minutes every 3 weeks. In other words, about the same as buying gas.
But then that leaves out the issue of DC fast charging, which inherently does longer, even when everything is working. Right now, the fast chargers not named Tesla are a bit of a gamble and now you have to consider time spent looking for an alternative charger if the one you want is occupied or out of order. Then throw in that my problems with locating a fast charge are made more so because I don't have a data plan on my smartphone, which limits which chargers I can use and cuts me off from knowing chargers are working and well...
I remember from the Obama "cash for clunkers" that the CO2 emissions from constructing a car was about the same as the CO2 emissions for driving 20,000 miles on it.
This foundered the entire rationale for "cash for clunkers" to switch to more fuel efficient cars, but facts didn't matter. Politics did.
A lot of millennials and gen Z's are choosing to not have kids. No real reason for those without kids to give a fuck, and those with kids have a larger carbon footprint than those without children.
I have owned an EV and I liked it, particularly the instant acceleration, but ultimately, it's not a superior product unless you heavily weight zero emissions at the point of use.
It has a lower range than my now ICE car, like for like it costs more both to buy and to fuel, there are fewer charging points, and it takes longer to charge vs. fueling.
Some of these points are marginal, but for a rental company that's not specializing at the high end of the market the margins aren't huge and it doesn't surprise me that the model doesn't work.
Just one point to address the "long tailpipe" myth: EVs have fewer emissions even if they are powered by a coal power plant, because the drive train is so much more efficient.
Mine takes six seconds to charge — three seconds to plug in, and three seconds to unplug — and costs far less than gas (depends on your area and local rates, I guess). I haven't been to a gas station in five years. Pretty happy with that.
Sure - at home charging is great. You can't do that with a rental on a road trip, and a lot of people just can't do it in general.
I'm struggling to find actual statistics on what % of UK households have a drive or garage, but anecdotally, even amongst fairly well off people it's not that common unless you live on the outskirts of a city or rurally.
A large part of the UK is terraced housing and you can't easily park outside your house even if you wanted to dangle a cable out of a window or something.
If my house had a garage, I could probably quite easily rent it out for £500+ a month as living accommodation, so even the opportunity cost wipes out all of the savings.
If you use extremely expensive charging stations like the non-Tesla so-called "fast" chargers that are the only option for non-Teslas, they tend to do price gouging.
Superchargers also vary in price and can be non-competitive with home electric rates, depending on region, but they don't seem to gouge severely like their competition. At least their pricing for Teslas is good. And maybe the poster lives in a place with very cheap gas as well. It remains to be seen what kind of premium they will charge to non-Teslas which tend to charge more slowly. Because of this slow charging issue, when they roll out more third party charging, Tesla will make non-Teslas pay not only for power, but also for time spent, because taking up a slot for a longer time has an impact on everyone.
The question is what will consumers be ditching Hertz for? Electric cars as an economical proposition have already proved themselves. That debate is pretty much over. So, why can't Hertz make it work? And who else can disrupt them and how quickly?
This comment feels so disconnected from reality that I can only imagine you possibly live in a bubble of EV owners. To offer my anecdotal observation, where I live, I rarely ever see an EV. Maybe a single one on the road per day, if that. Various dealerships have told me everyone getting one around the area recently has been returning them.
While on a time limited event, like a vacation, where I may need a rental car, I have no desire to sit and wait for my car to charge and waste my time, over a 45 second gas fill up. Hotels don’t universally offer charging ports (or enough of them, if it even does). EVs have a very long way to go to being generally useful for the non homeowner who doesn’t have a charging station in their own garage.
> To offer my anecdotal observation, where I live, I rarely ever see an EV.
Where do you live? I live in a regular German town, nothing I would consider particular techie, and I see so many electric cars. If you only see one ev per day, I think that you might live more in a bubble than OP.
One is certainly underestimating. I only mean some insignificant number of vehicles. Far from the “proven” statement about people vying for EV rentals in the OP comment. I realize now that I shouldn’t have put an explicit number on an internet comment, as now that number is the target to come after me for.
i mean urban geographies are for the most part a bubble.
I could see even in different parts of the US wildly different EV adoption rates. They're very common in Seattle but I think I would be surprised if I saw too many of them in Boise. US states are often the size of European countries.
They’re pretty common in the Bay Area but, anecdotally while they’re becoming more common in the Boston suburbs they’re still a fairly unusual sighting other than at a charging station next to a supermarket I shop—which typically has 1-2 cars at it.
There's not much point grumbling about an anecdote and supplying another.
The EU as a whole has 1.68% EVs out of all passenger cars, though it's about 15% of new cars. [1]
Here in Denmark BEVs are 5.68% of all passenger cars, and I'm sure it's higher where I live in Copenhagen. Over half of the taxis and buses are EVs, plus a good proportion of private vehicle. I won't guess, but I do see many EVs every time I go outside.
Agreed, just was too lazy for research and the OP EV praise was eye-roll inducing, so I just quickly offered an alternative perspective. Thanks for the actual numbers!
What makes sense at an individual level doesn't necessarily makes sense at that scale.
The only time I rent cars is for long trips, I'm about to rent one next month actually, 1200km, no chance I'll get an EV that at most will give me 400km of range
The fact that anything above a fender bender is almost always a total write off probably doest help either
Vehicle rental periods are inherently time constrained. If you’re on a business trip or vacation the last thing you want to be doing is waiting for your vehicle to charge. And, you inherently also often do not have access to private charging infrastructure which means you actively have to go out of your way to find a safe and reliable charger. And you have to do this in a strange place that you don’t know. Home charging is the critical factor that makes life with an EV appealing.
Vacations are so time constrained that a huge % of ICE renters opt to just get hosed on gas up fees that rental companies charge instead of going to any ubiquitous gas station before dropping the car off. Car drop off with a flight to catch is always a race against time.
EVs are pricey versus comparably equipped cars, and this is reflected in the rates. (I rented two cars on Turo, a 4-cylinder ICE and an EV, and the ICE had a better ROI)
Owning an EV requires some compromises, but you figure it out: you get a charger for home, you learn where the chargers are and what the waits are like, etc. For a traveler renting a car, this is bigger challenge. (I say this being a two-EV household)
As a regular Hertz customer, I will still use Hertz. They are mostly zero hassle, even that time I destroyed a Fiat 500 :)
I never rented an EV from them and never would because the charging logistics are a pain in the ass at return. Out of petrol? 10 minutes, run it through the car wash at the same time, sorted. Out of charge? Oh I'm right next to one of the biggest airports in Europe and all the chargers are rammed. No thanks.
Do Europeans really return their rental cars washed? The only time I've ever washed a rental car in the US was when I drove it off paved roads in violation of the terms of the rental agreement and needed to hide the evidence.
I’ve never ever washed then though I probably risked a cleaning fee. I’ve returned some very (externally) dirty cars that were in a bunch of forest roads though mostly not really off-road.
What happens when you return it with a lower charge than when you got it? Don’t you just have to pay the difference? Is that more expensive than charging it yourself?
I have an EV, no gas car and I'm super happy about that.
And yet when I needed to rent a car, I rented a gasoline one.
Why?
Because car rental is pretty much the worst case for an EV.
If I rent a car I'm likely abroad, with zero knowledge of the recharge network and often not great options in terms of costs because most are national (at least, here in Europe, only notable exception being Ionity).
I'm also likely to drive long distances, with no routine, and little planning capacity.
And whatever other reason one would pick an EV for (noise, pollution, fuel cost, one pedal drive comfort etc.) they are all negligible when applied to a 2 weeks vacation.
Isn’t this specifically a case of Hertz having estimated the economical proposition as proven and positive, and now having to fix that miscalculation as the actual economic results have rolled in?
It may be over for you, but for most people it isn't. I won't pay the price of new car, any car, ever, even if I can afford it easily. Its just silly when I can pay 20% of premium BMW with say 90k km and use it for another 10 years or 150k km, with very few repairs needed (granted, this depends on the model but knock on the wood this worked for 15 years so far). Used electric cars comfortable for a family of 4, with bigger trunk, can drive at least 800km fully loaded in winter in 1 go without ever thinking about battery state, or chargers network? Please show me one and its price.
Its often the second biggest investment in one's life, after housing. But unlike housing you just throw money at it, expecting pure massive loss, while gaining service. Service new car offers is 100% of used one which is well maintained, minus all potential initial recalls. Its even better for peace of mind - small dents and damage on new car hurts mentally so one becomes a slave to freakin' piece of plastic and metal, on older one its meh category and I focus on important parts being in good state and high quality wheels connecting me to Earth, while driving much more premium equipped cars than comparable electric ones (granted, ie Porsche is better but at what crazy price).
What electric cars bring within same requirements is 2-4x more expensive just to purchase, and TCO are stratospheric for what I am willing to accept.
Another point is environmental impact on all that battery chemistry destroying ecosystems of some poor countries electric drivers often never even heard of nor visited, it ain't greener car to manufacture by any means, albeit greener to run for sure.
So there you have it, the reason 80% of ICE driver's reasons to stay where they are, at least for another decade or two. And that's just purely civilian family transport. What comes after those decades we can discuss at that time, nobody knows what situation will be at that time.
You drive 800km without taking a break? With a family?
Last time I took my Taycan for a long drive (6 hours in -15C) we took a break half way, and it charged so much faster than expected - so I had to exit the restaurant and go and move it.
It’s the best family car I've ever had, much better than all the BMWs but yeah, it is expensive although the running costs are low.
Yes I do, at least 2-3x a year. We do have breaks of course, but they last few minutes and cover toilets, stretch and some eating. Chargers logistics is simply another burden, manageable but definitely annoying at least.
And anything Porsche has massive TCO, wait till you start changing worn out parts. Manageable, but ROI is extremely bad to me and even best cars out there have to pass some logical checks.
> Used electric cars comfortable for a family of 4, with bigger trunk, can drive at least 800km fully loaded in winter in 1 go without ever thinking about battery state, or chargers network?
I enjoyed how this sentence escalated suddenly. It felt like you got halfway through then worried that there were actually used electric cars suitable for families of four with big trunks, and then massively overcompensated to rule those out and managed to rule out basically every EV.
The transition to electric vehicles is planned over decades. People act like they're being forced into electric cars today at gunpoint. Since we're talking about second hand cars you have decades of ICE purchasing ahead of you. I think for most people, it won't be that long before it just makes sense to switch. But you've got your long winter journies and fast charger phobia so you're a special case.
If I recall, Hertz requires 80% which is still terrible, considering the low range of some of their vehicles and that DC fast charging above 80% gets much slower against all that voltage pressure. So you can double your total charging time to get to 100% (accelerating battery wear in the process) or charge to 85% and hope that the 10 miles to the airport won't take more 5%.
Last I looked they allowed 70% charge. Still, your point stands and I won’t rent an EV anytime soon unless I was treating as an extended test drive where my schedule didn’t matter.
I'd guess that a lot of EV renters switch back to Turo or whatever company still offers them. For some reason, these threads attract a lot of people who act like noone likes renting them and very few say otherwise.
Nevertheless, there's definitely still a market here.
I wonder if the economics for the rental provider don't work as well: rentals probably get in more collisions (infrequent drivers + unfamiliar environment) and that's a problem if they can't get them back on the road quickly.
The economics for rental cars relies on resale value after one to two years, frequency of damage, and cost of repair.
All of these things suck for EVs in general, and Teslas in particular. The recent price cuts have demolished the resale value way more than any other car, rented EVs get damaged more frequently because people are unfamiliar with their behaviour and torque curves and acceleration, and the cost of repair is atrocious for Teslas, since their service infrastructure is severely lacking, i.e. it takes forever to get parts.
And on top of that, rental customers do not want an EV in an unfamiliar place. Everyone can find a gas station and fill it up before returning, but having to schedule your entire trip around charging infrastructure is a complete waste of time.
The only rental customers it makes sense for is people who already have an EV, love it, and know how to live with. But the problem is that Hertz was throwing the Teslas at customers willy-nilly as some kind of "luxury upgrade", with crap results.
I could see renting a Tesla once for the experience but, yeah, it would be unfamiliar both in the handling and the electric gee-gas. Hell, a lot of non-core ICE are already sufficiently non-standard I avoid them when I can in a rental.
The reason cited was the depreciation and reliability. Taking them at face value, presumably all other rental co’s would be hit with the same issues, potentially to a greater degree without having the buying power of Hertz
> Electric cars as an economic proposition have already proved themselves. That debate is pretty much over.
Have they? It seems that when rubber meets the road, so to speak, it is not a simple one-to-one replacement for gas or diesel vehicles. The day-to-day ownership is more complicated, planning your itinerary and day around sparse public charging and owning property to have at-home charging. Also, the long-term ownership, having low resale value due to the high repair costs of the electric drivetrain and low overall repairability, makes ownership a poor proposition for most average people.
Electric cars have been on the market for over a decade. Show me one that someone has kept past 200,000 miles. Meanwhile, you can find Toyotas and Hondas well past that benchmark all day on Marketplace.
The amount of EV misinformation in this thread is staggering.
There's heaps of Tesla cars that have done very significant mileage. And as battery technology improves, early generations have been covered by very generous warranties.
Here's one such story, finding others would be a low effort undertaking:
Those with 300-400k mileage cars, being earlier generations, a good number have had their battery replaced under warranty with new units. Reliability has only improved over the years, and again, the warranty time has been generous - unlimited km on earlier ones.
(My '22 LR3 is 8 year /192k KM, I've only done 19k KM over 2 years, so the limit won't be an issue. I plan on having it for at least that long. Oh and that's at least ~70% charged by rooftop PV).
Also: Other manufacturers are clearly playing catch up to Tesla, but they are getting there.
> Show me one that someone has kept past 200,000 miles. Meanwhile, you can find Toyotas and Hondas well past that benchmark all day on Marketplace.
Even among gas cars, those who buy new rarely keep cars that long. The average is about 8 years. I've owned several Hondas and Toyotas, and I've never hit 100k on one. (even though I have no doubt any of them would still be on the road) (My current car is a Kia EV6)
Even if you decide to get rid of your cars prematurely (that's your choice), the increased cost of ownership is reflected in their terrible resale value. Look at the trend lines of Tesla resale values.
I've owned Mercedes with over 300k and Hondas with over 250k.
Plug in hybrid, not pure BEV, but my 2014 GM Volt has 275K on it, have had to do minimal maintenance. Probably use 80-90% on battery only, few road trips where I've used gas.
I have a BEV as well, and I have to say - I don't understand why the PHEV market didn't take off. All the savings for daily trips, and the convenience of gas to never think about range anxiety.
A few weeks ago I rented a Model 3 from Hertz in San Diego, and the car didn't come with an SAE J1772 Charging Adapter (this covers most level 2 stations). That's crazy. I was staying primarily at UCSD for cancer treatment, and there are a million level 2 chargers that I couldn't access without the SAE J1772 dongle. The Tesla my wife and I have always has a SAE J1772 dongle in the center console. I complained about the lack of this essential part.
Hertz would charge for the dongle and then refund upon its return. The car itself was good!