“How do we democratize access to electric vehicles? That’s a very important part of our strategy,” Mark Fields, who joined Hertz as interim chief executive officer earlier this month, said in an interview. “Tesla is the only manufacturer that can produce EVs at scale.”
Hertz orders 100k Teslas
91–100 of 516 posts
Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas
#92If only Hertz wasn't the worst of the car rental companies. My latest, and last horror story with them was that because they couldn't correlate my identity to that of the corporate credit card I was using, they were "unable to rent" to me. I asked about refunding my pre-paid rental then, and started finding an Uber to Enterprise. "Oh, sorry sir. Prepaid rentals are non-refundable." Right, so you take my payment, and…
All rental car agencies suck. So do all delivery services, airlines, cell phone carriers, and cable companies. Pick any company operating in these spaces and you’ll get stories of how they are the literally the worst company on the planet.
That being said I’ve never had a bad experience with national or enterprise. I dunno why other companies haven’t copied the Emerald Isle concept yet. It makes so much sense. The customer gets to feel like they had control over the car they picked, the time spent in line is non existent, etc. Its a win all around.
Also life pro tip: unless your employer can do better, always use Costco Travel for rental cars (and hotels for that matter). They always include multiple drivers, and have very competitive pricing… sometimes lower than what I can get using my employer’s corporate rate. The Costco membership almost always pays for itself just by renting a car for the week.
Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas
#93Where I live, it is exceedingly hard to get anything electric or even hybrid as a rental. Sometimes I wonder why that is. There are companies offering EVs for short-term rentals by the minute or hour, but not as many of the big companies which seem to treat EVs more as a curiosity and group them with Maseratis or Luxury SUVs in terms of price and availability. I hope this news is enough to shake up the leadership at…
Probably cause it’s hard to get people to charge them before they get returned
I dunno how long it takes to fully charge an EV but it seems to me the market would eventually figure out a way to just not require retiring the car full. The first rental company that does this for free will outsell all the rest.
That being said I also don’t know what the turnaround on a returned car is when on a busy lot. Minutes? Hours? Days? They gotta wash and vacuum it at minimum.
My guess would be a couple hours. They could start charging them right when you park at the return line…
Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas
#94Those that are familiar with Tesla's, would there be extra software features a car rental company would want?
Resetting the system and clearing out any personalization. For example most rentals will have a huge list of contacts saved from people who paired with Bluetooth and unthinkingly let the car have all the contacts (which I was guilty of doing until I got wise to it).
Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas
#95Those that are familiar with Tesla's, would there be extra software features a car rental company would want?
Limiting speed, monitoring location, monitoring of “safety score” (attempts to measure things like “aggressive turning”), low cost of maintenance (no oil changes, etc), drivers are purportedly safer with autopilot than without
You ever try to grenade the gearbox in a minivan by doing mean stuff to it? In a rental you can!
Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas
#96Those that are familiar with Tesla's, would there be extra software features a car rental company would want?
Resetting the system and clearing out any personalization. For example most rentals will have a huge list of contacts saved from people who paired with Bluetooth and unthinkingly let the car have all the contacts (which I was guilty of doing until I got wise to it).
I bought a used Kia a few years back, and the GPS/head unit had many addresses still as saved destinations. I could have easily figured out who owned the car, which shouldn't happen.
Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As a non-Tesla owner, I'd love to rent a Tesla on my vacations just to try it before deciding on buying one. Me too. I actually looked into that a few months ago. In Boston Massachusetts, there is this place: https://www.teslarents.com/ But we were going to San Francisco not Boston, and there was nothing that I could google up. With the exception of Oslo, Norway; I've never seen so many Teslas as I did in the Bay a…
Try Turo. There tend to be quite a few Teslas there. https://turo.com/
I'm not sure that I "get" Turo. this is ... Airbnb for cars?
In any case, I don't think it would have worked for us, we handed the car back days later, in a different city. Which is fine for Hertz, but probably not for a Turo "host"?
It's likely that by the next time we're there, things will be different.
Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas
#98I only rent a car when going on holidays abroad for a week. There is no way I would choose Electric. Filling car once and forgeting about it is a must for me
Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas
#99I look forward to not having to give a flying fuck about fuel level upon returning my next rental car. Enabling rental companies to fill up their vehicles on-site without requiring becoming a gas station alone is a glaringly obvious rental EV win.
Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas
#100If only Hertz wasn't the worst of the car rental companies. My latest, and last horror story with them was that because they couldn't correlate my identity to that of the corporate credit card I was using, they were "unable to rent" to me. I asked about refunding my pre-paid rental then, and started finding an Uber to Enterprise. "Oh, sorry sir. Prepaid rentals are non-refundable." Right, so you take my payment, and…
All rental car agencies suck. So do all delivery services, airlines, cell phone carriers, and cable companies. Pick any company operating in these spaces and you’ll get stories of how they are the literally the worst company on the planet. That being said I’ve never had a bad experience with national or enterprise. I dunno why other companies haven’t copied the Emerald Isle concept yet. It makes so much sense. The cu…
+1 for Costco travel. I have found that alone to cover your Costco membership fees.