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Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

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Re: Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

#101

Post by bumby »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #100
bumby wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly the value of the car at the time of replacement, but not the value of the car when new. The other comment indicating it was 1.3x the cost of their EV when new.

Possibly the value of the car at the time of replacement, but not the value of the car when new. Does it really matter? Once the cost exceeds the replacement value of the car, only a fool would pay the money to do the work.

Absolutely. By orders of magnitude. This is one of those HN comments that comes across as in a bubble or tone deaf.

There’s a difference in the utility and investment value. Lots of people are in the position where they can’t afford a $50k EV repair to keep a car roadworthy or $35k for a new car. Many more can stomach a $5k ICE repair. It may be the difference between getting to work and not for someone who can’t afford a new car. They will still get much more utility out of it even if it’s not worth it on paper.

Not everyone is in a position where they can just decide to buy a new car because it’s the prudent financial decision.

Re: Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

#102

Post by jqpabc123 »

bumby wrote: post #101
jqpabc123 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly the value of the car at the time of replacement, but not the value of the car when new. Does it really matter? Once the cost exceeds the replacement value of the car, only a fool would pay the money to do the work.

Absolutely. By orders of magnitude. This is one of those HN comments that comes across as in a bubble or tone deaf. There’s a difference in the utility and investment value. Lots of people are in the position where they can’t afford a $50k EV repair to keep a car roadworthy or $35k for a new car. Many more can stomach a $5k ICE repair. It may be the difference between getting to work and not for someone who can’t aff…

Not everyone is in a position where they can just decide to buy a new car because it’s the prudent financial decision.

Regardless of your position --- salvage the old car (puts some money in your pocket) and replace it (with a similar used one if necessary) for *less* than the cost of the repairs to the old one. Take your significant other to dinner with the money you just avoided wasting on your broken old heap.

Why would a reasonable person *ever* spend more on repairs than the money required to just replace the broken car with one that works? Irrational, sentimental reasons perhaps?

Why spend $6K on repairs if you can buy a similar working car for only $5K? Why make your net "position" $1K worse with flawed logic?

What part of this sounds "tone deaf" to you?

Re: Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

#103

Post by analognoise »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #102
bumby wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. By orders of magnitude. This is one of those HN comments that comes across as in a bubble or tone deaf. There’s a difference in the utility and investment value. Lots of people are in the position where they can’t afford a $50k EV repair to keep a car roadworthy or $35k for a new car. Many more can stomach a $5k ICE repair. It may be the difference between getting to work and not for someone who can’t aff…

Not everyone is in a position where they can just decide to buy a new car because it’s the prudent financial decision. Regardless of your position --- salvage the old car (puts some money in your pocket) and replace it (with a similar used one if necessary) for *less* than the cost of the repairs to the old one. Take your significant other to dinner with the money you just avoided wasting on your broken old heap. Why…

A 5K used vehicle might need a similar 6k repair at some nearby point.

But a 6k repair to get a new engine/transmission is almost a new car (utility wise) - you know that for the next 100k miles you're probably set w.r.t. drivetrain.

It makes sense to me?

Re: Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

#104

Post by jqpabc123 »

analognoise wrote: post #103
jqpabc123 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone is in a position where they can just decide to buy a new car because it’s the prudent financial decision. Regardless of your position --- salvage the old car (puts some money in your pocket) and replace it (with a similar used one if necessary) for *less* than the cost of the repairs to the old one. Take your significant other to dinner with the money you just avoided wasting on your broken old heap. Why…

A 5K used vehicle might need a similar 6k repair at some nearby point. But a 6k repair to get a new engine/transmission is almost a new car (utility wise) - you know that for the next 100k miles you're probably set w.r.t. drivetrain. It makes sense to me?

By the time most cars need a replacement engine and transmission, the only thing available is likely to be used/salvaged or rebuilt. New ones are often out of production.

And you certainly can't buy a whole new drivetrain and get it installed for $6k. The only people who attempt this are those who can do the work themselves.

Re: Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

#105

Post by lm28469 »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #68
lm28469 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be sure the invisible hand of the free market will take care of that, and also of the "it's 4x cheaper to charge an EV than fill an ICE vehicle tank"

The technology is just too distributed already for any of that to happen. Cost of charging an EV is bounded by the ability to add solar panels to your house (currently solar installations “pay for themselves” in 7 years in Seattle - not so sunny - high cost of labor location). The grid and “free market” have to be able to compete with that for cost. Batteries like solar panels are very cheap to transport. They are fl…

You'll need a shit load of solar panels to charge a 60kw+ EV regularly, and a shit ton of sun.

A lot of people don't own/live in a house in Europe, let alone a house with enough land for a proper solar installation

If it was that easy every single house would already be self sufficient in electricity, if you can half charge a 60kw EV battery every day you could easily run everything in your house

I'm 100% pro solar but I think people just don't understand the numbers here, with my _yearly_ electricity consumption I can only charge a 75kwh tesla battery 25 times, that's once every 2 weeks.

> So I’d say your outlook is very pessimistic and not backed by the data.

Filling am EV at a public charger in Paris already costs more than filling your gas tank. https://www.frandroid.com/produits-android/automobile/voitur...

I'm telling, people who want to make money won't change overnight. Of course that's different than trickle charging your EV in your garage but a lot of people 1 don't own a garage, 2 won't have the proper installation for a quick charge and won't have that any time soon.

I know lots of people here are 100$k+ tech worker living in fancy and sunny places but the reality is that the vast majority of people can't even afford an EV right now, let alone a 20$K+ solar instal for the house they don't even have yet.

Re: Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

#106

Post by bumby »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #104
analognoise wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 5K used vehicle might need a similar 6k repair at some nearby point. But a 6k repair to get a new engine/transmission is almost a new car (utility wise) - you know that for the next 100k miles you're probably set w.r.t. drivetrain. It makes sense to me?

By the time most cars need a replacement engine and transmission, the only thing available is likely to be used/salvaged or rebuilt. New ones are often out of production. And you certainly can't buy a whole new drivetrain and get it installed for $6k. The only people who attempt this are those who can do the work themselves.

>By the time most cars need a replacement engine and transmission, the only thing available is likely to be used/salvaged or rebuilt.

There are plenty of engines that go back 30+ years that can still be bought brand new. You're probably right about the "whole new drivetrain" not being able to be installed for under $6k though (depending on what you define as a whole drivetrain). But even a rebuilt engine can fairly easily last another 100k miles, depending on the vehicle and the quality of the rebuild.

Re: Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

#107

Post by bumby »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #102
bumby wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. By orders of magnitude. This is one of those HN comments that comes across as in a bubble or tone deaf. There’s a difference in the utility and investment value. Lots of people are in the position where they can’t afford a $50k EV repair to keep a car roadworthy or $35k for a new car. Many more can stomach a $5k ICE repair. It may be the difference between getting to work and not for someone who can’t aff…

Not everyone is in a position where they can just decide to buy a new car because it’s the prudent financial decision. Regardless of your position --- salvage the old car (puts some money in your pocket) and replace it (with a similar used one if necessary) for *less* than the cost of the repairs to the old one. Take your significant other to dinner with the money you just avoided wasting on your broken old heap. Why…

>salvage the old car (puts some money in your pocket) and replace it (with a similar used one if necessary) for less* than the cost of the repairs to the old one.*

I mean, sure, if that's an option. But there's always risk in swapping out one used car for another. If I can only swing $2.5k, I'd rather put it in the vehicle that I've had for 10 years and know the maintenance background on that roll the dice with, as you say, another "old heap."

It's not about being sentimental or irrational. If you're in the situation where you have to weigh these decisions, you tend to have limited options. It's not likely one of them is "trade in my old heap for something great and reliable." In these situations, taking money that could go to your car and instead go out to dinner would be the irrational choice.

>Why spend $6K on repairs if you can buy a similar working car for only $5K? Why make your net "position" $1K worse with flawed logic?

I don't think it's flawed. I can reduce the uncertainty on my utility a lot more with $6k on my own vehicle than I can on a $5k random car. When you get to that low of a price, most cars are going to have maintenance issues. There's nothing guaranteeing that I spend $5k on something else to only have drivetrain (or other major) issues six months down the road.

Re: Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

#108

Post by yazaddaruvala »

lm28469 wrote: post #105
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technology is just too distributed already for any of that to happen. Cost of charging an EV is bounded by the ability to add solar panels to your house (currently solar installations “pay for themselves” in 7 years in Seattle - not so sunny - high cost of labor location). The grid and “free market” have to be able to compete with that for cost. Batteries like solar panels are very cheap to transport. They are fl…

You'll need a shit load of solar panels to charge a 60kw+ EV regularly, and a shit ton of sun. A lot of people don't own/live in a house in Europe, let alone a house with enough land for a proper solar installation If it was that easy every single house would already be self sufficient in electricity, if you can half charge a 60kw EV battery every day you could easily run everything in your house I'm 100% pro solar b…

> A lot of people don't own/live in a house in Europe,

Ok fair enough, I shouldn't have said "on your house".

The point of my comment was the decentralization of energy production and storage. i.e. "Cost of charging an EV is bounded by the ability to add solar panels to [someone's] house [, relatively nearby]". e.g. please look into https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/community-solar-basics

For as many people in the city that cannot add solar panels, there is land owned by someone who is very happy to install solar (with your money - as an "investor"), generate an excess, and sell it to the grid. It seems very unlikely that "the invisible hand of the free market" will result in higher cost of electricity for individuals.

Additionally, from 2019: "Under the 25-year contract with developer 8minute Solar Energy, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power would pay less than 2 cents per kilowatt-hour — a number city officials and independent experts say would be the lowest price ever paid for solar power in the United States, and cheaper than the cost of electricity from a typical natural gas-fired power plant."

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-08-27/los-ang...

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