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Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

bloomberg.com

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Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#121

Post by ado__dev »

I have had an EV since 2018, love it to death, but would absolutley never rent one. The biggest pain point with EVs imo is charging infrastructure. My personal car, I can charge at home so it becomes a non-issue.

But if I'm traveling to a new city that I'm not super familiar with, I do not have any desire to plot out where charging stations are, is the hotel going to have charging, is it going to be operational, etc. Too much headache and cost of public chargers on top of premium cost to rent an EV just doesn't make much sense.

Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#122

Post by ballenf »

> it would sell about 20,000 electric vehicles, including Teslas, from its U.S. fleet due to higher expenses related to collision and damage, and will opt for gas-powered vehicles.

The repair costs and turnaround time seems like Tesla's achilles heal right now. Insurance costs on a Tesla were the primary deciding factor in me putting off a Tesla purchase. From my preferred insurer, the premium was 50-60% higher than for a similarly priced ICE vehicle. And Rivian is way higher than Tesla to insure.

I really think EV makers need to prioritize repairability in their next push. It's more important to me than extra range. It will both lower initial costs and reduce EV depreciation. An out-of-warranty EV has to be very cheap for it to make sense.

Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#123

Post by JumpCrisscross »

rich_sasha wrote: post #113
stilldavid wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife and I went to Kauai and specifically rented a Jeep so we could take it on some moderate trails to see waterfalls and whatnot. We were somewhat dismayed when we arrived and found we had been "upgraded" to a BMW X5 and there were no actual off-road vehicles available from the company. It was a nice car, for sure, but not what we had wanted.

IME rental car agreements prohibit taking them "off road" which might include tracks. No idea about US (EDIT not Japan) specifically.

> Japan

Nitpick: unless I just popped into an alternate timeline, Kauai is American [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kauai

Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#124

Post by fuhcghxd »

camhart wrote: post #75

I tried renting an EV from Hertz a couple months ago. I reserved a Model Y. They waited until the morning of to call me and tell me they didn't have one for me. Said they might have a model 3 (but not the model Y I reserved) 3-4 hours passed my reserved pickup time. I waited an hour or two, then found a model y on Turo that got the job done. Then Hertz tried to charged me for cancelling... they did fix that but I was…

Hertz is bottom of the barrel. I pay a little extra to avoid them.

Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#125

Post by legitster »

jetrink wrote: post #109

I would think that car rentals would be one of the slowest areas for electric adoption. You're immediately limited to people only intending to drive short distances, which is less common for car rentals than day-to-day car ownership. Of those, many will be people far from home where they're not familiar with the charging infrastructure. Maybe they can stay at a hotel with chargers, but what if there are only a couple…

On the other hand though, rental agencies can normally get away with offering a broad set of options and price points for any niche.

https://www.hertz.com/rentacar/vehicleguide/index.jsp?target...

So it's moreso that they can't find a profitable price point to justify keeping it in the general car pool.

Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#126

Post by aweijrawiej »

ado__dev wrote: post #121

I have had an EV since 2018, love it to death, but would absolutley never rent one. The biggest pain point with EVs imo is charging infrastructure. My personal car, I can charge at home so it becomes a non-issue. But if I'm traveling to a new city that I'm not super familiar with, I do not have any desire to plot out where charging stations are, is the hotel going to have charging, is it going to be operational, etc.…

I charge my Tesla at home and I love it. But I visited family over christmas and driving around in their Rivian I was reminded how absolutely shit non-tesla charging still is. I'm not at all surprised EV sales are dropping when charging is as awful as it is.

Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#127

Post by belltaco »

throw7 wrote: post #119
houseatrielah wrote: post #114

CNBC did a better job than this low-density article. Why Hertz’s Bet On Tesla Isn’t Paying Off In The U.S. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfbkvUXTV_I "pricing troubles, skyrocketing repair costs and low resale value"... They turn their fleet over every 2-years or so, so resale value is important, and with prices of new EVs coming down, the resale value will be significantly lower than a new model.

But I was told EV's would be much more reliable and cheaper to repair?

Hertz says conventional maintenance is lower cost on EVs compared to similar ICE cars.

Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#128

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

ado__dev wrote: post #121

I have had an EV since 2018, love it to death, but would absolutley never rent one. The biggest pain point with EVs imo is charging infrastructure. My personal car, I can charge at home so it becomes a non-issue. But if I'm traveling to a new city that I'm not super familiar with, I do not have any desire to plot out where charging stations are, is the hotel going to have charging, is it going to be operational, etc.…

> is the hotel going to have charging, is it going to be operational, etc. Too much headache

Remember when hotel wi-fi was like that?

I expect this situation to change (slowly) over time.

Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#129

Post by kube-system »

bombcar wrote: post #115
asveikau wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also really hard to sell even a luxury sedan as an upgrade when everyone wants an SUV I don't want an SUV. I get angry at rental companies when they try to give me one. I increasingly don't recognize this country I grew up in with the car culture. In the early 90s nobody wanted SUVs either. The truck and SUV craze was apparently sparked by an emissions regulatory loophole, where larger vehicles were excempt be…

The term "SUV" has changed tremendously, when I was younger an SUV was a Suburban or maybe the smaller Bronco - barely would apply to a Jeep. Modern "compact" or "crossover" SUVs are just hatchback cars. Some are quite small, they're just named differently to make people buy them. The real loser has been minivans, station wagons, and actual hatchbacks. There's no reason to buy a sedan when on the same footprint you c…

> There's no reason to buy a sedan when on the same footprint you can get an SUV with more room.

This is a popular opinion, but there are still advantages to a sedan. e.g. driving dynamics, weight and aerodynamics and therefore fuel economy, price, etc.

It's just that many buyers don't prioritize these things.

Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#130

Post by etimberg »

ballenf wrote: post #122

> it would sell about 20,000 electric vehicles, including Teslas, from its U.S. fleet due to higher expenses related to collision and damage, and will opt for gas-powered vehicles. The repair costs and turnaround time seems like Tesla's achilles heal right now. Insurance costs on a Tesla were the primary deciding factor in me putting off a Tesla purchase. From my preferred insurer, the premium was 50-60% higher than…

Unfortunately for consumers repairability would harm efforts to treat cars like subscriptions so I doubt EV manufacturers care
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