I was under the impression that EVs would be a better fit for exactly this kind of a purpose - they're easier on the consumables other than tires and more resilient to abuse. Is it the lack of 3rd party part availability that makes damage repair more expensive?
Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
131–140 of 834 posts
Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
#132Car rental companies regularly rotate through their fleet. I suspect these are cars that are supposed to go up for resell anyway and they are just not replacing them with equivalents. EVs are already not a good fit for rental cars - I don't think travelers on vacation want to figure deal with a charging plan. It's also really hard to sell even a luxury sedan as an upgrade when everyone wants an SUV. I'd be curious to…
> 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…
It baffles me... When I'm driving in an unfamiliar place, the last thing I want to be driving is a lumbering beast that is longer and wider than what I'm used to.
Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
#133Copying this over from the other thread - It makes sense... EV's pay for themselves over the long run, much longer than rental cars stick around for. They typically lease them for up to three years and then flip them for newer vehicles. EV's have lower TCO, but only if you keep it for a decade. With a higher sticker price and insurance, it makes sense the rental sector is having cold feet.
Anecdotally, the exception was Japan, where my wife and I rented a pristine ten year old Aqua direct from Toyota, but that sort of vertical integration seems to be rare here.
Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
#134I 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…
Rental agencies don't actually "rent specific cars" - they sell rentals at specific price points and fill those obligations with whatever they have laying around at the time. Which is why it's almost best to just rent the lowest, cheapest thing, because they'll give you whatever they have. This stops working when you need a particular aspect of whatever it is, especially if it's an aspect nobody really "cares" about…
... and sometimes they have no viable plan for having something close to what they've promised.
Not so long ago Ireserved a car, from a large national company, to go on a backpacking trip. I picked an early pickup window, so I would have time to drive a substantial distance, hike, and get to my desired stopping point before nightfall. I arrive at the rental place at 8a, and find that they're fully staffed but had only a a single large van available for rent. If I waited around until mid afternoon, I was told, _maybe_ something would show up. One of the staff told me that the prior week corporate had decided to open up that site even though there were no cars.
I'm surprised that Turo/Getaround/etc don't message more aggressively about "you'll actually get the car you want, when you want, which somehow most car rental companies think is unachievable."
Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
#135We are 5-10 years too early to be renting EVs. I have seen folks in Vermont who have rental EVs because those were the last on the lot. There is not enough infra, you need a bunch of apps, you need to understand how EVs work with weather and driving conditions, etc. This just hinders EV adoption because all of these people will never get an EV for the forseable future because they aren't early adopters but were forced into it. So yeah, it's kind of obvious why Hertz would dump these cars.
Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
#136The years of these vehicles (2021) is about the same as all the other vehicles they're selling (though there are some older ones which I suspect might be trade ins?). The only thing really of note is that they're not buying more of them, selling off cars that are 2 years (or about 30k miles) or so old is standard rental car policy. Sell it whilst they can recover much of the capital outlay.
This is exactly the point.
This is really a non-reup on Tesla as a rental fleet option.
It’s important to note that they have been renting half this fleet to Uber drivers at approximately 1/2 their consumer rental rate, according to TheVerge:
> Hertz is scaling back its EV ambitions because its Teslas keep getting damaged / Also, Uber drivers, who are using about half of Hertz’s Teslas, are damaging their cars more than Hertz expected.
And:
> repair costs are about double what the company spends on gas car fixes, Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr told Bloomberg.
Apparently they tried to pull more vehicles into the leisure category (aka consumer rentals not Uber driver rentals) to mitigate repair costs, but it didn’t work.
Also, the price cuts Tesla has been making are turning the company off on renewing:
> Price cuts have taken another toll on Hertz. “The MSRP [manufacturer suggested retail price] declines in EVs over the course of 2023, driven primarily by Tesla, have driven the fair market value of our EVs lower as compared to last year, such that a salvage creates a larger loss and, therefore, greater burden,” Scherr said.
Your analysis seems spot on.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/27/23934691/hertz-tesla-ube...
Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
#137I rented a Tesla from Hertz once in Houston and the whole experience was terrible.
Got to the counter and the agent first suggested that I take a gas car for $25/day. I was confused because that was so cheap, although the Tesla was already heavily discounted. Apparently, this was $25/day above what I had paid for the model 3 and it was for a compact economy car. I stuck with the Tesla.
The agent warned me that repairs were very expensive and I need to have insurance, which I had bought and my company also provided. Stuck with the Tesla.
I was told I need to return the car charged or I would be billed for "filling it up". I was confused why they couldn't charge at the airport and also explained that if I charge near my hotel it will likely not be 100% when I get to the airport. They couldn't say if that was ok.
I went outside to get the car and they had to go get it, a few people asked me what I was waiting for while I stood there. People getting gas cars were quickly served.
I got the car and was again told that I need to return the car charged, explained again that it won't be 100%. The agent said that 85% is fine. He asked me if I had driven a Tesla before, I had not, I expected he would show me the vehicle and provide some guidance. He simply handed me a QR code and wandered off.
I got in the car and it was only at 80% charge. I figured out how to drive it on the way out of the parking lot.
Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
#138I 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 only rent EVs, if possible. I've gotten by just fine. Plugshare app makes it easy to find working chargers.
Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
#139CNBC 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.
> with prices of new EVs coming down Prices of new Teslas coming down. This is incredibly specific to Hertz's bet on Teslas.
Are other brand EVs selling at high prices? Or are they sitting on lots at high prices?
Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
that's not how physics work
It can work if the other car took more of the damage than it would have compared to a collision with a "squishier" car. Would be interested to see a Cybertruck vs Cybertruck crash.
Cybertruck vs Cybertruck crash
Postulate two spherical cybertrucken in a vacuum suspended from the same point by wire under Earth gravity acceleration. After contact each vehicle moves away from the point of contact with the energy equivalent of 1/2 the sum of each vehicle's input kinetic energy.