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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

#241

Post by njarboe »

asveikau wrote: post #69
legitster wrote: post #65

Car 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…

The emission loophole is part of the reason but the main one, I believe, is that the US vehicle manufacturers have used a boat load of advertising and other methods to convince people, over the last 60 years, to buy trucks and then SUVs due to the 25% "Chicken Tax"[1] that was imposed on truck imports starting in 1964. Trucks were some much more profitable because they did not need to compete with imports. Ford recently has stopped selling all cars but the Mustang in the US.

This tax remains in effect to this day with that trade war a distant memory.

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

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

#242

Post by adfm »

bombcar wrote: post #85
smitty1110 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bloomberg has the same story and cites high repair costs as one of the reasons, so you may be onto something.

That coupled with customer complaints and annoyance could definitely sour the company on it.

Adrian Cockcroft wrote about his Hertz experiences back in April.

Update: Bad experiences renting electric cars from Hertz https://adrianco.medium.com/experiences-renting-electric-car...

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

#244

Post by dang »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #27

https://archive.is/xGVbP

Also https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/hertz-...

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/11/business/hertz-tesla-selling/...

https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/11/hertz-sell-evs-tesla-fleet...

(from other threads we've merged hither)

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

#245

Post by kelnos »

Regardless of the repair issues they cite, I wouldn't ever rent an EV.

Last summer I was attending a wedding in slightly-upstate New York. I flew into Newark airport, and went to rent a car that I'd pre-reserved. They tried to give me an EV. I had no idea what the charging situation would be where I was going, so I declined and asked for and ICE car instead. Good thing, as I didn't see any kind of charging infra at my hotel or at the wedding venue, or anywhere nearby.

Renting an EV would mean planning ahead of time and becoming familiar with the charging infra in whatever place I'm visiting. That seems not worth the effort or potential stress.

On top of that, I've read of plenty of situations where people go to rent an EV, and find that it's barely charged, and then have to waste an hour or more finding a place to charge it before going about their day. The rep at the rental place will just shrug and say they didn't have time to charge it fully after it was returned.

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

#246

Post by Tommstein »

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.…

Same here. A few years ago I rented a local Tesla on Turo for a day trip that was several hours away, but since I just needed to drop it off "whenever" (by the next morning), I could find somewhere to charge it at my leisure. Then this fall I flew somewhere and was asked by the car rental company whether I wanted an electric car instead of the one I had reserved. With a return flight to catch under possibly tight time constraints and no idea where I would charge the car or how long it would take (both right before return and just driving around; I was going a long distance to a pretty rural area), I declined that sweet sweet offer in favor of a car I could fill up anywhere in under five minutes. If car rental companies actually want to rent electric cars, they would be wise to say you don't have to worry about recharging them, they'll do it themselves either at no extra cost or at whatever the cost would be if you did it yourself (not the "we'll refuel it for you at the low low price of $15/gallon!" that they offer for gas cars).

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

#247

Post by akira2501 »

gumby wrote: post #208
CharlieDigital wrote: post #183

Not sure about the economics for the rental companies, but for a consumer, there are practical reasons why electric aren't quite as attractive. When you rent a car, more than likely you will be in unfamiliar territory. So it seems that it just adds to the stress of travel and yet another thing you have to pay attention to. Will my hotel have charging spots? Will I be able to charge at the client site I'm visiting? Ho…

FWIW I rented an electric volvo in november and its built in map (displayed by default even if you weren't using its nav system, which I did not) displayed charger sites. As it happened my hotel had a charger in the parking garage and the valets plugged my car in for me. One anecdote does not data make, and I didn't know at the time of reservation that my hotel would be adequately equipped.

Which city were you in?

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

#248

Post by kelnos »

asveikau wrote: post #69
legitster wrote: post #65

Car 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…

> I don't want an SUV. I get angry at rental companies when they try to give me one.

Same, but I think the GP is correct to say that most people do want an SUV, in the US, at least.

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

#249

Post by kelnos »

legitster wrote: post #65

Car 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…

> 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.

Agreed. Travel already involves enough work of having to figure out how to operate in a different location. Gas stations are everywhere and the time to fill is predictable across all ICE cars; I don't want to have to plan EV charging into my trip as well.

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

#250

Post by akira2501 »

legitster wrote: post #64
zug_zug wrote: post #59

"due to higher expenses due to collision damage" I wonder if that means insurance, frequency of collisions, average damage in a collision, or cost to repair disparity

This is Tesla that we are talking about. They are renowned for poor customer support, let alone fleet support. Rental cars get dinged up all of the time and you can get a new fender on a Malibu in under a day.

> and you can get a new fender on a Malibu in under a day.

Is that because Chevy makes the more available or because they're much easier to find at a part reseller?

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