Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars • Hacker News Board

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

#451

Post by SkyPuncher » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 2:35 AM UTC

lend000 wrote: post #275

s0rce wrote: post #137

I 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 repair…

Strongly recommend Turo. I tried it recently after a similarly terrible experience with Hertz. Never going to turn back to traditional car rental companies -- it's so much easier, saves you significant time, and is (sometimes) cheaper.

Turo is great when you have trip flexibility.

If a host cancels or is terrible, you can quickly be in a terrible position.

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

#452

Post by neltnerb » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 2:37 AM UTC

Underphil wrote: post #393

dougmwne wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because the Model 3 incorporates quite a bit of aluminum in the body. This is good for weight savings, but more difficult to work with. The root cause is that batteries are too heavy so other components must be made lighter.

Do you know why it's harder to work with? My untrained brain would have assumed it was easier, what with it being more malleable.

To an extent, for banging into shapes, but it's challenging to add more material to it if needed. None of the options are especially good compared to welding, though that's just my opinion (compared to fasteners - size, brazing - high temperature but maybe).

Other materials have their own issues, but if you cast large pieces of anything you also make it super expensive to replace parts that can't be repaired onsite.

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

#453

Post by dcchambers » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 2:38 AM UTC

Im bullish on EVs but I feel like rental cars are one of the worst places for the current generation of EVs.

EVs are best for the types of driving we do on a day-to-day basis. Short commutes in areas we know well. Charge at home over night and 95% of the year you never worry about charging.

Renting a car means I'm usually either driving long distances or im somewhere new and I don't know about the local charging infrastructure. Can I charge at the hotel? What about at Disney World or the San Diego Zoo or wherever else I'm driving on vacation? What if there are no super chargers nearby? Etc...

Maybe in a couple decades of battery/energy tech advancements where we can charge faster or swap batteries easier EVs for rentals will make more sense. Until then it's just extra stress you don't want when traveling. I know that's not why Hertz is dropping Tesla (the article sites high repair costs) but it's just my personal thought on rental EVs.

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

#454

Post by dilyevsky » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 2:41 AM UTC

s0rce wrote: post #137

I 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 repair…

Thats just regular hertz experience for ya. Would you be surprised to know that company went through bankruptcy not too long ago?

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

#455

Post by fy20 » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 2:41 AM UTC

Zanni wrote: post #216

s0rce wrote: post #137

I 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 repair…

I had a similar process the first time I rented a Tesla from Hertz (about a year ago). Counter-person was surly, gave me the key for the wrong vehicle (!) and gave me incorrect instructions on how to use the key. Hertz did send out an email in advance on how to use a Model 3/Y, including key entry (incorrect, unfortunately), door operation and charging. Recently I rented one again, and the process was much improved,…

This honestly sounds like a failure from Tesla just making stuff work in non-standard ways.

Where I am in Europe there are a few car sharing apps that have electric cars, and all that I've rented (VW, Peugeot, Nissan, Hyundai) just work the same as ICE cars. You press the button on the key fob and it unlocks, you press Start and the car starts.

Charging was not terribly complicated either. Scan the RFID tag on the keys against the charger, plug in the cable and wait for it to show it's charging.

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

#456

Post by repiret » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 2:43 AM UTC

red-iron-pine wrote: post #178

repiret wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time I needed to rent a car, I seriously considered renting an EV. I find them more pleasant to drive, my usage could have been accomplished on a single charge, and Hertz doesn’t penalize you for returning a discharged EV like they do for returning a gas car on an empty tank, so it would have saved me having to find a gas station near the airport on my way out of town. But they wanted more than twice as much…

> and Hertz doesn’t penalize you for returning a discharged EV like they do for returning a gas car on an empty tank bollocks. they absolutely do, and I've been dinged on it before. last time I rent an EV

That apparently is case in some times and places. But when I was renting a car at YVR in December 2022, their web site said they did not.

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

#457

Post by hehhehaha » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 2:44 AM UTC

NickM wrote: post #267

1970-01-01 wrote: post #78

This is due to high body damage repair costs and has nothing to do with repairing an electric powertrain: >Let me share a bit more context on the damage equation. First, while conventional maintenance on electric vehicles remained lower relative to comparable ICE vehicles in Q3, higher collision and damage repairs on EVs continue to weigh on our results and negatively impacted EBITDA. For context, collision and damag…

where a car is salvaged, we must crystallize at once any difference between our carrying value and the market value of that car Hang on though, this part has nothing to do with repair costs. This just sounds like an accounting issue, right? If anything I would expect this to benefit Hertz since they could write off the higher loss in their taxes immediately, instead of waiting until future years to write the value of…

This obviously decreases their margins since the insurance premiums go up. And if they self insure as the other guy claims, then the repair costs come straight out of their wallet.

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

#458

Post by dilyevsky » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 2:46 AM UTC

throwaway15858 wrote: post #345

fsckboy wrote: post #322

I've been seeing a lot of headlines the last month about demand for EVs falling. Of course, it could just be a PR campaign by Big Fossil, I'm not in a position to judge that. I had another idea about it and I'm wondering what other people think: by buying Twitter/X, Musk has waded deeply into the culture war, and we see on HN plenty of people who just can't stand to see his name. It seems a sizable community, could t…

There are a lot of reasons, many of them bureaucratic. If you own your own home in an urban locale with a garage and drive more than 12k miles a year an EV is probably perfect for you. If you live in a condo good luck dealing with the condo board to install a charger. If you park on the street tough luck charging. If you don't drive enough gas is cheaper. If you drive too much you will spend too much time charging. T…

I’m on a condo board. In fact I am the condo board atm. I would love to install infra to have ev charging available in our garage. Unfortunately ev load balancing hardware is prohibitively expensive and installers are borderline incompetent. I was quoted like 20k per spot and they couldn’t say if it would work or i would need to pull new service line in and how to do it. So we dont have ev charging.

Someone ought to disrupt this…

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

#459

Post by sidewndr46 » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 2:47 AM UTC

dilyevsky wrote: post #454

s0rce wrote: post #137

I 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 repair…

Thats just regular hertz experience for ya. Would you be surprised to know that company went through bankruptcy not too long ago?

The same company that falsified police reports and had people held in jail for weeks. I would expect nothing less from them

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

#460

Post by mbreese » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 2:47 AM UTC

dcchambers wrote: post #453

Im bullish on EVs but I feel like rental cars are one of the worst places for the current generation of EVs. EVs are best for the types of driving we do on a day-to-day basis. Short commutes in areas we know well. Charge at home over night and 95% of the year you never worry about charging. Renting a car means I'm usually either driving long distances or im somewhere new and I don't know about the local charging infr…

> or im somewhere new and I don't know about the local charging infrastructure.

When I’m traveling for work and need a car, it’s usually for smaller quick trips where I wouldn’t even need to refill a tank of gas. For these types of trips, a single charge on an EV makes sense. But otherwise, I agree with you. EV rental doesn’t make much sense to me for long trips or vacation travel where you’ll be driving a lot in a place you don’t know.