Live data from Hacker News

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

bloomberg.com

521–530 of 834 posts

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

#521
post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like rental cars are one of the worst places for the current generation of EVs. This was my recent experience. I was offered an EV car as a rental upgrade in a major city because the local rental place didn't have an EV charger. I figured what the hell because it was a relaxed holiday vacation. Turns out that was a hilariously bad idea. Ended up spending at least 5-6 hours of my week vacation trying to avoid t…

> ... trying to find chargers with the right plug, ones that aren't broken, ones that were available, downloading various apps, etc. Then when I did find a charger I sat in the parking lot waiting for it to juice up. These considerations are why I think we'll eventually move to battery swapping, when the market is mature enough to have standards for batteries. When there are as many battery swapping stations as there…

Swappable batteries are a huge fire hazard. They stopped doing that even for scooters. Too dangerous.

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

#522
post #471

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…

I feel like rental cars are one of the worst places for the current generation of EVs. This was my recent experience. I was offered an EV car as a rental upgrade in a major city because the local rental place didn't have an EV charger. I figured what the hell because it was a relaxed holiday vacation. Turns out that was a hilariously bad idea. Ended up spending at least 5-6 hours of my week vacation trying to avoid t…

Hopefully everyone converges on NACS and the weird charger issues go away. It would be a pain to have to go to specific gas stations for different car models if they had different nozzle sizes for different models for instance.

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

#523
Article says that the reason was huge mainly costs which I don’t understand. I thought EVs should have fundamentally much lower maintenance costs given dramatically reduced moving parts. Teslas need far less often oil changes and other services. Also, Tesla should theoretically lasts for million miles while gas vehicles rarely go beyond 2k. So, average TOC per mile should be very small for EVs. Where does math go wrong?

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

#524

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…

Every time I wanted to rest car, I wanted Tesla but I always ended up getting gas vehicle because price difference was usually more than 2X. Hertz simply couldn’t beat price proposition of Kia, Toyota etc.

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

#525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... trying to find chargers with the right plug, ones that aren't broken, ones that were available, downloading various apps, etc. Then when I did find a charger I sat in the parking lot waiting for it to juice up. These considerations are why I think we'll eventually move to battery swapping, when the market is mature enough to have standards for batteries. When there are as many battery swapping stations as there…

Swappable batteries are a huge fire hazard. They stopped doing that even for scooters. Too dangerous.

We’ve literally got people right now open air pouring liquid gasoline. It’s not uncommon to even get some on yourself.

My point is it can’t be much more of a hazard.

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

#526
post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like rental cars are one of the worst places for the current generation of EVs. This was my recent experience. I was offered an EV car as a rental upgrade in a major city because the local rental place didn't have an EV charger. I figured what the hell because it was a relaxed holiday vacation. Turns out that was a hilariously bad idea. Ended up spending at least 5-6 hours of my week vacation trying to avoid t…

> ... trying to find chargers with the right plug, ones that aren't broken, ones that were available, downloading various apps, etc. Then when I did find a charger I sat in the parking lot waiting for it to juice up. These considerations are why I think we'll eventually move to battery swapping, when the market is mature enough to have standards for batteries. When there are as many battery swapping stations as there…

With enough market penetration you just plug in to the nearest street light.

https://www.evstreetcharge.co.uk/

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

#527
post #467

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…

My experience renting a model 3 from hertz was both positive and negative. At first, it was hard since I've never owned a model 3. Even if you are a model 3 owner, you are probably used to using your phone as the key. They give you a keycard. anyway, I didn't know how to lock the doors. finally I figured out the lock symbol on the central display and locked the doors. But when I got out, they were unlocked again. The…

Also, Hertz models are watered down low range ones.

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

#528

Article says that the reason was huge mainly costs which I don’t understand. I thought EVs should have fundamentally much lower maintenance costs given dramatically reduced moving parts. Teslas need far less often oil changes and other services. Also, Tesla should theoretically lasts for million miles while gas vehicles rarely go beyond 2k. So, average TOC per mile should be very small for EVs. Where does math go wro…

Economies of scale abd pre existing spare part warehousing | JIT production.

IIRC correctly this was mainly Tesla EV's (?) which hard a high cost of replacement parts | long waiting times.

Some of the other EV models are better situated re: spares and legacy gas vehicles have decades of replacement part infrastructure already in place.

> Also, Tesla should theoretically lasts for million miles while gas vehicles rarely go beyond 2k.

Here in Australia all our family cars since the 1980s have had at least 600,000 km on the clock before being sold on (a couple hit one million km).

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

#529

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…

Someone told me if butterfly door gets jammed (and it would in rainy weather), it costs $20 to fix just one door! This person has sweared that he will never ever buy another Tesla again. l How did Tesla didn’t got this right?

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

#530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rented a Model 3 from Hertz last year and drove about 120 miles in it. Due to the super cold weather (like 12 degrees), plus the fact that I drove in the mountains in New England, and I used the heat (it was freezing and I had my child with me), I had the charge the car 1/2 way there, which made me stop in the middle of nowhere for 30 minutes while I waited at a super charger. Honestly this experience stunk. I thin…

You can stop half way and recharge? That is amazing!

Filling in a gas tank does not take 30 minutes.
Post reply on HN