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Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

thecooldown.com

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Re: Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

#71

Post by astura »

lm28469 wrote: post #59
cs702 wrote: post #2

According to the OP, Hertz has found that EVs are "between 50-60% cheaper to maintain than gasoline-powered cars." That's a huge difference. It means that the cost of using an ICE vehicle over time is 2x greater. If the figure is anywhere near accurate, ICE vehicles are toast.

> ICE vehicles are toast Let's wait, my dad traded his 20 years old car for a new model a few years ago, he paid 8k euros for a brand new ICE car, he does under 10k km per year now. The cheapest EV I can find is 22k euros here, and it's a piece of shit that barely does highway speed, which he could not afford anyways. Companies will make public charger more and more expensive until it reaches the price of filling a g…

What car is only €8k new? I don't think there's anything in that price range in the US market..

Re: Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

#72

Post by wintogreen74 »

alexfromapex wrote: post #49
jakewins wrote: post #28

I’m 100% in the EV train, but this article is weird. It says they ordered a ton of EVs, and that EVs have lower cost of maintenance, awesome - but it provides no evidence that EV maintenance costs actually contributed to the improvements here? The statements they have from Hertz say “we made $$$$ from demand coming back to rent cars” and “we spent that $$$$ on buying EVs”. The quotes and facts in the article are not…

I think a large majority of these EV analyses suffer from short-term biases as well. It will be interesting to see if the cost of maintenance remains super low when these vehicles need battery replacements.

It's unlikely a company like Hertz would ever own the vehicle that long. They're selling these cars way before a battery replacement, unless it's still in the warranty range. I don't know the resale on an EV from a rental fleet. Do we have any data on this yet?

Re: Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

#73

Post by yazaddaruvala »

almost_usual wrote: post #31
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best part about exponential curves: By the time the battery needs to be replaced batteries will be 90% cheaper.

This seems very optimistic.

That is my preferred outlook yes :)

But it is backed by the data. Check out my other responses.

If you’re either “realistic” or pessimistic, what about the data and trends we already have doesn’t convince you of a giant cost reduction over the decade to produce batteries?

Re: Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

#74

Post by wintogreen74 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #16
almost_usual wrote: post #9

Not many details on what components failed or how maintenance is better. I don’t doubt the claims but this feels like greenwashing PR.

It's widely known that maintenance costs way less on EVs than on gas-powered cars. There are plenty of data points everywhere to confirm this. EVs are much simpler with way fewer moving parts and fluids to worry about.

It is NOT clear this is true for the first 10,20 or 50K miles though, and that's about as long as a rental company owns the car, so attributing financial gains from EV vs. ICE seems spurious at best.

Re: Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

#75

Post by jqpabc123 »

RHSeeger wrote: post #52
CydeWeys wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's widely known that maintenance costs way less on EVs than on gas-powered cars. There are plenty of data points everywhere to confirm this. EVs are much simpler with way fewer moving parts and fluids to worry about.

I'd be interested in seeing how this applies to consumers/owners. From what I've seen, the items that tend to cost more in maintenance for EVs are things like the battery; ones that last a long-ish time but are extremely expensive to fix/replace when they go. Given that rental companies (and people that lease) likely won't have the cars long enough to reach that point, the overall maintenance cost is lower for them.…

Does this hold true when you start to consider people that own/use the cars for 10+ years?

According to Tesla, their battery packs typically exhibit less than 10% degradation after 150K miles.

Re: Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

#76

Post by DangitBobby »

lostlogin wrote: post #47
metadat wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to put the entire ICE maintenance list here, but there are a lot more wear items. Brakes, belts, coolant, oil, transmission service, annual emissions inspections. Radiator or other leaks.. pretty annoying. The maintenance schedule is definitely more involved. Edit: lostlogin, sure.. that's a, uhm, certain strategy. No doubt, Japanese cars can usually take an impressive amount of abuse. And yeah, a harsh…

It can be, but our 2 corollas have had an oil change each in 10 years, one got a set of tyres and one needed brake pads and rotor skimming. It’s a terrible way to treat cars, but they go fine.

I've unfortunately taken a car to its limits by neglecting to change the oil (depression). They go fine and then they fail quite fast and permanently. Amazing how long it lasted without any noticeable effects, though!

Most people change their oil way, way too often. Places like Jiffy Lube will tell you every 3 months or 3000 miles because they make more money that way, but if you look at your manual it's more likely to say 6k miles with crude and have no time based recommendation. Synthetic oil you can go something like 10k IIRC.

Re: Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

#77

Post by yazaddaruvala »

endisneigh wrote: post #70
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the trend, backed by all the data and the expectation of the industry. Why do you think otherwise? https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/management/e... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_curve_effects If you’re familiar with Moores Law, that is an example of an experience curve.

I’m familiar with the trend, but it’s unlikely the price of electric batteries would decrease an additional 90% in 20 years

“unlikely” based on what?

Your narrative is counter to the industry’s expectations of itself. Your narrative is counter to the research and science already showcased in labs.

So I just want to understand your perspective better. What sources are you using to justify “unlikely”, or are you using intuition?

Keep in mind exponential curves are very hard for humans to grasp and even harder for humans to believe, but the super majority of the time those curves hold for many decades.

Re: Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

#78

Post by gruez »

CydeWeys wrote: post #65
gruez wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most typical rental car use case I can think of is you traveling to a random city and needing transportation, either for a business trip or on vacation. In either case, I'm driving in an unfamiliar city, to a bunch of random places. The last thing I want in that scenario is having to worry about where I can charge my car. Finding parking is already enough hassle enough.

I'm not worried about it. There's apps and websites that show you all the charging locations. You have to figure out much more complicated stuff than that while traveling. I'd love to get an EV rental but I'm not willing to pay extra for it and luck hasn't smiled my way yet. I also don't use Hertz, mostly Avis, and I'm guessing they don't have nearly as many EVs.

>There's apps and websites that show you all the charging locations

and what if the conference center/tourist attraction you're going to doesn't have a charging station? What if they do, but they're broken/occupied? I agree it's not an insurmountable task, it's just something I don't want to have to worry about while I'm dealing with the other "much more complicated stuff".

Re: Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

#79

Post by oxfordmale »

metadat wrote: post #4
cs702 wrote: post #2

According to the OP, Hertz has found that EVs are "between 50-60% cheaper to maintain than gasoline-powered cars." That's a huge difference. It means that the cost of using an ICE vehicle over time is 2x greater. If the figure is anywhere near accurate, ICE vehicles are toast.

Strange claim, because Hertz's fleets are comprised of new and almost brand new vehicles, which usually only require oil changes. Then they sell them off after accumulating 10,000-25,000 miles, before any real maintenance is required. 20,000 miles is what, 4-6 oil changes?

I wonder if the second hand price of EVs makes a difference. Until recently you could pretty much drive a Tesla for free for the first two years, as the second hand value hardly deprecated.

Re: Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profits exploded

#80

Post by CydeWeys »

gruez wrote: post #78
CydeWeys wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not worried about it. There's apps and websites that show you all the charging locations. You have to figure out much more complicated stuff than that while traveling. I'd love to get an EV rental but I'm not willing to pay extra for it and luck hasn't smiled my way yet. I also don't use Hertz, mostly Avis, and I'm guessing they don't have nearly as many EVs.

>There's apps and websites that show you all the charging locations and what if the conference center/tourist attraction you're going to doesn't have a charging station? What if they do, but they're broken/occupied? I agree it's not an insurmountable task, it's just something I don't want to have to worry about while I'm dealing with the other "much more complicated stuff".

Apparently you don't need to return EVs charged, so it would've been less hassle for me on my most recent rental. I had a car for 4 days in Las Vegas and drove around 250 miles total. I had to go out of my way when dropping it off for the flight to find a non-gouging gas station and stop there, whereas with an EV, I wouldn't have had to do that at all. Would've saved me $40 in gas too (which was 20% of the rental cost).
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