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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

#91

Post by jqpabc123 »

agumonkey wrote: post #89
jqpabc123 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Porsche added gears for better efficiency. Only applicable at autobahn speeds --- which explains why Porsche is the only manufacturer thus far to see a need for this. I seriously doubt this will become typical --- simply due to cost reasons. Battery cooling I'm not sure though, it's still circulating right No, natural thermal convention in most cases.

Oh ok the liquid is passively cooled ? what the "heatsink" here ? the lower surface of the pack ?

the lower surface of the pack ?

Yes. In some cases, the battery pack also serves as a structural component.

https://electrek.co/2021/01/19/tesla-structural-battery-pack...

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

#92

Post by bumby »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #41
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> moving parts and fluids That's where most of the problems come from. A lot of mechanics are probably not ready to deal with the issues EVs face, though.

Most of the problems in any moving vehicle come from stuff close to the ground, tires, suspension, steering. This is true for everything from battery powered forklifts to semi trucks. Leaks start showing up in old age and the involved parts don't typically wear out unless you ignore leaks and habitually run some subsystem low on its requisite fluid or run it dry. There are some exceptions for piss poor engineering bu…

>Most of the problems in any moving vehicle come from stuff close to the ground

Is this based on your intuition or is there more to it? The DoT tracks automobile issues and it looks like the top ones are engine, engine cooling, other power train, air bags, and brakes. [1]

[1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/data

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

#93

Post by agumonkey »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #91
agumonkey wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh ok the liquid is passively cooled ? what the "heatsink" here ? the lower surface of the pack ?

the lower surface of the pack ? Yes. In some cases, the battery pack also serves as a structural component. https://electrek.co/2021/01/19/tesla-structural-battery-pack...

Yeah, I guess we all saw the structural battery annoucement.

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

#94

Post by bumby »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #81
alexfromapex wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 will be interesting to see if the cost of maintenance remains super low when these vehicles need battery replacements. Just like what happens to the cost of maintenance when fossil fuel vehicles need engine and transmission replacements. Anything is possible but there is no indication that a battery replacement will be a typical or expected repair during the normal lifetime of an EV. An 8 year, 100,000 mile warran…

Isn’t the real difference the relative cost of repair? The post above yours at the time of this comment cites that battery replacement costs more than that of a new vehicle. It would be hard to find that in an ICE car (assuming it’s not an exotic or rare model).

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

#95

Post by bumby »

CydeWeys wrote: post #66
RHSeeger wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Most EVs won't ever have their batteries replaced; it simply won't be necessary. This is a perennial concern about EVs that simply isn't a big deal in practice, and EVs have been around long enough to have data points here. Most people don't own and use cars for nearly long enough to fully wear out a battery pack on an EV that they've bought new.

>Most people don't own and use cars for nearly long enough to fully wear out a battery pack

The average car age in the US is over 12 years. I can see why it’s much less with the current EV owners as early adopters tend to…well, adopt the next technology earlier. But wouldn’t this also imply the environmental impacts are lessened by continual churn in manufacturing?

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

#96

Post by topkai22 »

RHSeeger wrote: post #60
topkai22 wrote: post #43

EVs have less maintenance costs than ICEs in general, but they have particularly less maintenance requirements during the for the lifespan rental companies keep their cars, often less then 30k miles. During that time you are really just looking at oil changes, fluids, and filters, which EVs don’t have or have less of. Later in a car’s lifecycle you’ll start seeing things like tires, brakes (better with regenerative!)…

> My older ICE’s most expensive maintenance issues in the last 2 years were the window regulators all failed I had a car a number of years back where the window controls failed. Fixing it would have been so expensive (more than I could afford at the time) that I drove the entire NY winter with some plastic material taped over the top half of the window (as far up as it was when it failed).

Yeah, I did that for the first one for a month because I couldn’t get in to a mechanic for weeks. After that, I searched “how to replace a window regulator in ” on YouTube and then figured out how to do it myself.

Turns out it was about 45 minutes for me to do it myself. Not only did I save money (about $500 for all of them), but I saved time- going to a mechanic always ended up being about 2h

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

#97

Post by timbit42 »

linuxftw wrote: post #53
gruez wrote: post #32

Is this really due to Hertz's electrification efforts, or just a broader trend (ie. lockdowns ending leading to more car rental use)? If we look at their competitor, we see that their profits rose even more (in percentage terms)[1]. Sure, being "50-60% cheaper to maintain" is nothing to sneeze at, but without analysis into how much that weighs against other factors (eg. depreciation, because electric cars are more ex…

I'm also thinking about depreciation. I suspect most people that want an electric car are going to buy new, especially considering the tax credits. Are they going to be able to successfully offload 3-year old, high-mileage rental electric cars?

My country has tax credits for used EVs and PHEVs. They're lower than for new vehicles but they exist.

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

#98

Post by jqpabc123 »

bumby wrote: post #94
jqpabc123 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be interesting to see if the cost of maintenance remains super low when these vehicles need battery replacements. Just like what happens to the cost of maintenance when fossil fuel vehicles need engine and transmission replacements. Anything is possible but there is no indication that a battery replacement will be a typical or expected repair during the normal lifetime of an EV. An 8 year, 100,000 mile warran…

Isn’t the real difference the relative cost of repair? The post above yours at the time of this comment cites that battery replacement costs more than that of a new vehicle. It would be hard to find that in an ICE car (assuming it’s not an exotic or rare model).

It would be hard to find that in an ICE car (assuming it’s not an exotic or rare model).

The cost to replace an ICE engine often exceeds the value of the car. In which case, the car is typically junked/sold for parts/salvaged.

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

#99

Post by bumby »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #98
bumby wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t the real difference the relative cost of repair? The post above yours at the time of this comment cites that battery replacement costs more than that of a new vehicle. It would be hard to find that in an ICE car (assuming it’s not an exotic or rare model).

It would be hard to find that in an ICE car (assuming it’s not an exotic or rare model). The cost to replace an ICE engine often exceeds the value of the car. In which case, the car is typically junked/sold for parts/salvaged.

Possibly the value of the car at the time of replacement, but not the value of the car when new. The other comment indicating it was 1.3x the cost of their EV when new.

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

#100

Post by jqpabc123 »

bumby wrote: post #99
jqpabc123 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be hard to find that in an ICE car (assuming it’s not an exotic or rare model). The cost to replace an ICE engine often exceeds the value of the car. In which case, the car is typically junked/sold for parts/salvaged.

Possibly the value of the car at the time of replacement, but not the value of the car when new. The other comment indicating it was 1.3x the cost of their EV when new.

Possibly the value of the car at the time of replacement, but not the value of the car when new.

Does it really matter?

Once the cost exceeds the replacement value of the car, only a fool would pay the money to do the work.

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