A plug in is cheaper than a gas tank of fuel, and a rental car company is insulated from that fact until they get handed a car on empty.
Hertz charges for an "empty" battery. I highly doubt they're losing money on recharges.
Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
91–100 of 834 posts
Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
I imagine if you're operating on the scale of Hertz it's cheaper to self-insure. Anecdotally it seems like Teslas have higher damage in a collision (eg more expensive and fragile electronics in the bumper) and are more expensive to repair. The last body shop I went to even had a separate hourly rate for Teslas
This is pretty common among more expensive brands from what I understand. When I had work done on my Tesla it was the first time I had encounter it, but the couple of repair shops I was referred to by Tesla also had individual hourly rates for BMW, Porsche, Land Rover, etc.
A lot of that is those vehicles require special tools that are expensive. Nearly every car needs a 10mm socket to work on it, so every mechanic has a few and in turn they are cheap. Only VW and BMW need a triple square socket, so they are not common and more expensive, and you only work on a few cars that need that so you have to charge more. Mercedes requires all mechanics have a 4 wheel dynamiter and some repairs require the car be on that for calibration making those repairs more expensive. (Note that I haven't been in the business for 15 years so the above is probably out of date)
Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
#93This is not really surprising due to the business model Hertz was going after. They expect their used vehicles to have better resale values than what they currently have... which is a bunch of Tesla's bought at more or less the peak of pricing and now to be sold when prices have come down to sanity. They rode the market and lost.
Also they got a LOT of EV's, I give them props for doing so... but rental cars should be a little more diverse of fleets. I realize it's easier to maintain a few types of vehicles, but that's not the business they are in. Additionally, Tesla is not yet the type of company that can readily support fleet purchasers. It'll be a while before they are, so until then you're looking at a lot of pain.
Its really no different than buying Apple for business use in 2010 (give or take). Lots of companies were starting to do it, but at that time there were only 4 Apple stores in the US that even had a "business team". Apple was not setup to handle it and still, to this day, are very very slow to roll out business centric features and functionality.
Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
#94Apparently the big problem is repair costs. They should buy Cybertrucks, those things are indestructible. One got in a head-on collision recently and didn't even get dented, no one in either car was hurt
Edit: this is a joke, by the way
Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
#95Car 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…
My own car is a compact, and I would rent a SUV or other large vehicle for that exact reason. Sometimes, rarely, I need a big car, I don't have one, that's what rental is for.
When travelling, I tend to prefer public transport, except when in a group or when I need to carry a lot of stuff, and again, for that I need a big car.
And not an EV. EVs are ideal when you can charge at home. When renting a car, it usually means I don't have a "home", and planning for charging points in a place you are not familiar with is a hassle. And EVs are not ideal for road trips where each leg typically exceeds the maximum range.
So yeah, I understand why rentals would be dominated by large gas cars and trucks.
Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
#96A plug in is cheaper than a gas tank of fuel, and a rental car company is insulated from that fact until they get handed a car on empty.
Being able to "charge onsite" is a minor advantage, if any at all. They get to charge for cars brought back not full, and either they're active enough that they have on-site refueling (delivered by a gas truck) or they're inactive enough that sending the new guy over to the gas station isn't a major issue.
Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
#97Car 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…
SUVs are popular because of the death of car culture.
Car enthusiasts still like small sedans with handling and looks and etc. But the average person just wants the biggest, most comfortable car they can get for the money.
I had a millenial co-worker ask me why selling a 2-door car was even legal these days.
Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
#98Apparently the big problem is repair costs. They should buy Cybertrucks, those things are indestructible. One got in a head-on collision recently and didn't even get dented, no one in either car was hurt Edit: this is a joke, by the way
that's not how physics work
Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
#99I tried renting an EV from Hertz a couple months ago. I reserved a Model Y. They waited until the morning of to call me and tell me they didn't have one for me. Said they might have a model 3 (but not the model Y I reserved) 3-4 hours passed my reserved pickup time. I waited an hour or two, then found a model y on Turo that got the job done. Then Hertz tried to charged me for cancelling... they did fix that but I was…
Rental agencies don't actually "rent specific cars" - they sell rentals at specific price points and fill those obligations with whatever they have laying around at the time. Which is why it's almost best to just rent the lowest, cheapest thing, because they'll give you whatever they have. This stops working when you need a particular aspect of whatever it is, especially if it's an aspect nobody really "cares" about…
My wife and I went to Kauai and specifically rented a Jeep so we could take it on some moderate trails to see waterfalls and whatnot. We were somewhat dismayed when we arrived and found we had been "upgraded" to a BMW X5 and there were no actual off-road vehicles available from the company. It was a nice car, for sure, but not what we had wanted.
Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars
#100So Hertz is continuing their narrative to blame EV's for their own executive mistakes. If you dig deeper you'll find that: - most of their EV's were rented to Uber drivers. - All Uber rentals, gas and EV, have higher milage, higher maintenance costs and lower resale values. In other words this state of affairs was highly predictable. That it wasn't taken into account is the fault of Hertz executives. They're trying t…
>blame EV's
Wait, what?
Hertz was basically bankrupt, and suddenly was a "good business" when it bought a bunch of Teslas. It was always a stretch.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38052601/hertz-buying-100...