Hertz is Selling 20,000 Electric Vehicles To Buy Gasoline Cars Instead (cnn.com) 217
quonset writes: Hertz rental has announced it's selling off one third of its 20,000 electric vehicle fleet and replacing them with gas powered vehicles. The reason? It's costing them too much to repair damaged EVs and their depreciation is hurting the bottom line.
"[C]ollision and damage repairs on an EV can often run about twice that associated with a comparable combustion engine vehicle," Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr said in a recent analyst call. And EV price declines in the new car market have pushed down the resale value of Hertz's used EV rental cars.
"[C]ollision and damage repairs on an EV can often run about twice that associated with a comparable combustion engine vehicle," Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr said in a recent analyst call. And EV price declines in the new car market have pushed down the resale value of Hertz's used EV rental cars.
The gaz is paid by the client (Score:2)
So, paying extra for the EV is not a good choice and customer won't paid extra for the location .
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Last car I rented was an EV from Hertz. I got it because it was absolutely the cheapest vehicle offered. It was a significant savings over a gas car.
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So, paying extra for the EV is not a good choice
I assume that you won't drive it like a complete moron if it's your own car.
"Whoa! This is so fast! Wheeee!"
Re:Let them use public transportation. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are way too many overpriced cars clogging up our roads and the air we breathe. Why don't more people simply use public transportation [nypost.com]?
Because residents don't want to ride around in vehicles that reek of urine.
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Re:Let them use public transportation. (Score:4)
EVs are more expensive to repair, because there is more tech within them.
Nope. Hertz has mostly Teslas, and Teslas are notorious for very expensive parts because only Tesla makes them (vertical integration, baby!). In addition, a lot of parts are not always immediately available.
Re:Let them use public transportation. (Score:5, Informative)
I'd imagine most of the repairs Hertz would be doing is bodywork from collisions. The big problem with Teslas, especially newer ones, is the "giga casting" and the structural battery pack.
The giga casting is a single die-cast aluminum part that is the under-frame of the entire vehicle, so if you get into a collision and that gets tweaked, the whole car is basically scrapped 'cause you can't easily straighten it or weld to it.
The structural battery pack is basically the floor of the vehicle. Remove the right bolts and disconnect the hoses and wires, and the battery - along with the carpet, center console, and seats - drops out the bottom of the vehicle. Again, if this gets tweaked the car is basically scrap.
Tesla pushed really hard to reduce manufacturing costs and ended up with a highly integrated product that's a nightmare to fix.
=Smidge=
Re:Let them use public transportation. (Score:5, Interesting)
The giga casting is a single die-cast aluminum part that is the under-frame of the entire vehicle, so if you get into a collision and that gets tweaked, the whole car is basically scrapped 'cause you can't easily straighten it or weld to it.
Hertz cars don't have gigacastings. Also, if a gigacasting is damaged, a regular car without it would a write-off anyway.
Remove the right bolts and disconnect the hoses and wires, and the battery - along with the carpet, center console, and seats - drops out the bottom of the vehicle.
Wrong. The battery is structural in the sense that it is rigid, and doesn't need heavy reinforcement like previous batteries. It does not bear a lot of load, and its removal certainly doesn't result in carpets and the console going out.
Re:Let them use public transportation. (Score:5, Informative)
> Hertz cars don't have gigacastings.
Yeah, they do. Model Y manufactured on or after MY2020 use it, which makes up a portion of Hertz's fleet.
> Also, if a gigacasting is damaged, a regular car without it would a write-off anyway.
Not necessarily. For example, take a hit to the rear corner behind the back wheels? A traditional stamped steel monocoque can be hammered, chopped, and welded back into shape. The rear gigacasting includes a cross member at the C pillars, the wheel wells (which is where all the rear suspension mounts) and another cross member behind the rear bumper. Hit the corner and it gets crunked; You're applying force to the corner of a rectangle. If it warps or cracks, that car will never drive straight again because the entire rear drivetrain and suspension mounting geometry has been fucked and there's no way to fix it without replacing the rear third of the car.
> Wrong. The battery is structural in the sense that it is rigid
Here's a fuckin' picture of it. [tesmanian.com] The top of the battery casing is the floor of the cabin. If you drop the battery pack, there's a hole in the car from door to door, firewall to firewall. The battery is structural in the sense that it is a major contributor to the structural integrity of the vehicle shell and without it you may as well be driving an overcooked noodle... assuming you had a place to sit, anyway.
=Smidge=
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Model Y manufactured on or after MY2020 use it, which makes up a portion of Hertz's fleet.
Nope. The first Model Y with gigacasting came out in 2022 from the Texas plant. Hertz does NOT have these cars. And no Model 3 has gigacastings, so far.
Not necessarily. For example, take a hit to the rear corner behind the back wheels?
If it's a light damage, gigacasting will be fine. The outer shell is still just decorative, and gigacasting damage will likely result in the damage to the wheels and suspension.
Here's a fuckin' picture of it. [tesmanian.com] The top of the battery casing is the floor of the cabin.
No, it's not the image of the battery. It's the image of the battery and its surroundings to illustrate that there isn't a lot of adidtional rigity. That metal plate? It's not the bat
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> The first Model Y with gigacasting came out in 2022 from the Texas plant.
"Tesla began using a custom OL 6100 CS Giga Press in late-2020 for the production of chassis parts for the Tesla Model Y"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
This article from January 2021 [teslarati.com] includes a video of it operating.
> If it's a light damage, gigacasting will be fine.
And if it's not, the car is totaled.
> No, it's not the image of the battery.
Okay, Here's a video of them removing the battery from the vehicle [youtube.com]. Notice how the
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The battery is structural in the sense that it is a major contributor to the structural integrity of the vehicle shell and without it you may as well be driving an overcooked noodle... assuming you had a place to sit, anyway.
BTW, most modern ICE cars don't have a frame and rely only on car body for rigidity.
Re: Let them use public transportation. (Score:2)
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EVs are more expensive to repair, because there is more tech within them.
I don't think so. I have an EV, and it was really expensive to repair some dents that didn't affect any of the internal tech.
EVs are expensive to repair because the car companies are charging what the market will bear. People who can afford EVs can also afford high repair bills, and there is no secondary market for parts.
Re:Let them use public transportation. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's nothing ignorant about it. You just have rose colored glasses and don't understand the use case of a rental car.
People rent a car for using it, not letting it sit and charge.
If I'm on a business trip, I'm going to get fired if I spend half the trip sitting there waiting for an EV to charge.
If I'm on a personal trip, I'm also not going to want to wait anywhere near a charging station for it to charge.
For instance, the last couple vehicle rentals I've done were:
* Turo car share - a Ram Rebel for 5 people to travel from LA to Joshua Tree on a Friday and back on a Sunday, with gear. No EV was capable of this.
* From Denver to a location 5 hours away in the AM, and returning the same evening.
* From a remote location (in the winter) 10 hours to Lincoln, NE, then Omaha, NE in the same day, and returning the following day.
* From Omaha to Denver area mountains for the weekend. Car was never near an EV charger the entire time (except at the source of the trip, in Omaha).
These are the "good parts" of modern car ownership, and EVs are unable to capitalize on them. That's why they suck for rentals: you've got to plan your entire trip (usually in a strange area to begin with) around vehicle maintenance.
EVs are really only suitable for commuter travel: from point A to point B, around town, returning to the same charging station every night, with less than 200 miles of travel per day. If Hertz is charging more for recharging than actual cost (which they probably were), it's not even worthwhile for same-day car rentals.
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* Turo car share - a Ram Rebel for 5 people to travel from LA to Joshua Tree on a Friday and back on a Sunday, with gear. No EV was capable of this.
I did the same trip with a friend, within one day in an EV. We didn't have lots of gear. A Model X or Rivian would have worked fine, though.
Charging is not an issue, there are multiple fast charging stations all around,
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"From Denver to a location 5 hours away in the AM, and returning the same evening."
If that was for work then it would be illegal to do non-stop in Europe. Too dangerous, drivers need breaks.
But if it was in Europe, you would probably have taken the train for much of that distance, and then got a taxi.
Still, 5 hour drive capable EVs are available.
Re:Let them use public transportation. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hertz is selling EVs because people are willing to (ignorantly IMHO) pay more for fuel than otherwise, or are afraid of charging.
By their very nature the large majority of people renting cars will not be charging them at home, so they are likely to be pretty much entirely reliant on public charging. The effectiveness of that varies greatly depending on location, which is problematic on it's own, and that is before even considering the added issue that many of these people are completely unfamiliar with charging routines to begin with.
Without home charging EVs are nowhere near as easy to deal with as gas cars. Hertz is just discovering this.
Re:Let them use public transportation. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep. When I rented an EV (which was from Hertz), even thought I was in urban Florida, I found that I was planning my vacation around charging stations. It was an unpleasant pain in the ass and I won't do it again.
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I don't think Hertz pays for repairs. Don't they just stick the customer with the bill?
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And yes I know Metro systems exist, but very few houses are within a short walk radius of a station.
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In other words you pay the price of having a broken society with car payments and time wasted in traffic. Instead of fixing society, everyone tries to insulate themselves from its problems as best they can.
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Because our MSA of 80,000 people only has drivers to handle vehicles with a seating capacity to carry 324 people, doesn't run on weekends, if the weather is too bad, or on holidays, and only has limited routes and stops. That's similar to most towns and cities in the United States that aren't large.
Re:Let them use public transportation. (Score:5, Informative)
You have to walk long distances to a stop, and then wait....ride, likely transfer a few times and then final stop and walk from there to destination.
This is bad enough where I live in that for a large part of the year, it is extremely hot and humid, and rainy....so you likely won't look or smell great at your destination.
And that is all just going somewhere, talk about a PITA trying to do you weekly grocery shopping via bus!?!?
And for the most part, no one wants to sit on a bus next to a smelly bum.
Re:Let them use public transportation. (Score:5, Insightful)
My place of work, my kids' school, and the grocery store are all closer to my house than the nearest bus stop.
Most people advocating public transit live in NYC or Europe and have no idea how poorly transit works in suburban sprawl.
Re:Let them use public transportation. (Score:4)
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Those same people likely think that everyone should move to NYC or Europe and we shouldn't have suburban sprawl. I see some value in that logic since, after all, living efficiently makes sense. However, when you look at the cost of living in urban environments, they are much more expensive than the suburbs. If they were more efficient, one would expect a lower overall cost, so I'm not sure the argument holds up.
They're way more efficient, but they're also more popular, and the competition to live there drives up prices.
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My place of work, my kids' school, and the grocery store are all closer to my house than the nearest bus stop.
My nearest bus stop is the local Walmart parking lot. As a consequence, Walmart shopping carts keep showing up in my neighborhood due to residents who I'm assuming don't own a car or have any better way of transporting their groceries.
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Humans naturally segregate themselves, though. If my partner and I have a right to live in the suburbs away from the ignorant hicks, they should also likewise be able to live out in BFE where they don't have to worry their little heads over two guys having sex in the next door apartment.
Re:Let them use public transportation. (Score:4)
In California, I live in a city of 175k, commute 25 miles to a city of 50k (not tiny towns). Takes me anywhere from 30-40 minutes driving each way.
Transit would take 2 to 2.5 hrs. And one of the bus lines only runs every hour, so if I miss it, you are looking at an even longer wait. I could ride my bike just as quickly to work (assuming there was a safe path to get there).
Re:Let them use public transportation. (Score:4, Informative)
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Getting public transportation will require:
Negotiating the sale of private residencies and small businesses
Demolishing the single families homes/businesses
Building new Towers to increase density of housing and increasing density of businesses.
Building new trains/ and or busses if we're out of money from the previous steps.
Oh and convincing everyone else that this is a good idea and figuring out how to pay for it.
If I can snap my
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Why don't more people simply use public transportation [nypost.com]?
I imagine that a lot of that depends on the city. When I used to fly to Boston for work, I took the subway and/or walked everywhere as the city itself is actually quite small and the subway is convenient to most locations. There is even a free shuttle from the airport to the subway and water taxi -- the latter is literally next to the, very nice, Hyatt Regency Boston Harbor hotel [hyatt.com]). The company I words for, restaurants and hotels were all within a few blocks of a subway stop. The company even had their
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There are way too many overpriced cars clogging up our roads and the air we breathe. Why don't more people simply use public transportation [nypost.com]?
Is there good and available public transportation options in most larger cities? The few I've visited, it's about fifty/fifty whether public options even exist for where you want to go. Out here in the middle of bumfuck flyover, you don't have your own car? You aren't going to work, you aren't getting groceries, you aren't doing anything. We would need a MASSIVE redesign of our entire transportation infrastructure to support "good" public transport in our area, and even so it would mean consolidating a lot
Re: Let them use public transportation. (Score:2)
Yeah Hertz should just rent out bus passes.
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Math is hard (Score:5, Informative)
Hertz rental has announced it's selling off one third of its 20,000 electric vehicle fleet
One third of 20,000 is about 6,667.
Re:Math is hard (Score:5, Funny)
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Well, since you can't divide a car in thirds, I figured I'd round to the nearest whole number. :-)
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Well, since you can't divide a car in thirds,
You can. Citation here [youtube.com].
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Correction noted!
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>Well, since you can't divide a car in thirds,
you clearly haven't seen some of the drivers around here . . .
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I've been holding off on purchasing an EV, but I'm expecting I can get a pretty good deal on that 1/3rd of a car.
And if they sell off another 1/3rd next year I can get in on that and I'll have 5/9ths of an EV!
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Car rental is (Score:2)
Give it a decade or three.
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For rental, it faces a particularly tricky challenge. The purchaser of the car does not pay for the fuel. That's a *huge* chunk of the potential cost savings to offset initial EV price issues.
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What if they treat it like gas rentals. Would you like to prepay 75KWH at only $0.25 per KWH and not have to worry about charging before you return? If you don't we will charge you $1.00/KWH that needs to be charged. Also, were charging you $25 for GPS rental because we literally can't turn it off on this car.
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The issue being that great, they gouged the customer for the discharge. But now they need that car out of service for either 6 or so hours if they want their own level 2 EVSE, or a half hour or so *but* they need an employee to babysit it at a supercharger. It may be worth their revenue in that case, but how many takers for EV rental would they expect if EV rental is a guaranteed extra gouge beyond the gas case?
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Wonder how much damage they deal with on the lot, or when an employee is moving it a bit (maybe some of them would drive a return out to a supercharger or something). Or if the customer is unable to actually pay for the damages, or somehow contests the damage.
Re:Car rental is (Score:4, Informative)
Well, a few years ago, Hertz went HEAVY in to the EV purchases for their rental fleets.
I remember seeing a video about it here [youtu.be].
It was interesting...and it hit in more detail about the expense to repair EV accidents as well as the extreme drops in resale values of recently purchased EVs....so they depreciated much more rapidly than anticipated.
I think there was less interest in customers for renting EVs too...?
I thought they were going to try to keep them on a bit longer, but I guess they're at the point where they're cutting losses now.
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They have a few EVs in their fleet to cater to the "EV-curious" And yeah the EV-repair ecosystem hasn't grown up yet
Kinda, but not really. I parsed through their regulatory disclosures a few months ago (i.e. well before this announcement) and the truth was significantly more nuanced than you suggest. It's neither true that most of their EVs were being rented to the "EV curious" nor that the EV repair ecosystem you're blaming was central to the issues they were seeing. I'd argue that the lessons you're taking away are largely in contradiction to what the facts actually were.
From what I recall:
1) Unsurprisingly, the mainte
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The world is not going to end because of global warming. What we can expect, at the worst, is a slow progression into things getting less hospitable over decades. This rate of change isn't likely to pose problems since at that rate cities will slowly migrate to higher ground as seas rise, or perhaps adapt to having canals and such run though the city like many slowly sinking and long established cities in Europe.
Along with sea level rise is shifting climate for crops, and farmers doing anything close to m
Re: Car rental is (Score:2)
>We could see some wild areas shift with global warming but that's something that's been happening for far longer than humans have existed on Earth.
Yeah, with conditions that may have been completely inhospitable for humanity and would have wiped us out had we existed way back when.
The Problem is Hertz (Score:5, Informative)
I park the Tesla in my driveway and drive my personal car.
YOU are the problem, Hertz!
Re:The Problem is Hertz (Score:5, Interesting)
This would be a point that mostly illustrates an EV problem. In a gas car, it's no big deal when you pick it up under gassed. So this likely happens all the time with rented gas cars, but it's just no huge deal.
As a homeowner I really love owning an EV. But if I had to immediately use an EV that someone else may or may not have charged, or couldn't plug it in at home, I wouldn't be so happy.
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Guess the counter would be "what's in it for Hertz to 'invest' in EVs or EVSE?" They don't feel compelled to put a gas tank in their parking lot, so what's in it for them to change that dynamic? With gas that is totally the customers problem, and it's harder to do that with EV.
When the purchaser of the vehicle and the person paying to charge/refuel it are different, then EV has a disadvantage to be selected by the purchaser.
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Hertz is the problem, but not as you describe it.
The problem is that they offer cheap rentals of expensive items while offering no-fault insurance at a rate that does not match the repair costs.
Want to hoon the hell out of a Tesla? Take it off-roading in the desert? Drag race? How about renting a mustang for a high-speed run to vegas and back over the weekend? Broken axle? Blown head? Bald tires? Battery drained all the way to zero? Need a tow truck? As the punch line to the old joke goes: "It's Mr.
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That car was broken if it was telling you 2 hours for 220 miles. Or maybe the charger was broken.
Either way, no excuse for Hertz.
Love EVs, hating renting them... (Score:5, Informative)
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Hertz bought the EVs but gave no thought to the system requirements to deliver a good customer experience. But then, delivering a good customer experience is not a priority for any of the big rental companies, so far as I can tell.
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Or they did and said it doesn't make business sense to put a bunch of chargers in our already small and crowded lots. This is probably why you also don't see gas pumps or repair stations at Hertz either.
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Not to mention it's Hertz. They have so many issues including getting their customers arrested because they report the car stolen despite it being under a valid rental contract.
They've even rented out cars that have been marked as stolen by failing to notify the police that the car has been recovered.
You're happily driving away and get boxed in and arrested and spend the next week in jail because the police thought you stole the car.
Depreciation is a big problem for them (Score:5, Informative)
With those pressures there's a good chance that Hertz could get stuck with a bunch of cars they can't sell when the time comes and you add to that the relatively high cost of maintenance for current generation EVS which was much larger than people expected and it's no surprise they are dumping their fleet.
I supposed to good news is that it's only 18,000 cars which isn't enough to drastically affect market prices for used vehicles. At least I don't think it is
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"...it's only a matter of time before the big luxury car companies like BMW and Mercedes and Lexus get serious about electric cars. "
Maybe. Or maybe not. GM and Honda both bailed on EVs recently. Ford is signaling the same. Toyota's out too. The mass production luxury brands will pursue it if their affluent target market dictates it... but it's not clear if that's the case.
Governments are making it existential for them - phase out by 202x or stop selling... but if they all just collectively opt out, then i
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In fairness, you're right. I accept your critique and I will try to reframe the claim. I didn't verify everything before posting, relying on my understanding too heavily.
Toyota scaled back sales estimates dramatically for EVs with their profits coming from gas hybrids.
. https://insideevs.com/news/694... [insideevs.com]
Honda and GM bailed on a joint venture to make affordable EVs, GM curtails EV plans
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/2... [cnbc.com].
https://www.automotivedive.com... [automotivedive.com]
Ford is postponing EV investment, and scaling back
They just kept going with Hybrids is all (Score:2)
Gov't won't force gas cars to stop though, there's too much money involved. EVs will just end up being a luxury product with a nice big gov't
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it's only a matter of time before the big luxury car companies like BMW and Mercedes and Lexus get serious about electric cars.
They are, and these cars are very [caranddriver.com] expensive [caranddriver.com].
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I'm also kinda of the the belief that Tesla has already sold a vehicle to the majority of people who both wanted an EV and are willing to deal with all the design idiosyncrasies inherent to Tesla's cars.
As for rentals, even though we've got an EV at home, if my partner and I went on vacation and needed to rent a vehicle, we'd absolutely opt for ICE. I don't want to spend what's supposed to be relaxation and fun time sitting at a charger, nor would I want to deal with having to make sure the hotel we're sta
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It's generally a bad idea to buy a used rental. It will have been mistreated and barely maintained.
EVs tend to hold up better than fossils in that regard, but I still wouldn't but one.
3 reasons (Score:3)
First, electric car prices have dropped significantly. That's good for new EV buyers, but bad for rental companies selling their used EVs at thousands less than expected.
Second, electric cars are more expensive to repair, largely due to deficiencies in the service and parts network.
Third, EV renters tend to get in more accidents. That's not really an EV problem, but EVs (mainly Teslas) tend to attract these types of drivers. Sort of like whenever I visit Las Vegas, I see groups of young people racing each other in rented sports cars on the highway.
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Second, electric cars are more expensive to repair, largely due to deficiencies in the service and parts network.
I don't think I've heard of a single scenario where the parts weren't available for EV repair. This is not a logistics problem, it's a design problem.
Every event I can think of, however, was where something -relatively trivial- happened and it cost tens of thousands of dollars to fix - everything from something which would've been a non-event with an ICE to a minor inconvenience.
Re:3 reasons (Score:5, Interesting)
> I don't think I've heard of a single scenario where the parts weren't available for EV repair. This is not a logistics problem, it's a design problem.
e.g. https://www.carscoops.com/2023... [carscoops.com]
Problems during scale up are intrinsic: building the service network early is too expensive, and there's competition for parts between repairs and growing manufacturing. But Tesla has really failed to ramp service capabilities and inventories of repair parts.
There's some fundamentally increased cost structure to repairing EVs. But I think a big part of what we're seeing is immature infrastructure, logistics, and too much of a monopoly on repair by manufacturers.
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It's not just Teslas though. Any scratch the to the battery and it has to be replaced, because the garage lacks the tools and knowledge to tell if it's just cosmetic, or to replace part of the case.
It's something that needs regulating. Modularity, tool availability, ease of repair. And a maximum time for part delivery.
Hertz why do I know that name (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah yes Hertz, the company who doesn't know where there cars are located and has customers arrested as a result. No shock they are inept at making money. https://www.npr.org/2022/12/06... [npr.org]
Economics (Score:5, Insightful)
I travel frequently for business and I rent in destinations that don't have good Taxi, Uber, or Lyft services.
When I rent a car, I rent from Avis or Hertz, lately mostly from Avis. Why? Hertz isn't the same as it was 10 years ago and went through bankruptcy during the pandemic. EVs introduce new challenges to the rental market, especially with having a vehicle ready to rent. It's not simply ensuring it's fueled, cleaned, and serviced. It can be days or weeks sometimes for a rental car actually to be rented. Even then an EV that was at 100% can lose charge and now you have to have the car attendants go and charge it up again. You don't have that issue with ICE-powered vehicles. They can sit for days or weeks and Hertz hasn't solved that issue.
Next is the typical wear and tear that affects all fleets, meaning accidents, and even if you can find a shop with technicians certified to do the work, it can take months to get them fixed [sfgate.com] and back into service. Replacement parts availability is also a problem because Tesla doesn't build spare parts ahead of time, so that's a component in repair delay too.
Rental car companies have been having a difficult time finding new cars to put into their fleets since the pandemic just like everybody else. They were part of the reason we saw clean, low-mile used-car prices hiked up to insane numbers. I guess somebody at Hertz said "hey, we can get Teslas" without thinking it through from their business model's perspective. I think EVs can be a choice for rental drivers but there's a lot of logistics that will need to be involved just beyond buying them. I don't think Hertz thought it through.
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Ever left a ICE vehicle standing for a few weeks? I did. Apparently the quality of the fuel here in South America isn't great. The mechanic who had to disassemble the engine showed me the parts that came of the engine from my car. Lots of them needed thorough cleaning and some elements actually needed replacement. After 3 days my car was ready for use again.
Sure, it is a n=1 experience. But it is mine unfortunately. It made me build up a healthy distrust towards ICE in this part of the world. EV might not b
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They should be just plugging the cars in when they are returned, and leaving them plugged in until they are rented again. Then they will always be at 100% when the customer collects them.
EVs make great rentals for many customers. The mileage they want to do is way less than the range of the car, and if the rental company is competent they don't need to worry about refuelling or charging it when they take it back.
EVs aren't useful as rentals (Score:3)
I rented one on a business trip, worst mistake ever. Ended up having to cancel a meeting that was beyond the vehicle's range, had to basically leave it at the hotel and uber around for lack of convenient charging options.
EV's are dumb! (Score:2)
You can't run a large agile fleet of hard use vehicles on electric because
It me (Score:2)
I rented one of these electric cars. It was very difficult, as my wife and I knew it would be. The closest working fast charger was 30 minutes from my home base in Huntsville AL, a relatively high tech town. Many chargers we tried were broken. It was a significant source of stress. Again, no surprise. We were able to manage it.
But while I was in line at Hertz they surprised another customer by telling him he had to take an EV. He was driving out into the wilds of Tennessee in a car that had a 200 mil
Hertz is overpricing the Teslas (Score:4, Interesting)
Teslas do have a learning curve (Score:2)
... and probably other EVs. Park, drive, reverse and neutral are different. Their proprietary display is different. Aggressive regenerative braking is different. Finding the superchargers takes some understanding, all easy to learn, but I do wonder if the customer agents are trained and if they know what questions to ask for a renter.
If a renter already knows the Tesla gig, all good, move on. Otherwise, I'd show a paper map of where the superchargers are. Walk to the car and show how to use the navigation t
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Well, not just Teslas, Hyundai has had some reports of a minor incident causing the car to be totaled with a $60k repair bill.
In one case, they ran over a muffler on the road, and when inspected they said the battery pack was damaged and Hyundai only approves replacing *the entire pack* rather than a subpack.
Of course, not exclusive to EVs, there was that story about a 2017 Corvette that had something similar cause a one inch crack and it totaled the car too.
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And let's not forget Rivian's $40,000 [autoblog.com] fender bender.
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It's worth pointing out that Rivian's crazy repair bill had nothing to do with any EV part. That was just what Rivian decided was reasonable to replace a rear quarter panel (and that repair would not be sanctioned). The truck needed extensive disassembly to do that.
The end of that story was that a dentless repair shop just undented the panel. They said it wasn't *easy* since it was still put together in a difficult way, but at least not $40k difficult.
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I found this write-up [theautopian.com] on why the Rivian was so expensive to fix.
Long story short, it's an aluminum "unipanel" that runs from back up to front windshield. Sure, you might be able to pull out a dent; but I'm not sure about the crashworthiness of aluminum that's been worked in such ways. Mild steel, OTOH, was heavier but AFAIK could be repaired and re-worked by any competent body shop without compromising overall safety.
If Rivian would do some crash tests using trucks with aluminum unipanels that have been
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Hyundai claimed the shop misquoted, but a different shop gave the exact same quote. There never was a clarification.
This was $60k canadian, btw, but still too high for a car that pretty much costs about the same.
It does seem something uniquely screwed up with Hyundai's lack of planning around battery repair in response to physical damage.
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Can you ask your uncle about any details on the new Switch due this year?
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Source: TFA
I know reading is hard for you
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https://arstechnica.com/cars/2... [arstechnica.com]
Look for yourself
https://www.hertzcarsales.com/... [hertzcarsales.com]
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Do they have any without LED headlights? I'd like to buy one but I don't want to be an asshole.
If you're driving an EV, people will assume you're an asshole, so you may as well drive like one.