Some People Who Rented a Tesla from Hertz Were Still Charged for Gas (thedrive.com) 195
"Last week, we reported on a customer who was charged $277 for gasoline his rented Tesla couldn't have possibly used," writes the automotive blog The Drive.
"And now, we've heard from other Hertz customers who say they've been charged even more." Hertz caught attention last week for how it handled a customer whom it had charged a "Skip the Pump" fee, which allows renters to pay a premium for Hertz to refill the tank for them. But of course, this customer's rented Tesla Model 3 didn't use gas — it draws power from a battery — and Hertz has a separate, flat fee for EV recharges. Nevertheless, the customer was charged $277.39 despite returning the car with the exact same charge they left with, and Hertz refused to refund it until after our story ran. It's no isolated incident either, as other customers have written in to inform us that it happened to them, too....
Evan Froehlich returned the rental at 21 percent charge, expecting to pay a flat $25 recharge fee. (It's ordinarily $35, but Hertz's loyalty program discounts it.) To Froehlich's surprise, he was hit with a $340.97 "Skip the Pump" fee, which can be applied after returning a car if it's not requested beforehand. He says Hertz's customer service was difficult to reach, and that it took making a ruckus on social media to get Hertz's attention. In the end, a Hertz representative was able to review the charge and have it reversed....
A March 2023 Facebook post documenting a similar case indicates this has been happening for more than a year.
After renting a Tesla Model 3, another customer even got a $475.19 "fuel charge," according to the article — in addition to a $25 charging fee: They also faced a $125.01 "rebill" for using the Supercharger network during their rental, which other Hertz customers have expressed surprise and frustration with. Charging costs can vary, but a 75-percent charge from a Supercharger will often cost in the region of just $15.
"And now, we've heard from other Hertz customers who say they've been charged even more." Hertz caught attention last week for how it handled a customer whom it had charged a "Skip the Pump" fee, which allows renters to pay a premium for Hertz to refill the tank for them. But of course, this customer's rented Tesla Model 3 didn't use gas — it draws power from a battery — and Hertz has a separate, flat fee for EV recharges. Nevertheless, the customer was charged $277.39 despite returning the car with the exact same charge they left with, and Hertz refused to refund it until after our story ran. It's no isolated incident either, as other customers have written in to inform us that it happened to them, too....
Evan Froehlich returned the rental at 21 percent charge, expecting to pay a flat $25 recharge fee. (It's ordinarily $35, but Hertz's loyalty program discounts it.) To Froehlich's surprise, he was hit with a $340.97 "Skip the Pump" fee, which can be applied after returning a car if it's not requested beforehand. He says Hertz's customer service was difficult to reach, and that it took making a ruckus on social media to get Hertz's attention. In the end, a Hertz representative was able to review the charge and have it reversed....
A March 2023 Facebook post documenting a similar case indicates this has been happening for more than a year.
After renting a Tesla Model 3, another customer even got a $475.19 "fuel charge," according to the article — in addition to a $25 charging fee: They also faced a $125.01 "rebill" for using the Supercharger network during their rental, which other Hertz customers have expressed surprise and frustration with. Charging costs can vary, but a 75-percent charge from a Supercharger will often cost in the region of just $15.
Hertz messed that whole program up so badly (Score:2)
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More likely they were sold on the "cheap operating costs" narrative that was really popular until a few years ago. The idea behind it was solid, EVs are pretty simple machines compared to ICEs. No gearbox, no complex oil, cooling and fuel flow systems, etc.
Reality of course ended up being the opposite, with cost of ownership being higher. In part because of EVs being made on IT gadget model rather than automotive model, meaning they're not repairable when something goes wrong. Early on manufacturers were pr
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Re:Hertz messed that whole program up so badly (Score:4, Insightful)
"A fairly new EV that was rapid charged to full every day"? Who the fuck does that without a good reason? BEV owners will normally charge where the car spends most its time parked, at home or the office, as that is way cheaper that rapid charging.
"battery fire risk"? This has only been an issue with factory manufacturing errors. There have been plenty of ICEVs that than been a fire risk over the years due to factory manufacturing errors.
BEVs being the 'new thing' is serving as an excuse for all sorts of commercial hi-jinks. Much of it will pass. The stuff that remains was due to happen to ICEVs anyway. In this respect I agree with your points about how to value old BEVs and their battery state and repairing them instead of ripping them out.
Indeed this is something I'm looking at with my mum's old first gen Nissan Leaf. It has a crap battery with short range but is otherwise low mileage and mint condition. We are not worried about it now as for an 85 year old driver it is a perfectly fine car for her needs. However when she stops driving we have to decided what to do with it. Given its mint condition I want to put a new battery in it and I'm tempted to DIY the job as the cells are getting pretty cheap these days. I would rather pay some to do it but we are still in that bullshit phase of the 'new thing' where replacement BEV batteries are completely unrelated to the actual cost. I guess it will simply come down to if that market has matured before she stops driving.
Looking back it reminds me of the early days of VCR where everyone was worried about the heads wearing out and costing more than a new VCR to replace. Within a generation or two the design and cost of VCR heads improved to the point no one gave it a second thought.
Re:Hertz messed that whole program up so badly (Score:4, Informative)
Based on "mum" and "mint", I'm guessing you're in the UK. In which case, Cleevely are well thought of for battery pack replacements. I've never used them myself, because nothing's gone wrong with my EVs, but they have a solid reputation.
Prices and details here for you:
https://www.cleevelyev.co.uk/b... [cleevelyev.co.uk]
They've done some videos on battery replacements so you can see what you'd need to do if you did it yourself. You're a braver man than me even to think of doing it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Ah, my bad for not guessing that right! Oh well, the Cleevely folks are friendly, you could always ping them for some advice and see if they'll give it
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Re:Hertz messed that whole program up so badly (Score:5, Insightful)
"A fairly new EV that was rapid charged to full every day"? Who the fuck does that without a good reason? BEV owners will normally charge where the car spends most its time parked, at home or the office, as that is way cheaper that rapid charging.
This story is about rental cars, not personally owned cars.
You're not going to get a charger installed at home for use by a rental car, and if you've rented a car it probably means you aren't at home in the first place. Rental cars will be charged on commercial chargers most of the time, or at hotels perhaps if the hotel happens to provide a charger.
Plus someone who rents a car isn't going to care about preserving battery health.
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This story is about rental cars, not personally owned cars.
Sure, but the point needs addressed, and the conversation drifted that way.
Re: Hertz messed that whole program up so badly (Score:2)
You shouldn't need an engine replacement after eight years though.
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You shouldn't need an engine replacement after eight years though.
For my use case, that ICS engine will have at least 320,000 miles (514,990 Km) on it after 8 years. An ICE car engine is going to be pretty tired at that point. How many ICE car engines have warranties that cover over a half million kilometers?
But make no mistake - an 8 year warranty does not mean the batteries fail the moment the warranty expires. People do this with solar panels too. I've seen 30 plus year old panels chugging along just fine, while people in here think that they fail as soon as the warra
Re: Hertz messed that whole program up so badly (Score:2)
I wonder what a battery pack would be like after 320,000 miles. My Honda with 290 is still going strong though.
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I would agree that rental vehicle batteries will need replace sooner than normal but it costs, even today, should not be that bad if they do things right. The new volume price of the cells in a Tesla model 3 is probably around $8K currently if you do a full replacement. For individual owners that is not going the be what you pay but for a large fleet operator it should be possible to get c
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Sorry, calling bullshit on "EVs being made on IT gadget model". All new cars, including all ICEVs, are "being made on IT gadget model". EVs just lead the curve, but the industry was heading there anyway.
It's first generation EV's (disregarding the early 1900's EVs)
Expecting them to be completely reduced to practice in the first stab is not realistic.
Also, we must separate the EV from Musk's cult of personality. Much of what he has done is detrimental to the EV platform.
"battery fire risk"? This has only been an issue with factory manufacturing errors. There have been plenty of ICEVs that than been a fire risk over the years due to factory manufacturing errors.
For all of the handwringing and gnashing of teeth and tearing of garments when an EV catches fire, there is the strange lack of concern that Internal Combustion vehicles catch fire and burn every day. A simple DDG image search will show
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Re:Hertz messed that whole program up so badly (Score:5, Informative)
Teslas are not aluminum monocoque. Thanks for playing.
Like all cars, they're made from a mix of metals [electrek.co]. I can only assume that you're thinking of the gigacastings, which are deep interior components, and if you're damaging one beyond usage, you've utterly obliterated your car already. They're not crush structures; the crush structures are mounted to them. They're also not the only main structural elements. The pillars for example are UHSS (ultra-high strength steel). But you're generally not going to be replacing or welding UHSS either. Once again, Tesla is not at all unique in this regard.
And technically you could fix mangled gigacastings, with body pulling. But body pulling isn't recommended on any monocoque car, only body-on-frame, as force transfer in monocoques is unpredictable.
As for "impinging on battery components", again, the battery is nestled between the gigacastings, making it even more internal. If you're penetrating that deep into the car, you're already talking about a writeoff.
People seem to have these weird images in their head of cars that are utterly mangled just being fixed for a practical price. That doesn't happen. Cars have outer panels and crush structures that are designed to be repaired / replaced. If you're penetrating deeper than that into primary structural members, the insurance is just going to write the car off.
Lastly: I have a Tesla. There is no "high cost of insurance". It's perfectly reasonably priced for a car of its price.
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It hurts everyone if the car is out, because in most insurance plans insurance has to pay for a replacement vehicle for the duration of the car being away from the owner.
Body damage in Tesla is notoriously bad, but really not quite as bad as reputation suggests. While yes the construction is quite dumb in terms of being crash repairable, you can still replace most of the panels, if at premium. The main problem is the battery. Even the small dings in otherwise uneventful small crash can and usually do lead t
Re:Hertz messed that whole program up so badly (Score:5, Informative)
Meanwhile the entire Model 3 rear drive unit and suspension can be removed with just four bolts and a couple connectors [ytimg.com], but you tell yourself whatever you want. And there were parts shortages in the first like 6-12 months as production ramped, but haven't been in a long time. The only thing you might have a shortage on is something new like the Cybertruck.
Batteries are not consumables. They're designed to last similar lifespans to engines + transmissions. They're warrantied for 8 years / 200k km, and you don't warranty something that you expect to die the day after warranty, or half the failures will be under the warranty period. And if you replaced an engine and a transmission, at a dealership, with a brand new one, that wouldn't exactly be cheap either. You get a better deal with third parties and salvage parts, and the same applies to EVs.
The main source of depreciation of EVs is simply how much better EVs keep getting and how quickly it's happening.
Insurance companies do not "insist that even a small ding in battery cover should lead to a total battery replacement". This is entirely made up. Nor are EV premiums "insane levels".
Just utter tripe.
Re: Hertz messed that whole program up so badly (Score:3)
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This slightly modded LLM copy pasta just keeps going.
"EVs don't have problems. Also EVs so don't have problems, that they're losing value because new EVs are just so much better than the old ones!"
P.S. If where ever you are, insurance companies haven't yet caught up to insurance premiums on EVs matching actual costs for lithium fire risks and collateral damage they cause, start budgeting for it. It's coming. The question isn't "if", it's "when".
Don't be the people who's premiums go up 50% a year for several
Re:Hertz messed that whole program up so badly (Score:4, Informative)
I understood you are talking about price of insurance and suggested to look up in local languages. I looked up for France:
* https://leocare.eu/fr/assuranc... [leocare.eu] Insurance comparison website, says it's down to 50% less expensive to insure an EV (Oct 2023) [actual numbers
* https://www.automobile-magazin... [automobile-magazine.fr] Says it's average 12% less expensive to insure an EV, down to 33% less expensive (Nov 2023)
* https://www.mma.fr/assurance-a... [www.mma.fr] MMA, one of the big insurers in France, says it gives direct 10% discount on EV as compared to equivalent ICE (as of now).
The situation could have changed over time, as this article from 2021 citing "les furets" says it's more expensive to insure an EV (in 2021), while the "les furets" study from 2023 quoted above is the one saying it's now 12% less expensive than ICE.
* https://www.challenges.fr/econ... [challenges.fr]
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>If where ever you are, insurance companies haven't yet caught up to insurance premiums on EVs matching actual costs for lithium fire risks and collateral damage they cause, start budgeting for it. It's coming. The question isn't "if", it's "when".
Yes, those would be old numbers. Most jurisdictions are catching up, with prices going up mainly in 2023 and 2024. Before that, Big EV lobby made the argument you see all over this thread. That this isn't an issue, and it doesn't need addressing, because EV fir
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Your average EV misinformation peddler vs a fireman really fucking tired of their bullshit:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts... [youtube.com]
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The big difference is that ICE's typically catch fire on the road while EV's are more likely to catch fire while charging, something that can cause collateral damage.
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Turns out actual experimental data disagrees with the ranting asshole on the internet;
https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]
https://link.springer.com/arti... [springer.com]
I have no idea where this "5,000 degrees" claim actually comes from. When they actually burn vehicles and take measurements, the peak temperatures of both ICEV and BEV vehicle fires are roughly the same.
Trying to find the source, the first article I found that actually provides citations is This seemingly random local news outlet PSA [wcnc.com] which makes the 5000F cl
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More likely they were sold on the "cheap operating costs" narrative that was really popular until a few years ago. The idea behind it was solid, EVs are pretty simple machines compared to ICEs. No gearbox, no complex oil, cooling and fuel flow systems, etc.
Reality of course ended up being the opposite, with cost of ownership being higher. In part because of EVs being made on IT gadget model rather than automotive model, meaning they're not repairable when something goes wrong.
Before we go too far into this, we must acknowledge that oil and oil based energy sources are not in infinite supply, And synthetic fuels are going to be nasty expensive. So I always challenge people to come up with their solutions to personal transportation.
There is nothing that would prevent an EV from being much more repairable than an ICE powered vehicle. Modularize everything, repairs are just replacing module C or what have you. Module goes back and is recycled or repaired.
And regular vehicles ca
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Mass market ICE's do not have parts where the single part will exceed the price of the entire vehicle as it ages. Mass market EVs do.
Which is why you have to attach rockets to goal posts and fire them off to get to a 30k engine in a low production performance car to reach parity with mass market EVs. Honestly I'm disappointed. You could've gone with supercar engines for even more zeroes at the end of the cost of the ICE engine.
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When a garage screwed up the belt replacement on my older car, it was an instant write off.
Because that wrong belt timing caused a head-crash (cylinder heads hit the valves) and totalled the engine.
Even a second hand engine did cost more then the entire value of that car.
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Are you trolling or really so stupid? When a garage screwed up the belt replacement on my older car, it was an instant write off. Because that wrong belt timing caused a head-crash (cylinder heads hit the valves) and totalled the engine. Even a second hand engine did cost more then the entire value of that car.
I dunno - I'd love to see a breakdown of the single point failure on all EVs that makes it cheaper to buy a new one.
Which is of course to say, I'm pretty skeptical of the claim.
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Mass market ICE's do not have parts where the single part will exceed the price of the entire vehicle as it ages. Mass market EVs do.
Which is why you have to attach rockets to goal posts and fire them off to get to a 30k engine in a low production performance car to reach parity with mass market EVs. Honestly I'm disappointed. You could've gone with supercar engines for even more zeroes at the end of the cost of the ICE engine.
So is it your premise then that every single EV produced has a single point of failure that renders the vehicle worthless?
My point, which you choose to grandiloquently ignore is that you claim this universal attribute of all EV's, yet fail to provide any proof other than us relying on your statement.
Prove it, homie, All EV's. Do you see the trap I set?
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Of course, the technology for fuel cells isn't here yet, but I'd love to see solar farms producing hydrogen as a form of energy storage when excess capacity exceeds grid need.
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In reality, fleet owners report that EVs cost half as much to maintain, onn average, as comparable ICE vehicles.
Similarly wrong, EV batteries are typically lasting a lot longer than the cars they are in, that's not a "consumable". Recurrent's survey of 15k EV owners reports a 1.5% lifetime battery failure rate, and most of those were covered by warranty, meaning that EV batteries aren't a "consumable", they're far more reliable than ICE engines and transmissions. And ICE vehicle owners don't treat the engin
Re:Hertz messed that whole program up so badly (Score:5, Insightful)
It is worse here in Finland. Until very recently, every car had to be shipped to the capital when something went wrong with it. No one else would touch them, because of how hostile to being repaired by anyone, and any replacements being done by independents Tesla cars are.
You really need to stop with the big lie of "oh it sucks here, but far away where you can't easily check it's great, honest!" It's the same shit but worse here because there's generally less wealth concentration, and you're not even a little bit honest.
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I should have clarified that it is true for Tesla everywhere, they just suck at repairs. But even in Finland there are other brands that do better. You have the Nissan Leaf, for example, which can be repaired anywhere that can repair Nissan fossil cars. The only exception is the battery and other parts of the HV system, but for them to get damaged the crash would need to be severe enough that a fossil would probably be written off anyway.
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Oh hey, it's a Leaf story.
I got another one from literally yesterday. A person I know bought one. A year and a couple of months old car. She got a great deal on it. Just over 20k EUR. From an official Nissan dealer.
Pricing in cheapest trim starts at just below 35k new.
There's a reason why value goes down over a third in a year on those things. And the only people who can afford this sort of value drop is corporations leasing them for a year and then letting Nissan eat the loss/write it off on taxes.
Though t
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Are cars really expensive in Finland or something? In the UK a new top of the range "Tekna" spec Leaf goes for 23k Euro equivalent. Lower spec are considerably cheaper, like an Accenta is about 17k. The list price is something stupid like 35k, but nobody pays that. All manufacturers do it, something to do with the lease and company car scheme stuff.
The Leaf 40 is a nice car. It's got a decent autopilot and is generally comfortable and quiet. The new 59 model is the best though, as it has a newer battery tha
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https://www.nissan.fi/ajoneuvo... [nissan.fi]
Starts at *34868 EUR.
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Sure, but does anyone actually pay that much? Like I said, in the UK you can walk into a dealer and get one for about 2/5ths off the list price without even haggling.
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I don't understand. You can haggle over the delivery costs, and maybe some line items.
40% off? What, you expect them to pay your taxes for you or something?
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As I said, the list price is just some made up number to fudge some other numbers. The price you actually pay has no relation to it, and neither does the cost to manufacture the car.
They often do things like "pre register" the car, which is basically where the dealer buys it and then sells it as technically "used" but in reality the customer is the first person to drive it further than just the delivery mileage. They lose a month or two off the warranty, the first service is due a month or two earlier, but
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The Leaf is absolute garbage if you live somewhere hot, though. The other day, my Chevy Bolt was sitting on the driveway automatically running the A/C compressor to cool the battery. A Leaf, however, will just let the battery cook. Nissan truly screwed the pooch on the lack of active battery thermal management.
For awhile, there was some local guy on Craigslist trying to unload one with a severely degraded battery for around $3k IIRC. He basically described it as being an air conditioned golf cart, range
Re:Hertz messed that whole program up so badly (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to assume those in charge knew the run up TSLA stock would have had, and the subsequent impact it would then face. They likely made money playing it both ways, before and after.
This has nothing to do with the EV program. It's just the latest in a long line of Hertz's embarrassingly incompetent customer service program. They've been doing stupid shit with gas vehicles for a decade already.
Criminal charge of obtaining money by deception? (Score:5, Insightful)
That might discourage such 'mistakes' quite fast... ;)
Re:Criminal charge of obtaining money by deception (Score:4, Funny)
No, they just had to drive the electricity for charging that Tesla where the driver needed it.
And they used an ICE truck.
Re:Criminal charge of obtaining money by deception (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no "criminal charge of obtaining money by deception." But I'm not your enemy - there ought to be such a criminal offense. But there's not.
Nah it's a crime in most states under state law rather than federal. Examples of "Theft by deception" as a state crime are New Jersey [justia.com], Georgia [justia.com], PA [state.pa.us], etc, etc. Hardly just American Samoa. I suggest that maybe you didn't google it?
UK law - see Wikipedia (Score:3)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
This isn't the first time I've heard this (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, hard to reach support and wrongly billed services, that is.
I think the above combination is not an accident but a business model. Hertz seems to be testing how blatantly they can do it and how high the the wrongly billed amount can be for people to just accept it and not bother make a stink.
In a country with a working judiciary and legislative, this behavior would grant the CEO straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect 200 ticket.
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Also, how is not filling it up charged at $340? Of course we have fees for refuelling in Europe, but legally they can't just make it some arbitrary fine, it has to be at least plausibly related to the cost to them.
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Also, how is not filling it up charged at $340? Of course we have fees for refuelling in Europe, but legally they can't just make it some arbitrary fine, it has to be at least plausibly related to the cost to them.
It's a service and a convenience. If you don't want to pay for it, you can fuel the car yourself before return. No charge.
For myself, I'd be quite happy to refuel it myself. Most times I've travelled, I'm driving the rental for a couple weeks so I have to refill it at certain points anyhow.
Is it stupid? of course.
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Yeah, I guess it's EU consumer protection rules. Additional charges have to be reasonable and in line with actual costs. If they want more money they can load it onto the base rental cost.
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In the US, for renting gasoline powered vehicles [with any of the majors like Hertz, Enterprise, Budget, Avis etc], there's 3 options.
you can pay ahead for an entire tank of gas, at a slightly discounted rate vs what it would cost at a gas station. You'd have to run it to near empty to be worthwhile.
You can fill up yourself just before you get to the airport/rental-counter.
if you choose neither, you get a punitive rate, but it's supposed to be an ungodly amount per gallon... not per tank.
What I'm trying to
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I don't want this to come over wrong but it's another example of how many Americans can't even imagine the kind of consumer friendly rules that the EU puts in place.
The general principle is that businesses are in a strong position compared to the consumer, so there is a big responsibility to be fair. As an example, airlines are not allowed to advertise a fake price that doesn't include taxes and other fees that the customer has no choice but to pay. They also have to make it extremely clear what baggage all
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I don't want this to come over wrong but it's another example of how many Americans can't even imagine the kind of consumer friendly rules that the EU puts in place.
Well, that's great if you like being controlled. And while consumer protection doesn't sound bad, we dumb old Americans are noticing that there is hella lot more than consumer protection.
I do enjoy the deep concern that our EU brethren have for their American cousins being completely abused at every turn. You'd think we'd show more gratitude.
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Yeah, I guess it's EU consumer protection rules. Additional charges have to be reasonable and in line with actual costs. If they want more money they can load it onto the base rental cost.
It's a different thing - European people like having every aspect of their life under government control. And that is okay if you like that sort of thing.
But really, if a service is too expensive for a person, they are free to not make use of it. I rent U-Hauls fairly often. They have a charge for refueling if I don't want to fill it. It isn't 340.00 but there is a premium attached to the refilling. So I just stop at the gas station a mile away, and fill it.
It really isn't even a problem. A person not wa
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Okay, but how much are they charging per kWh? Tesla has location based pricing, but the average is $0.25/kWh. Worst case, 100kWh battery and 10% loss, that's still less than $30 in energy.
And you would assume that if they rent out EVs they would have some cheaper AC charging on site. Just too convenient not too.
For comparison, when I rent from Nissan in Japan, they don't charge anything on return for filling up, unlike their fossil cars which have a surcharge.
Re:This isn't the first time I've heard this (Score:5, Insightful)
I have never been able to understand how in the USA, a supposed democracy, the voting population has never bothered to get their consumer protection laws sorted out? The reason most democratic countries have laws to protect consumers is because politicians worked out supporting such laws is a vote winner.
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I have never been able to understand how in the USA, a supposed democracy, the voting population has never bothered to get their consumer protection laws sorted out?
Because the US is actually a representative republic with a massive un-elected bureaucracy, when do get representatives who support such measures, the result invariably winds up being yet-another-federal-agency that is more concerned with increasing its own power and budget rather than fulfilling the originally intended purpose. These agencies eventually devolve into little more than federally-funded jobs programs, as indicated by the fact that most of the job growth in the US over the last few years has be
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But American voters don't, they seem perfectly happy to be fooled by some of the most blatant lairs around, take Trump as example
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Yes, this is very much a USA thing with their weak consumer protection laws.
Nope sorry but Hertz is incompetent the world over. In fact it's not a USA thing because most of the time you're not talking to someone in the USA when you contact customer support. You'll get the same Indian call centre regardless of where you're from.
I've had bad experiences with them in France, Netherlands, Germany and Australia too. Actually I had good experiences in the USA, and that despite writing off their car (not my fault).
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I think that the number of cases that are egregious may be lower and the rate of egregiousness, if that makes sense, is lower in Europe... but that shit happens here, too.
In the 90s there was a show on German tv that was all about companies being incompetent (one hopes) or outright criminal in their dealings with consumers. Deutsche Telekom and Deutsche Post had their own recurring segments...
I meant most western countries by my definition. Not one of us is taking "will of the people" seriously in any real
Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember, this is the same company that had paying customers arrested because they couldn't keep their books straight, and decided that any cars they couldn't keep track of must be stolen.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/15... [cnn.com]
"Washington, DC CNN â"
47 Hertz customers have filed a lawsuit against the rental company that describes horror stories after they were allegedly falsely reported as having stolen its rental cars, and in some cases even jailed.
The plaintiffs allege being blind-sided by arrests â" sometimes at gunpoint â" and in some cases spending time in jail. Some plaintiffs describe losing their jobs in the fallout from the arrests.
The lawsuit alleges systematic flaws in Hertzâ(TM)s reporting of thefts, including not recording rental extensions, falsely claiming customers havenâ(TM)t paid, failing to track its own vehicle inventory and failing to correct false reports to police. The lawsuit was filed in Delaware Superior Court and comes on the heels of a court ruling that these cases could be pursued outside bankruptcy court. (Hertz had filed for bankruptcy in May 2020 before emerging in July 2021.) "
I think the real surprise is that Hertz is still in business, and people are still renting cars from them.
Met hertz EV renter at super charger (Score:5, Interesting)
Poor bastard pulls in next to me, gets out, then taps on my window.
They didn't show him how to charge it. It isn't hard once you know but it isn't obvious the first time, either.
They also apparently are locked to charge to 80%? Or they didn't show him how to change max charge. Unclear. I wasn't going to get out to check for him.
They could have spent 30 seconds explaining some basics to him but instead he drove off saying how shit Tesla are. Tesla should have required some training basics before letting their cars out like that. Very bad experience for no reason.
Re:Met hertz EV renter at super charger (Score:4, Interesting)
I rented a Polestar 2 from Hertz in Scotland because it was literally the cheapest car I could get. It was actually fine*.
They didn't show him how to charge it. It isn't hard once you know but it isn't obvious the first time, either.
At pickup the agent asked me if I've used EVs before and skipped everything when I said yes (rented a plug-in Volvo before).
They also apparently are locked to charge to 80%? Or they didn't show him how to change max charge. Unclear. I wasn't going to get out to check for him.
Don't recall if this was the case, mine was charged to 82% so might've been capped at 90%. It's in the settings that the previous person could've changed. Anyway it's a reasonable default to minimize battery degradation.
They could have spent 30 seconds explaining some basics to him but instead he drove off saying how shit Tesla are. Tesla should have required some training basics before letting their cars out like that. Very bad experience for no reason.
Well Tesla are shit. But yeah they should've explained it, or maybe they did offer it and the customer rejected it. Could very well depend on the local branch though.
* Until the return. The car was checked over by a third party at return that does it for all rental companies and the guy said that my car was fine, but I got a notification for damage assessment by email later. Turns out he documented some pre-existing damage but linked it to my rental. It took a while but actual Hertz staff helped clear that up.
As for "gas" chargers, the agreement was to return at the same level. I assume if I brought it back empty, they would've charged me at silly kWh rates just like they do for gas.
Re: (Score:2)
I have a Hertz Polestar 2 right now. They tossed me the keys and left me to my own devices. Took me several minutes to realise the reason there was no start button in the car was that the car was always automatically on and I could just drive off.
A simple card with the car to cover the basics would go a long way.
Also yeah mine was delivered to my house with the charge cap set to 90%, but it's not locked. It just defaults to this value. Bigger issue with the Polestar is people who don't log out. When I fired
Re:Met hertz EV renter at super charger (Score:4, Informative)
They didn't show him how to charge it. It isn't hard once you know but it isn't obvious the first time, either.
That is an issue. One of my colleagues just got given a Tesla, a general assumption that you can figure out the car yourself. Teslas are the worst for this. This was the guy's transgressions:
- Couldn't figure out how to charge the car. I showed him.
- Couldn't figure out how to stop charging the car - he ended up calling Hertz. It's not difficult but you do need to know that you have to swipe your pass again to stop the charge.
- Couldn't figure out how to lock the car. Seriously Tesla's stupid RFID card has no exterior marking on the car showing how to use it. He ended up using Youtube to check a video of how to lock his car.
- Kept flashing me as we were going down the highway. Turns out he was trying to figure out how to get the automatic wipers to turn off since they were running during dry weather.
To be fair, this is a general new car issue. I rented a DS7 and when we were at the Hotel I had to sit down and go through the manual to figure out how the heck to turn the passenger airbag on (I actually complained to Hertz that they rented me a car that was unsafe by default and that users shouldn't need to figure out how to turn safety features back on their cars after the previous renter does something).
They also apparently are locked to charge to 80%?
Virtually all EVs default to this. But they aren't locked as far as I can see. At least none of the Hertz rentals I've had (including the current one) are locked.
Re: (Score:2)
On the 80% thing on rentals: I really don't know but I've seen other non-EV people complain about this before. I'm guessing the car is manually set to 80% to keep the same people from sitting at the cable for 2+ hours to get the extra 20% but I never rented one and these were all EV noobs so not sure what's going on there.
Tesla really needs to provide a how-to cheat sheet card to new owners and these rentals. They're giving a lot of people a really bad first impression for no reason. When I got mine I di
Why do these people complain? (Score:2, Informative)
OMG they rented a car and they got charged a surcharge for gasoline they didn't use. BFD.
At least they weren're reported as car thieves, had cops draw guns on them, got arrested on the site of their road in front of their children, and had to bail out of jail hours later (either missing their flight or a vacation). Fortunately that wouldn't happen in the first world. In America. Certainly not with Hertz.
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/06... [npr.org]
Standard operating procedure (Score:2, Troll)
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A masterclass in balls-ups (Score:3)
The scale of how badly Hertz managed to fuck up this transition to EVs is approaching Boeing levels. As this article demonstrates, it's not about something inherent to EVs, it's about Hertz's inability to execute competently. They managed both to make this a massively complicated process for themselves and customers despite the basics not being that complicated, and fail at simple aspects of the basics like ensuring their IT systems had the right flags added.
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This has zero to do with the EV transition. Hertz has infamously incompetent customer service. They've been doing this shit for 10+ years already. The only thing "news" here is which line items they fucked up this time.
I was once charged for snow chains in a country where it snows so little you don't even need winter tires, from a Hertz dealership who don't have them even if you did for some strange reason want some.
That said luckily it was a local hire, so rather than dealing with their ludicrously bad cal
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with you -- I wasn't sufficiently clear. By "this transition to EVs", I simply meant "Hertz's move from an all ICE fleet to a part-EV fleet". They fuck everything up and why should this be any different. Clearly, their fuck ups extend way beyond just customer service and experience, though. The back office looks like it's just as much of a mess
Hertz systems considered shite (Score:2)
My take-away (Score:4, Informative)
Hertz is worse than U-Haul. That's pretty damn impressive.
The second time I rented, I went to Enterprise and told the clerk about my first experience with U-Haul. I was told, "We get a lot of clients from them".
Why would their employees give a shit? (Score:3)
I checked; It was on empty. (Score:3)
They were NOT charged for gas (Score:2)
And as one that has rented tesla from Hertz 2x and Avis 1x, they BOTH warn you to bring it back with 2/3 or more full OR you will be charged ( most ppl that have been charged were below 50% ).
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...but, $277? Does it really cost that much to charge up an EV? That's half again what it costs to fill my tow vehicle with extended tank, even at today's prices.
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The cost for fully charging a Model Y at a public DCFC would be about a tenth of that.
Even if you sought out the most expensive place in the continental US - which appears to be a mind-blowing $1.33/Kwh - fully charging a 81KWH pack would still be under half that even with session fees and other bullshit.
=Smidge=
Local margin booster (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Local margin booster (Score:2)
They want to see a receipt because they want to see if it was filled up nearby and relatively recently. You can drive and burn a gallon or two off of a topped-off tank and the needle will still be on full.
Of course, not having the receipt readily handy is also extra profit for them too.
I'm banned (Score:5, Funny)
I've been banned from Hertz since 1989. Hooray!
(Why, you ask? Because no one paid my corporate credit card bill which Hertz billed after I left the company, and Hertz never notified me. I only found out when i tried to rent in 1991.)
How else can they recoup the bad Tesla investment? (Score:2)
Mislabeled option (Score:2)
I rented a Polestar from Hertz last year and was offered the option to prepay and return empty. Of course that is based on charge in the battery and not fuel in the tank. If I returned it with less than I'm started I'm could have been billed for charging the vehicle back up.
It's a convenience many people like. Not having to worry about stopping to fill a gas tank, or in the case of an EV waiting to charge. You don't want to risk missing your plane while waiting to charge an EV.
I declined because I knew wha
Companies cheat customers until called on it (Score:3)
Film at eleven.
It's the idle fees (Score:2)
There's a simple explanation how these huge fees are being racked up.
Superchargers will charge a $1/minute idle fee when a car has completed charging. Combine this with limited or slow charging spots at a Hertz facility, workers are probably taking low-charge vehicles to a nearby Supercharger to get them topped off quickly. This still takes some time, so instead of hanging around for a half hour or more, they go back to Hertz.
Then they don't pick up the car until hours later, or the next day.
So that $15-20
That Hertz (Score:2)
Re:I'm confused... (Score:5, Informative)
Separate pricing for charging EVs and refilling gasoline. He got charged by the wrong pricing bracket for some reason, and then Hertz doubled down on the incorrect charge until PR shitstorm came.
Re: (Score:2)
Reading the story linked in the OP is truly just not done any more, is it?
Story clearly outlines that Hertz has a specific line item flat fee for charging Tesla to full, which is 35 normally, and 25 with his discount.
From the story:
When Lee made his reservation—the receipts for which were seen and confirmed by The Drive—he paid for the "Skip the Pump and Save Time" option, which allows customers to bring their rental cars back without refilling the gas tank. So even if he was driving a car that
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By your logic McDonald's would be fine to charge you for a five-course meal from a three-star Michelin restaurant because it's all food anyway.
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A simple mistake was made based on ignorance and the mistake was made right and the ignorance corrected. Can we all just please move on with life now?
This particular article wasn't about "the simple mistake". This article was about the fact that the "simple mistake" was repeated over and over again.
And, I'd call a completely impossible fee of five hundred dollars more than "a simple mistake".
Also...
They were charged for recharging at a time when Hertz did not have a SKU in the system for EV charging.
You missed the fact that the first customer dicussed returned the car with the exact same charge that it was rented with?
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How can a fill up to Zero amount to the charges reported? It was and is a scam.
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Doesn't matter. The option only applies to ICE vehicles. Hertz cannot legally charge for a service that doesn't apply to the vehicle and would have lost in court if it got that far.
I assume you're the same AC who posted the Hertz propaganda in the OP.
The driver in this scenario returned the Tesla with the same level of charge as he received it. If this were an ICE vehicle and he received and returned it with the same amount of fuel, he would not have been charged so it makes no sense at all that he would be
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know if this started out as a data entry mistake but it's absolutely false that Hertz refunded the fees "without question or hesitation". On the contrary, the CS reps were telling customers to pound sand [thedrive.com] when it was brought to their attention.
It took negative publicity for Hertz to do the right thing.
Hertz in fact has a very shoddy reputation in the rental car business. They are also known for having such a difficult time keeping track of their fleet that they'll report cars they've lost track of ad