From the article: Selling them before they get damaged, I suppose? Maybe some other rental car company would do better if they came in next year? Buying at lower prices would mean they have less...
From the article:
Hertz, which has made a big push into electric vehicles in recent years, has decided it’s time to cut back. The company will sell off a third of its electric fleet, totaling roughly 20,000 vehicles, and use the money they bring to purchase more gasoline powered vehicles.
Electric vehicles have been hurting Hertz’s financials, executives have said, because, despite costing less to maintain, they have higher damage-repair costs and, also, higher depreciation.
“[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 MSRP declines in EVs over the course of 2023, driven primarily by Tesla, have driven the fair market value of our EVs lower as compared to last year, such that a salvage creates a larger loss and, therefore, greater burden,” Scherr said.
Selling them before they get damaged, I suppose?
Maybe some other rental car company would do better if they came in next year? Buying at lower prices would mean they have less to lose.
Maybe I'm missing something but rental cars seem like the worst possible use case for EVs. Their entire customer base is people who are going to be unfamiliar with EVs and how to properly drive...
Maybe I'm missing something but rental cars seem like the worst possible use case for EVs. Their entire customer base is people who are going to be unfamiliar with EVs and how to properly drive them, aren't familiar how public chargers work, don't have a place to charge where they are staying, often need to drive long distances in a single trip, and don't have the time to wait hours for a charge up at a non-fast charger. Not to mention the higher instances of accidents that they mentioned in the article.
I appreciate more EV adoption but a local city car share service seems like a much better fit for for EVs as long as there are charge points around the city
Out of curiousity, did you rent the EV during holiday season and used it on a route popular by people going on holiday? I can only speak from limited experience, but around here the only time I...
it's going to mean waiting for ten to twenty minutes for a charger to open up.
Out of curiousity, did you rent the EV during holiday season and used it on a route popular by people going on holiday?
I can only speak from limited experience, but around here the only time I see EV charging spots around highways and such being crowded that people have to wait is exactly during these moments.
can't afford to wait for two hours just to charge for an hour to get to 80%.
Oef, sounds like your car didn't support fast charging, the chargers you went to were not fast chargers or they were fast chargers but broken.
To be clear, not being critical towards you, as it only further adds to the point. There is some knowledge involved in using EVs in a way that your time isn't spent so much around charging.
Just the worry of those issues is enough to keep me from renting an EV on a trip, even though I like to rent cool/interesting/makes&models-I'd-never-buy cars on trips. It's how I found out I'd...
Just the worry of those issues is enough to keep me from renting an EV on a trip, even though I like to rent cool/interesting/makes&models-I'd-never-buy cars on trips. It's how I found out I'd probably enjoy having a minivan as a daily driver - rented a chrysler pacifica and it was seriously like driving a super comfy couch on wheels and wow, so much storage space. I could easily haul more stuff than the F150 crewcab I used to own. I'm all for reducing carbon footprint, but for the amount of travel I do, not gonna make an impact.
Agreed 100%. Wouldn't rent an EV from Hertz again. I wanted to try one before buying so I was using it for daily driving. I live in an area where the charging infrastructure is "good" and it took...
Agreed 100%. Wouldn't rent an EV from Hertz again. I wanted to try one before buying so I was using it for daily driving.
I live in an area where the charging infrastructure is "good" and it took me three hours and downloading six apps to get the car back up to full. Most of that time was spent driving out of my way only to find that a station was blocked, not actually public, broken, or otherwise inaccessible.
Now I know how to work around this better, but it was rather aggravating being tossed in the deep end like that.
Hertz should include a charging cable with every EV rental.
From traveling for work, the customer base for rental EVs are "People who received a 'free' upgrade at the gate who are now trying to get a Tesla for the price of the equinox they reserved." I've...
From traveling for work, the customer base for rental EVs are "People who received a 'free' upgrade at the gate who are now trying to get a Tesla for the price of the equinox they reserved."
I've seen the same thing play out at three different rental places. I don't get it.
That’s what you would think, but the article goes to great lengths to say otherwise. My guess is that Hertz judged well the market for using EVs. But running rental company is probably more about...
That’s what you would think, but the article goes to great lengths to say otherwise. My guess is that Hertz judged well the market for using EVs. But running rental company is probably more about being a good insurance company and asset manager, with repairs and depreciation being the big factors for success.
I wonder if there's a renter demand component here as well? I travel quite a bit for both business and personal. Both National and Hertz allow you to chose your own car off the lot within whatever...
I wonder if there's a renter demand component here as well? I travel quite a bit for both business and personal. Both National and Hertz allow you to chose your own car off the lot within whatever category of loyalty status that you have. I see them available in chose-your-own-car lots all the time now. I don't select EVs just because when I'm traveling, I really don't want to deal with figuring out charging in an area I'm not familiar with.
During a trip to Arizona last year, all that was left in the rental garage was a handful of EVs (non-Tesla). We were going to be driving to fairly remote places with little/no charging infra, and really didn't want one. So we talked to the guy at the booth, and they ended up giving us some Alfa Romeo SUV for our original rate because that's pretty much all they had left (premium/fancy cars that you normally have to book specially). And we were definitely not the only ones who were having this struggle. We watched people get into a car, figure out it was electric, and then get back out to try and find another.
From the article:
Selling them before they get damaged, I suppose?
Maybe some other rental car company would do better if they came in next year? Buying at lower prices would mean they have less to lose.
Maybe I'm missing something but rental cars seem like the worst possible use case for EVs. Their entire customer base is people who are going to be unfamiliar with EVs and how to properly drive them, aren't familiar how public chargers work, don't have a place to charge where they are staying, often need to drive long distances in a single trip, and don't have the time to wait hours for a charge up at a non-fast charger. Not to mention the higher instances of accidents that they mentioned in the article.
I appreciate more EV adoption but a local city car share service seems like a much better fit for for EVs as long as there are charge points around the city
Out of curiousity, did you rent the EV during holiday season and used it on a route popular by people going on holiday?
I can only speak from limited experience, but around here the only time I see EV charging spots around highways and such being crowded that people have to wait is exactly during these moments.
Oef, sounds like your car didn't support fast charging, the chargers you went to were not fast chargers or they were fast chargers but broken.
To be clear, not being critical towards you, as it only further adds to the point. There is some knowledge involved in using EVs in a way that your time isn't spent so much around charging.
Just the worry of those issues is enough to keep me from renting an EV on a trip, even though I like to rent cool/interesting/makes&models-I'd-never-buy cars on trips. It's how I found out I'd probably enjoy having a minivan as a daily driver - rented a chrysler pacifica and it was seriously like driving a super comfy couch on wheels and wow, so much storage space. I could easily haul more stuff than the F150 crewcab I used to own. I'm all for reducing carbon footprint, but for the amount of travel I do, not gonna make an impact.
Agreed 100%. Wouldn't rent an EV from Hertz again. I wanted to try one before buying so I was using it for daily driving.
I live in an area where the charging infrastructure is "good" and it took me three hours and downloading six apps to get the car back up to full. Most of that time was spent driving out of my way only to find that a station was blocked, not actually public, broken, or otherwise inaccessible.
Now I know how to work around this better, but it was rather aggravating being tossed in the deep end like that.
Hertz should include a charging cable with every EV rental.
If everyone has the same reasoning as you, the infrastructure will never get to a point where it is sufficient.
Yes they must suffer for the greater good
From traveling for work, the customer base for rental EVs are "People who received a 'free' upgrade at the gate who are now trying to get a Tesla for the price of the equinox they reserved."
I've seen the same thing play out at three different rental places. I don't get it.
That’s what you would think, but the article goes to great lengths to say otherwise. My guess is that Hertz judged well the market for using EVs. But running rental company is probably more about being a good insurance company and asset manager, with repairs and depreciation being the big factors for success.
I wonder if there's a renter demand component here as well? I travel quite a bit for both business and personal. Both National and Hertz allow you to chose your own car off the lot within whatever category of loyalty status that you have. I see them available in chose-your-own-car lots all the time now. I don't select EVs just because when I'm traveling, I really don't want to deal with figuring out charging in an area I'm not familiar with.
During a trip to Arizona last year, all that was left in the rental garage was a handful of EVs (non-Tesla). We were going to be driving to fairly remote places with little/no charging infra, and really didn't want one. So we talked to the guy at the booth, and they ended up giving us some Alfa Romeo SUV for our original rate because that's pretty much all they had left (premium/fancy cars that you normally have to book specially). And we were definitely not the only ones who were having this struggle. We watched people get into a car, figure out it was electric, and then get back out to try and find another.