Hertz "Horror Show"

[kltye]

Last week at Hertz rental at an Airport and all they had on hand were a dozen or more Polestars. Did not want to deal with a new EV that I am not familiar with… so just picked the only other choice they had …base Altima . But not surprised that the only cars left were EVs at that lot.

The Polestar is a really quite reliable EV; I would have rather been on a horse wagon than a base Altima ?

Sponsored

 

[Thunderbuck]

I can rent an EV in Italy for DIRT cheap, like 1/3rd the cost of an ICE Panda. BUT show me where I can charge in Tuscany and we might talk. The lack of planning is insane these days.

Don't blame the car for a lack of infrastructure. Renting an EV in a place where there are actually adequate places to charge it is an absolute joy.

 

[azerik]

Not blaming the car. It's actually encouraging that it's that cheap, but the reason isn't the cost of ownership or lack of required upkeep vs an ICE thats driving the price down.

 

[melissphillips]

I felt bad for them when they'd show up at a fast charger and it was clear they had been given no instructions on how to manage charging when they rented the car. When I was renting at the local Hertz I asked about it and the counter personnel said they also had received no training on how to talk to drivers about charging on the road.

 

[mkhuffman]

Avis appears to be renting Mach-Es and other non-Teslas. a couple days ago i helped one of their customers that ended up with a Mach-E (at least it had an ER battery) - they didn't mind when they picked it up since they'd had a decent experience with a rental tesla before.

they ended up at an EVgo station i was charging at and couldn't get the payment terminals to work; 4 chargers, 1 offline, the one i was charging at and the two others didn't respond at all when presented credit cards (no response to tap, insert, or swipe). big miss for EVgo. at least autocharge+ was working for me and a few others that came through.

i tried to show them how to look up other stations close by in navigation (no charge assist/public charging app on the car) but, since this is a rental, the car isn't authorized/connected to fordpass so you can't look up chargers nearby (the "Where to->Chargers" option is grayed out along with most other "connected car" features).

the only in car option that can work is to navigate somewhere and let the nav software pick chargers for them - well, that's how they ended up at EVgo.

i helped them look up an EA station not far away and they were hopeful but also very frustrated. i really hope they didn't get stranded somewhere along the way to their final destination.

EV manufacturers shouldn't be putting their cars into rental fleets generally unless the rental company really makes an effort of helping their customers with EV specific needs and education. especially not until the manufacturers either make the cars usable by newbie users without access to the connected car features or to make easy access to those features routine for the user during the rental period.

rental companies in general are a scourge.

After a long flight with delays and other stupid stuff, I am in no mood to be "trained" on how to use a car. I just want to get in and drive to my destination. Just signing the paperwork is super annoying.

There is no reasonable business case to be made to include training for car renters. Many are too stupid to understand, or won't pay attention, and just want to get out of the airport and to a bed somewhere.

It was mind bogglingly poorly rolled out. I think about when I rent on a business trip. 95% of the time I'm driving <200 miles. If they had a "return at any charge level" policy, I would rent an EV almost every time - so much more convenient. Instead they made it complicated. So I have never rented an EV.

Just put a bunch of L2s at your airport locations and the problem is solved - they become the go-to business trip car rental for the majority of customers.

No way. That is not how the car rental business works.

Have you seen what they do when you drop off the car? They check it out, make sure it has gas, it is clean, and put it back into the pool to be rented. They don't have the time to put it on some slow L2 EVSE for hours and hours. They don't have the real estate either.

Can you picture hundreds of rental cars, sitting for hours in an airport parking garage, not making money, and not doing anything but taking up space? No way. No business can run like that. Even a row of DCFC pumps wouldn't be enough.

 

[Thunderbuck]

...No way. That is not how the car rental business works.

Have you seen what they do when you drop off the car? They check it out, make sure it has gas, it is clean, and put it back into the pool to be rented. They don't have the time to put it on some slow L2 EVSE for hours and hours. They don't have the real estate either.

Can you picture hundreds of rental cars, sitting for hours in an airport parking garage, not making money, and not doing anything but taking up space? No way. No business can run like that. Even a row of DCFC pumps wouldn't be enough.

What, they couldn't have L2s in the parking stalls, and have the cars plugged in until they're picked up by a customer? Have a little imagination.

This is yet another application where wireless charging would be tremendously useful, too, once a standard is arrived at and cars start coming equipped with it from the factory.

 

[kodiakng]

After a long flight with delays and other stupid stuff, I am in no mood to be "trained" on how to use a car. I just want to get in and drive to my destination. Just signing the paperwork is super annoying.

the training obviously wouldn't be for extremely intelligent and important people who are always right and would never sue a company due to their own actions. i mean hertz has something called "fast lane" for those folks so they don't have to mix with the hoi polloi.

There is no reasonable business case to be made to include training for car renters. Many are too stupid to understand, or won't pay attention, and just want to get out of the airport and to a bed somewhere.

my admonishment to auto manufacturers (secondarily to car rental ogres) was more for brand management than to make sure you would be held up in line at a car rental counter. obviously, everyone should just get out of your way when you arrive so you aren't inconvenienced. i want the same thing. ?

 

[mkhuffman]

What, they couldn't have L2s in the parking stalls, and have the cars plugged in until they're picked up by a customer? Have a little imagination.

This is yet another application where wireless charging would be tremendously useful, too, once a standard is arrived at and cars start coming equipped with it from the factory.

Some cars will sit for hours and get properly charged, some won't. How do you manage that? Do you want to pick up a rental that has 10% SOC, and requires you to find a DCFC station before you barely get out of the airport parking garage?

I have arrived at the airport and they have no cars available. None. Unbelievable, but it happens. That means as soon as another renter returns a car, it gets checked and then I get to drive away. No time at all to charge.

It isn't something that can work in a busy airport or one that has a lot of car rentals. In my experience, they can barely keep up with fully gassed up ICEVs.

 

[mkhuffman]

the training obviously wouldn't be for extremely intelligent and important people who are always right and would never sue a company due to their own actions. i mean hertz has something called "fast lane" for those folks so they don't have to mix with the hoi polloi.



my admonishment to auto manufacturers (secondarily to car rental ogres) was more for brand management than to make sure you would be held up in line at a car rental counter. obviously, everyone should just get out of your way when you arrive so you aren't inconvenienced. i want the same thing. ?

I am not sure if you are insulting me, or not. But nobody likes to be inconvenienced. Are you suggesting I want special treatment?

I am saying, not suggesting, that every single customer should get special treatment. And every single customer should never be inconvenienced, ever. The process should be smooth and easy, and not add stress to what already may be a stressful trip.

Telling a stressed out traveler they need to be trained before they can use their rental car is the opposite of a customer centric business model.

 

[Mach1E]

What, they couldn't have L2s in the parking stalls, and have the cars plugged in until they're picked up by a customer? Have a little imagination.

This is yet another application where wireless charging would be tremendously useful, too, once a standard is arrived at and cars start coming equipped with it from the factory.

Sure, in theory they could hire extra workers to shift cars around between chargers and spend tons of month on infrastructure to charge cars…….. all for a customer base that has shown they aren’t interested in renting an EV.

The business model just doesn’t make financial sense.

ICE are cheaper to buy, no extra infrastructure or training needed. And most importantly? It’s what the customer wants to rent.

Wireless charging is way too slow and horribly inefficient as a solution. Plus the infrastructure cost would be significantly more than a simple L2 charger.

 

[kodiakng]

I am not sure if you are insulting me, or not. But nobody likes to be inconvenienced. Are you suggesting I want special treatment?

nope - pointing out that there are convenience services that companies (rental cars in this case) put in place to cater to those that don't want to be inconvenienced.

I am saying, not suggesting, that every single customer should get special treatment. And every single customer should never be inconvenienced, ever. The process should be smooth and easy, and not add stress to what already may be a stressful trip.

Telling a stressed out traveler they need to be trained before they can use their rental car is the opposite of a customer centric business model.

i see i've struck a cord for you. i'll leave you to it.

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

I pulled in to a DCFC at about 11PM Sunday night. There was a VW ID4 there with two early 20ish guys in it. They told me they liked my car. I asked about theirs. It was a rental. They were bemoaning how long it took to charge and said renting an electric car was “the worst decision of my life.”
But they had no knowledge. It’s a learning curve. They didn’t know how far their next stop was. They thought they needed to top off the battery before they unplugged. I tried to help explain that charging above 80% was wasting their time unless they needed every mile of range (they didn’t there are plenty of chargers in all directions from where we were) . I tried to explain that they would have a better trip making a couple short stops than one long one. They couldn’t grasp the concept.
Renting electric is cool if you already know what you’re doing. It’s idiotic if you are clueless.

 

[mkhuffman]

i see i've struck a cord for you. i'll leave you to it.

?

 

[azerik]

Interestingly the Budget by my house has about 15 white M3’s, I haven’t seen a charger anywhere near them. Not sure how they are doing these.
Another interesting thing is my Almo (I think) member perk is I can bring a car back empty (EV).

 

[stealthytolkien]

It was, in my opinion, a poor marketing decision from the get go to offer EV for rent. They wanted to try and stand out (nothing wrong with trying something different to give your business a boost) but offering EV could not possibly have been a great success. People definitely rent cars to drive in super busy cities but cabs are plentiful there. People generally rent cars for road trips. And it’s been discussed to death here that most EVs shine in the cities and where the owners have a charger at home.

Road trips with EVs are absolutely more hassle than a gasoline car as it requires more time and planning and I am willing to die on this hill. And for the poorly informed, a bit risky even.

Tesla certainly has the edge in the infrastructure but when you’ve spent thousands getting to your destination on flights and hotels, the rental car saving you $110 in fuel is a drop in a bucket. What I want is the ability to gas and go even when I’m in the middle of nowhere. I don’t want range anxiety (real or perceived) on my vacation. And most importantly, I don’t want to spend time when I am literally paying money to be on vacation by every minute of the day. I don’t want to waste that limited time at the charger (especially if the first Electrify America location didn’t work - a very likely scenario lol).

We owned two EVs (well informed about them) and yet never once rented an EV when it was readily available. Also. It’s generally a Model 3. It’s tiny!

Sponsored