There are companies offering EVs for short-term rentals by the minute or hour, but not as many of the big companies which seem to treat EVs more as a curiosity and group them with Maseratis or Luxury SUVs in terms of price and availability.
I hope this news is enough to shake up the leadership at the other car rental companies.
Non-Tesla (i.e., cheaper) EVs have been in the same boat - the ones that people want just flat out haven't been available in most locations.
Of course, the answer with most electric car charging questions is "charge it at home", which is great when you own the car, but when you're on a trip who knows what the hotel's infrastructure will be like.
(I mean a charging point that can charge the car in 5-8 hours, which I assume should be straightforward for a new commercial installation with a 3-phase supply etc.)
Though I think another issue could be wear and tear on the battery as you're not supposed to charge to full - can rental companies software lock the charge rate? Not yet as far as I know.
https://electrek.co/2021/05/24/tesla-found-guilty-throttling...
"Only Model S and Model X vehicles with 85 kWh battery packs, which were discontinued in 2016, seem to be affected at that point."
That being said I also don’t know what the turnaround on a returned car is when on a busy lot. Minutes? Hours? Days? They gotta wash and vacuum it at minimum.
My guess would be a couple hours. They could start charging them right when you park at the return line…
With gas cars, there's a clear cost to having an employee go out and refuel it if its not returned full. This is much less justifiable if the company can just charge the cars on-site, either quickly or slowly.
A compromise could be that if a car is returned with less than x%, where it must be charged before going out to the next customer, then charge more but if its returned with 80-100%, don't charge extra because it could go out to the next customer easily. I've rented plenty of cars without a full tank.