EV bargains to be found as Hertz sells off some of its electric cars | Hacker News Reader

EV bargains to be found as Hertz sells off some of its electric cars

arstechnica.com

19 pointsPaulHoule10 comments

Ironically I have a Tesla Model 3 (base) rental from Hertz right now. I saw it as a way to really "own" one albeit only for a week (vs a 30 minute test drive).

I like it enough that I thought it might make a good commuter car, but I'd still keep a gas car for when I needed to go far (~3 hours of highway driving the other day used 75% of a full charge and it's taken 30 hours on a 15A circuit to charge back up). Used the super charger, that was fun and the 25 minutes really didn't seem much longer than a regular gas station stop. I'm also worried a bit by the effects of cold on it in the northeast, although ironically, climate change means that we've had pretty mild winters for the last 5+ years.

I did look at prices for used Tesla Model 3's when I first got the rental and there are some great bargains to be had; TBH the prices on the Hertz used car site (linked in TFA) are not good at all, over priced and very high mileage (not to mention whatever condition it is in having been a rental).

All in all, I kinda like the car and for the right price (e.g. <$25K USD for less than 15K mile Model 3), I'd probably get one used, but would keep my current gas car.

> ~3 hours of highway driving the other day used 75% of a full charge and it's taken 30 hours on a 15A circuit to charge back up

Good grief, what are you trying to do? No one charges cars on a wall outlet. I mean, sure, it "works", but yikes.

Take it to a supercharger for 20 minutes, or at the very least one of the copious 6-12 kW "Level 2" chargers you find in parking lots.

I'm staying at an AirBnB (with only a 15A exterior outlet), there's a supercharger not too far, but TBH, it works well enough plugged in overnight, I know if I needed to drive more, I can just go to the supercharger station. We were out and about the other day, but didn't go anywhere the next day, so the car was more or less fully charged.

Had a rental car once where the parking brake was essentially nonfunctional - the brake itself was hidden down next to one of the pedals (instead of by the center console) and it was clear that many people had simply attempted to drive off with the brake engaged. This car didn't even have that many miles on it (<20k km, IIRC).

I would definitely avoid buying a rental car unless you're desperate...

Don't like half the cars have the parking brake in that position?

Even my 2010 Prius, which has an... Otherwise unorthodox set of controls - has a foot-pedal parking brake.

It depends. Your common sedans and even SUVs will usually have a stick or button on the center console for the parking brake. Trucks and pickup trucks, buses, vans, and other such "heavy duty" vehicles will more likely have a foot pedal parking brake.

I've seen people drive entire trips with the parking brake engaged because the position the stick/button/pedal/Brake McBrakeface is in isn't always obvious, the parking brakes themselves don't provide any resistance as far as driving is concerned, and they don't know what the car's ringing warnings are and don't care.

Making the parking brake warning scream "PARKING BRAKE!" instead of the generic ringer, if the car has one, will probably go a long way. I know it won't happen of course, because that's a localization expense nobody wants to pay for.

A good example of how people treat rental cars:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqCrGIyGxCo

Good God, I hope it was just a stunt. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"

I guess 1/3 qualifies as "some", certainly not "most".

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/11/business/hertz-tesla-selling/...

Related, from yesterday:

How Hertz’s bet on Teslas went sideways (206 votes, 546 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39928913

Reply on news.ycombinator.com