The question is what will consumers be ditching Hertz for? Electric cars as an economical proposition have already proved themselves. That debate is pretty much over. So, why can't Hertz make it work? And who else can disrupt them and how quickly?
While on a time limited event, like a vacation, where I may need a rental car, I have no desire to sit and wait for my car to charge and waste my time, over a 45 second gas fill up. Hotels don’t universally offer charging ports (or enough of them, if it even does). EVs have a very long way to go to being generally useful for the non homeowner who doesn’t have a charging station in their own garage.
Where do you live? I live in a regular German town, nothing I would consider particular techie, and I see so many electric cars. If you only see one ev per day, I think that you might live more in a bubble than OP.
I could see even in different parts of the US wildly different EV adoption rates. They're very common in Seattle but I think I would be surprised if I saw too many of them in Boise. US states are often the size of European countries.
any company doing targeting based on just vaguely urban vs. rural would be in for a terrible return on investment
The EU as a whole has 1.68% EVs out of all passenger cars, though it's about 15% of new cars. [1]
Here in Denmark BEVs are 5.68% of all passenger cars, and I'm sure it's higher where I live in Copenhagen. Over half of the taxis and buses are EVs, plus a good proportion of private vehicle. I won't guess, but I do see many EVs every time I go outside.
[1] https://alternative-fuels-observatory.ec.europa.eu/transport...
The only time I rent cars is for long trips, I'm about to rent one next month actually, 1200km, no chance I'll get an EV that at most will give me 400km of range
The fact that anything above a fender bender is almost always a total write off probably doest help either
I’m totally ignorant on this subject so do you mind saying why that is?
Vacations are so time constrained that a huge % of ICE renters opt to just get hosed on gas up fees that rental companies charge instead of going to any ubiquitous gas station before dropping the car off. Car drop off with a flight to catch is always a race against time.
Owning an EV requires some compromises, but you figure it out: you get a charger for home, you learn where the chargers are and what the waits are like, etc. For a traveler renting a car, this is bigger challenge. (I say this being a two-EV household)
I never rented an EV from them and never would because the charging logistics are a pain in the ass at return. Out of petrol? 10 minutes, run it through the car wash at the same time, sorted. Out of charge? Oh I'm right next to one of the biggest airports in Europe and all the chargers are rammed. No thanks.
They were pricing EVs at a discount for a trip I took through Atlanta last month. Still came out ahead with the recharge fee.
(Fortunately, last time I drove one on a dirt road there was a heavy rain storm the next day.)
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And yet when I needed to rent a car, I rented a gasoline one.
Why?
Because car rental is pretty much the worst case for an EV.
If I rent a car I'm likely abroad, with zero knowledge of the recharge network and often not great options in terms of costs because most are national (at least, here in Europe, only notable exception being Ionity).
I'm also likely to drive long distances, with no routine, and little planning capacity.
And whatever other reason one would pick an EV for (noise, pollution, fuel cost, one pedal drive comfort etc.) they are all negligible when applied to a 2 weeks vacation.
Its often the second biggest investment in one's life, after housing. But unlike housing you just throw money at it, expecting pure massive loss, while gaining service. Service new car offers is 100% of used one which is well maintained, minus all potential initial recalls. Its even better for peace of mind - small dents and damage on new car hurts mentally so one becomes a slave to freakin' piece of plastic and metal, on older one its meh category and I focus on important parts being in good state and high quality wheels connecting me to Earth, while driving much more premium equipped cars than comparable electric ones (granted, ie Porsche is better but at what crazy price).
What electric cars bring within same requirements is 2-4x more expensive just to purchase, and TCO are stratospheric for what I am willing to accept.
Another point is environmental impact on all that battery chemistry destroying ecosystems of some poor countries electric drivers often never even heard of nor visited, it ain't greener car to manufacture by any means, albeit greener to run for sure.
So there you have it, the reason 80% of ICE driver's reasons to stay where they are, at least for another decade or two. And that's just purely civilian family transport. What comes after those decades we can discuss at that time, nobody knows what situation will be at that time.
Last time I took my Taycan for a long drive (6 hours in -15C) we took a break half way, and it charged so much faster than expected - so I had to exit the restaurant and go and move it.
It’s the best family car I've ever had, much better than all the BMWs but yeah, it is expensive although the running costs are low.
And anything Porsche has massive TCO, wait till you start changing worn out parts. Manageable, but ROI is extremely bad to me and even best cars out there have to pass some logical checks.
I enjoyed how this sentence escalated suddenly. It felt like you got halfway through then worried that there were actually used electric cars suitable for families of four with big trunks, and then massively overcompensated to rule those out and managed to rule out basically every EV.
The transition to electric vehicles is planned over decades. People act like they're being forced into electric cars today at gunpoint. Since we're talking about second hand cars you have decades of ICE purchasing ahead of you. I think for most people, it won't be that long before it just makes sense to switch. But you've got your long winter journies and fast charger phobia so you're a special case.
Nevertheless, there's definitely still a market here.
All of these things suck for EVs in general, and Teslas in particular. The recent price cuts have demolished the resale value way more than any other car, rented EVs get damaged more frequently because people are unfamiliar with their behaviour and torque curves and acceleration, and the cost of repair is atrocious for Teslas, since their service infrastructure is severely lacking, i.e. it takes forever to get parts.
And on top of that, rental customers do not want an EV in an unfamiliar place. Everyone can find a gas station and fill it up before returning, but having to schedule your entire trip around charging infrastructure is a complete waste of time.
The only rental customers it makes sense for is people who already have an EV, love it, and know how to live with. But the problem is that Hertz was throwing the Teslas at customers willy-nilly as some kind of "luxury upgrade", with crap results.
Have they? It seems that when rubber meets the road, so to speak, it is not a simple one-to-one replacement for gas or diesel vehicles. The day-to-day ownership is more complicated, planning your itinerary and day around sparse public charging and owning property to have at-home charging. Also, the long-term ownership, having low resale value due to the high repair costs of the electric drivetrain and low overall repairability, makes ownership a poor proposition for most average people.
Electric cars have been on the market for over a decade. Show me one that someone has kept past 200,000 miles. Meanwhile, you can find Toyotas and Hondas well past that benchmark all day on Marketplace.
Even among gas cars, those who buy new rarely keep cars that long. The average is about 8 years. I've owned several Hondas and Toyotas, and I've never hit 100k on one. (even though I have no doubt any of them would still be on the road) (My current car is a Kia EV6)
I've owned Mercedes with over 300k and Hondas with over 250k.
I have a BEV as well, and I have to say - I don't understand why the PHEV market didn't take off. All the savings for daily trips, and the convenience of gas to never think about range anxiety.
There's heaps of Tesla cars that have done very significant mileage. And as battery technology improves, early generations have been covered by very generous warranties.
Here's one such story, finding others would be a low effort undertaking:
https://youtu.be/1m5gs8mki8o?si=jfDT9NyZTdCL5rmm
Those with 300-400k mileage cars, being earlier generations, a good number have had their battery replaced under warranty with new units. Reliability has only improved over the years, and again, the warranty time has been generous - unlimited km on earlier ones.
(My '22 LR3 is 8 year /192k KM, I've only done 19k KM over 2 years, so the limit won't be an issue. I plan on having it for at least that long. Oh and that's at least ~70% charged by rooftop PV).
Also: Other manufacturers are clearly playing catch up to Tesla, but they are getting there.
And yet you go into car forums and supposedly most Tesla owners are "tech bros". :shrug
And yet, there are some that have over 200k miles. It isn't uncommon to run across them.
In what world and in what way? I don't know anybody who would rent an electric car and I certainly would not