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Comment by LeoPanthera | Hacker News Reader

Last week on a trip to Florida I rented a Polestar 2 from Hertz.

It was in abysmal shape. Both tires on the left had been installed backwards, with the inside on the outside, and something was badly wrong with the front left wheel, I suspect the rotor was warped because it scraping, loudly, with every rotation.

I read about Hertz having problems with EV maintenance but experience leads me to believe that it's nothing to do with being EVs. They're simply not maintaining them. I told them about the problems on return, and the guy just shrugged.

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The Polestar 2 that Hertz gave me last time kept flashing warning messages on the dashboard about problems with the airbag (yikes) and the cooling system. The front seat headroom was totally inadequate for a tall person like me. When I tried to recharge it before returning it just said "Error" and refused to charge at all (tried multiple chargers). A total piece of junk.

When I complained upon return the Hertz employee was nice about it and gave me a voucher that covered the cost of the rental.

This seems like a problem with a lot of places now, not just rental cars. Employees just don’t give a shit anymore, if anything they hate their jobs and customers.

Office Space as relevant as ever: https://youtu.be/cgg9byUy-V4

I agree, and how did that happen? It’s incredibly hard to find a painter who will actually paint, even when it takes exactly less time to do it properly than do a thin layer and be summoned to come back( Did we go to far into commoditizing everything, such that people don’t care about their reputation anymore, and don’t care about the poor schmocks who will have to live in half-built houses, and therefore, the only important thing is the plausibility that the job was performed?

People that get business from the Internet don't care about reputation. You can always just buy fake reviews, sometimes you can pay to have negatives removed, or you can just start a new company name and buy fake reviews.

Also so many businesses have sufficient barriers to entry that there is a considerable under supply of service providers.

Yeah I wonder why people who feel like they are getting poorer and poorer while their bosses get richer and richer, stopped giving a shit.

The average American has never been materially wealthier. Even the poorest Americans that are housed have a fridge, a TV, a cell phone, many have a car (or two) and a majority of Americans own their own home/condo.

This isn't the 1950s where a TV was a signifier of the strength of the American economy. TVs are dirt cheap now, whereas rent, food, education, healthcare, all of which are more important for survival, have all skyrocketed.

The "not caring" aspect has been a problem in the US for a long time.

Same in Canada. I worry that we’ve become too comfortable and will need to be reminded why it’s important to care.

In the defence of people who don’t care right now, our culture is not conducive to caring whereas it seems it was more so in the past. There was more social and family cohesion. There were more readily available evidence and reasons to care on a day to day basis. Things appear objectively different for most people now.

On top of that there is increasing wealth disparity which people are confronted with on a hyper-frequent basis. Just take a peak at instagram and you’re reminded that you’re just a serf with every ad and every few posts.

I feel you're onto something, and like others on the thread, I've got too many anecdotal observations of service providers blatantly being in-your-face apathetic in the US vs, say, Japan where even if forced by convention, people do need to at least appear to really care. Is there formal research on this phenomenon?

> need to be reminded why it’s important to care.

In the 'good old days' a person could work their way up in a company from the sales floor into a leadership role. The company would encourage this to create a pipeline of experienced managers with first-hand knowledge of customer needs.

That era is long dead. Companies don't care about their customers, they care about maximizing shareholder value above all else. That means doing things like slashing staff to the point where 2 people have to run the entire store. How are they supposed to provide good customer service in a situation like that?

They’re not able to or supposed to, so it’s completely understandable why many people stop caring. I definitely don’t place the responsibility of caring on the people working closest to the customer. They need to be given the training, tools, compensation, and flexibility to have a life in order for that to be realistic. They really aren’t, though. Without that, the immediate responsibility is on corporations and governments to establish baselines which allow workers to have jobs that aren’t totally soul crushing and thankless.

Jobs like that shouldn’t exist at all in my opinion. They’re the result of regulatory failure as far as I can tell.

higher pay, the solution is higher pay.

You have that backwards. Better performance/value => higher pay. Why should we pay people more if they suck at their job? They should be fired.

If you fire them and pay is the same why would you expect higher performance from the new person? You said it yourself, the problem exist everywhere now. You get what you pay for.

Yes, fire them and hire better help, even if it costs more. Giving people a raise doesn’t automatically make them better.

> even if it costs more.

So the solution is higher pay

Employers get what they pay for.

Pay people well (aka enough to actually save and be able to afford property) and you might see something different.

But ShArEhOlDeR VaLuE!!!! means it’ll never happen.

Hahahahahahaha yeah that’s the problem, the employees! Why don’t they “give a shit” about their jobs that barely pay their rent and groceries and give them zero chance of ever retiring?

You seem sheltered

I've rented Polestar 2s from Hertz more than 10 times in the UK.

One of them had a service message that intermittently popped up related to the collision avoidance system (IIRC), and one had a slightly dodgy multi-way switch on the drivers seat that made it difficult (but not impossible) to adjust the seat position. Other than those they were all excellent: a really great car, with great software. One of the best I've ever rented from Hertz. I hope they don't sell all of them!

I had a friend rent a model 3 from them and ran into similar issues, plus the first two they pulled out for him had <20% state of charge.

Maybe don't build a fleet of EVs if you're not equipped to at least charge them

How to make electric cars fail; established entities can intentionally neglect and drag their feet, half ass implementation. Over time it fosters routine of negative experience, fostering a viral meme that ultimately squashes demand.

On a long enough time horizon those that won’t drive electric won’t be driving. It’ll just cost us all a ton more the longer we wait to transition.

I think it's the opposite. No one will be driving except the elite class. That's all EVs are a transition to - an elite status.

Mandatory EVs will remove the access of freedom of movement that the lower and middle classes came to enjoy in a way that use to be impossible le

The same is happening with air travel.

Not to rain on your conspiracy, but air traffic is getting cheaper, not more expensive.

https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/airfare-infl...

Obviously technology since 1960-ish has made flights cheaper, but I don't really care about long term trends. I'm talking about now and into the future.

If you think the imposition of Net Zero, Carbon Taxes, energy transition etc etc is going to make flights cheaper I'd be interested to see how you think this will be achieved [1]

Still, as the saying goes "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges". All the FAANG employees and VCs and other tech bros will be able to fly to the Caribbean and Europe. It will only really effect your average blue collar employee, and who cares about them, right?

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-21/flights-a...

That’s just conspiracy nonsense, why would they bother with EVs and not just ban gas cars altogether then?

Have you heard of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods?

Don't be ridiculous. Hertz is a for-profit corporation. They're not intentionally trying to lose money in order to sabotage EVs as some sort of grand conspiracy. They're just incompetent.

Probably some new exec just wanted to make a splash. They can always move on well before failure is apparent.

No, they just aren't as convenient yet. Who wants to rent an EV on a vacation and worry about where to charge it. Eventually they will be better in general but they aren't yet.

This isn't done grand conspiracy against EVs.

Incorrect. Hertz was the biggest corporate supporter of EVs other than the manufacturers themselves. Two different Hertz CEOs essentially bet their careers on an EV future. Your characterization of intentional neglect or feet dragging is absolutely not the case, they made big, bold Tesla purchases and aggressively deployed them in the field. The problem was that customers simply did not want to rent them.

https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/stories/2021/10/28/hertz-b...

https://boardstewardship.com/hertz-ceo-stephen-scherr-steps-...

Meanwhile, I rented a Model S from Turo (essentially Airbnb for cars) and had a great experience.

The car was clean, well maintained, fully charged and already parked in my hotel’s parking lot. Charging was free at any Tesla charger over the three days I had the car…I just had to plug it in and tell the car how much charge I wanted. When I was done with the car, I just had to snap a few photos and leave it in the same lot. And because the pickup/drop off point was at my hotel, I avoided paying for the car for the day I flew in and out since the hotel provided a shuttle to/from the airport.

It’s amazing that some guy named Marco who bought 6 used Teslas can do a more competent job of renting EVs than a multibillion dollar rental agency with huge economies of scale.

Car rental is awful in general. I just use ride share and don’t rent unless I need to do a lot of driving.

These companies seem horribly managed dumpster fires. I’ve never had a good experience. Acceptable most of the time but often bad.

Yeah, tbh, I always thought rentals would do ok because of how well Teslas have rented on Turo.

But then again, Turo is a small fragment of the market, and the hosts care about renting them out. They are also selected by the renter intentionally.

The rental companies went too far on purchases and way short on support, and often gave them out to people that didn't even want them.

Awful.

I last rented in FL a good 10 years back, Coral Springs - I'm UK based so only have a couple of anecdotes to go on. I was treated courteously and upgraded because the car I ordered wasn't available.

Obviously back then EVs were largely off the menu.

However, how on earth do you mount a wheel backwards? What is a rotor in an EV? I own a Chinese "Morris Garage" marque car - it's not from 'round 'ere boy.

Your Polstar is from Norway. They do them.

I can’t speak for the OP, but a “rotor” can mean the brake rotor on a disc brake, which can warp due to excessive use/heat. They are common on most cars, and usually need to be “turned” (ie. machined to be flat) when they are out of tolerance.

Throwaway economy: I haven't been able to find anyone to turn a rotor in ~10 years, but Amazon will bring me brand new ones tomorrow.

Sure, quality has gone down, but, well, that's why it's not worth turning them anyway.

I've got a 2012 Toyota with regenerative brakes that's had its rotors turned twice (by independent shops) after they've become rusty/noisy around every 5 years or so. But it still has all the original rotors and pads! The mechanics wouldn't replace them since there wasn't enough wear. It's almost bizarre at this point. Maybe in 2027?

I’ve owned some Hondas recently where the rotors noticeably warped after several years (maybe since the cars have such good longevity?).

It probably strongly depends on driving styles. I also trust OEM metallurgy far more than anything you can purchase off Amazon.

The Chinese company Geely bought Volvo and most of the Polestar hardware is actually from Geely. And Geely is not from Norway.

And neither is Volvo, they’re Swedish.

Previously. Now Chinese. Swedish in marketing only, but Chinese ownership.

Volvo is a publicly-traded Swedish company, in which Geely have a majority stake. Volvo cars are designed and manufactured in Sweden, as well as in China and elsewhere.

Polestar is also a Swedish company, designed in Sweden but mostly manufactured in China. They're expanding production in the USA and Europe (Belgium).

Previously, they were American (owned by Ford)

> "Your Polstar is from Norway."

Polestar is a Swedish company owned by Geely, the Chinese auto giant.

Rotor == brake disc

>However, how on earth do you mount a wheel backwards

Put the side of the tire rim that has the car's company logo that normally faces out to the world so that it faces into the wheel well instead, with the tire itself sticking out far more then normal.

Assuming the wheel spokes doesn't grind off part of the brake calipers, it unfortunately can work. It'll drive badly mind you, and does significant cosmetic damage to the rim once you realize the mistake, but it does "drive".

> However, how on earth do you mount a wheel backwards?

Some wheels have a preferred direction and should be used only on left or right side.

The rubber is assymetric in those. But I don't think you would notice is any way if you get like 3% worse grip.

Rented a Kia EV6 and had to spend 3+ hours trying to charge it. Joined several charging networks--one crazy network signup made me put in the damn VIN from the windshield. Several stations failed to ever start charging. All this to put energy in a car I had for a day. It was miserable. I completely understand why no one wants to ever rent an electric car. I'm as EV as they come and I'll never, ever do that to myself again.

EVs could work as rentals but it would have to be a total end-to-end experience, thought out with the actual customer in mind. An app for a specialized car already paired to your phone and easy to charge on the Tesla network by just plugging in.

Charging networks are a huge problem that may require regulation to fix. The hodgepodge of networks is awful. Tesla still has a big advantage here.

EV charging standardization in Europe has lead to good charger compatibility and more investment into and development of the EV infrastructure.

All brands of car can charge on all brands of charger as Nature intended. It's just better infrastructure.

Incompatible, brand exclusive charging stations are dumb infrastructure and no good for anyone.

That’s what I was talking about. Just pointing out that in this environment the one company that took it seriously had a huge advantage from doing so.

An open version of the Tesla system is now standardized as NACS and hopefully will take over. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

> An app for a specialized car already paired to your phone and easy to charge on the Tesla network by just plugging in.

No. No apps, no charging network accounts, no brand lock in or lock out.

Contactless payment is the minimum acceptable standard (also having the ability to pay by cash would be even better). You can still have your app if you want to but everyone must be able to pay without signing up for apps and accounts from multiple charging providers just to put electricity in a car battery.

I don't have an app to fuel my ICE vehicle, I shouldn't need one to charge my EV.

Europe has mandated contactless payments. Even Tesla is following the rules on their new V4 dispensers. Tesla will need to fix up its old dispensers:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yflZN0dLT8s

Wtf do you need an app to use a car? It should just work.

I mean to manage the rental experience more than the car.

I’ve rented Teslas from Turo three times and the experience was seamless and delightful. The car was dropped off and picked up from my house and everything just worked. Phone keys, supercharger access, full charge when dropped off (basically).

I think the traditional rental places are just incompetent or under investing.

> "I read about Hertz having problems with EV maintenance but experience leads me to believe that it's nothing to do with being EVs."

It's not so much that EVs require more maintenance/repairs (if anything, the opposite is true!), but the high costs of parts etc when repairs are needed. This is particularly a problem with Teslas, which also leads to higher insurance premiums.

I rented a the Volvo XC40 from hertz in Texas. It was great. The charging network around Austin was not.

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