My first drive of an EV
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Electric Vehicles: The (Unwanted) Car-Rental Preview
I have written before about how renting a car can turn into an unwanted preview of the electric-vehicle (EV) experience. Whatever the rental companies may be saying, it seems reasonable to think that car renters are increasingly being “forced” into EVs whether or not they want them because EV manufacturers are finding it more difficult than expected to find enough buyers for their product on the open market. Signing up for a central-planning project can be like that. Spotting a way to get hold of cars at a discount price, the rental companies have stepped up.
The Wall Street Journal:
Anne-Marie Angelo reserved an intermediate car from Budget Rent A Car for a one-way drive from Virginia Beach, Va., to Dulles International Airport with her 79-year-old mother in January. The rental agency didn’t have her car or much else, so it assigned her a “specialty” Kia.
Note to file: Avoid “specialty” cars from Budget.
The Kia Niro she got is an EV, which no one at the counter mentioned, the history professor says. Despite getting charged overnight, the battery drained quickly. With at least 70 miles to go on the drive, the range flashed 30 miles. She had to hunt for a charging station so it didn’t die on I-95 in cold weather.
Yup, cold weather can be tricky for EVs. But, but . . . progress. EV skeptics are horse-and-buggy types resisting a better future. Or so we are told. And no, EVs are not going to save the planet either.
The first location, a gas station listed in a crowdsourced app, didn’t have one. Budget roadside assistance said they couldn’t help because they don’t have mobile charging units, she says. By the time she found one at a car dealership, she had to move their late flight to London and pay for a hotel.
“Normally I can get from home to Dulles on one tank of gas,” she says. “I don’t plan for random stops in weird places.”
But, but . . . progress.
Budget refunded her rental and gave her two free rental days for future use, but didn’t reimburse for expenses. A Budget spokesperson says the agency “takes every customer experience seriously and has addressed the issue raised with our employees and the location involved.”
It was evident from my earlier post that EV skeptics should avoid Hertz. That, it seems, hasn’t changed:
Hertz has made the biggest EV bet among rental agencies. It has deals to buy more than 300,000 cars from Tesla, Polestar and General Motors and a partnership with Uber to rent EVs to ride-share drivers. More than one in 10 cars in its fleet are electric, a figure the company says will jump to 25% by the end of 2024.
Twenty-five percent! Worse odds than Russian roulette.
Trey Johnson, a winery sales director from West Chicago, Ill., drives a 2011 Nissan Sentra. He booked a Tesla for a one-day February business trip to Louisville, Ky., instead of his usual midsize sedan because of its cheaper last-minute rate. Plus, he wanted to see what the hype was about.
He says he asked the Hertz agent about the refueling rules and got only vague answers. He found operating the car a struggle.
“Just getting out of the garage, it felt like I was learning to drive all over again,” he says.
He pulled over to watch a Hertz video on how to operate it. Finding a Tesla charging station was easy, he says, but he didn’t like the 20 minutes it took to charge the car before he returned it.
“There are a lot of Tesla evangelists out there,” he says. “Once you get used to it, I think it’s probably quite fun to drive. I don’t want to get used to it.”
Mark Nielson, an infrastructure development consultant in Foster City, Calif., is in the top tier of Hertz’s loyalty program. When he landed in Chicago in May, he says he found several Ford Mustang Mach-Es. He passed because he was driving to Cincinnati and logging hundreds of miles after that and didn’t want any charging hassles.
“You could see people liked the Mustang and as soon as they saw it was electric, they moved on to something else,” he says.
A Hertz spokeswoman says the agency’s policy is to make “every reasonable effort” to get customers where they need to be if their reserved vehicle class isn’t available at the confirmed time.
“Every reasonable effort” ought not to be enough. If a customer has specified that he or she does not want an EV and the rental company agrees to guarantee an internal-combustion car but then fails to deliver one, the remedy needs to be much more than a shrug or some Scrooge-like voucher. Apart from anything else, there may be safety issues in renting to a novice EV driver. If the non-EV guarantee has to come with a premium, well okay.
Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr told Wall Street analysts in August that corporate demand for the rentals has picked up in the past couple of months since he pitched them to fellow CEOs as a “very real way” to meet new sustainability disclosure rules from the Securities and Exchange Commission and others.
So once again, “demand” for EVs is being stimulated by bureaucratic fiat, not true customer choice.
Nicholas Cicio, a part-time Uber driver in Philadelphia, rented a Tesla from Hertz for a week this summer under the companies’ partnership. It was cheaper than other rentals and Uber pays more per ride for EVs, he says.
Cheaper than other rentals, eh? I wonder why.
The car was only 50% charged when he rented it, he says. That didn’t worry him initially. But the battery drained more quickly than he expected. On the second day of the rental, the car died on a busy street when he was half a mile from a charging station.>
Hertz sent a tow truck, but it couldn’t get into the garage at the first charging station. Two more stops were a bust. They drove 20 minutes outside the city to find a Tesla supercharging station, he says. The 25-year-old hasn’t rented an EV since.
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When I rented mine at RDU it was the only option available.
2 weeks later I had to return to Raleigh. Again Hertz only had Teslas. I rented from Avis.
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I’m curious - can someone go to Hertz website and try to book a car at RDU and see if it gives ICE options? Not sure if I just got unlucky twice or if they went whole hog there.
I tried but I can’t get off the Italy site for love or money.
DON’T let them eat cake.
- RFK Jr -
I got unlucky twice, or they flagged me since my account is still associated with my last firm.
Probably the latter.
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What better way to make sure that nobody wants an EV, than to let them drive one?
Seriously, many of the greenies that sought out and bought an EV, aren't buying another one when buying their next new car. Almost 30%, IIRC. They're buying hybrids or pure IC.
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IT definitely seems like the product is ahead of the infrastructure. Call me in a few years. (Though actually, with the type of driving I do, an electric car would probably not be an issue)
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The product is not ahead of its infrastructure, it's a product that is being misused. EV's were not uncommon in NYC in the early 1900's. What made sense then, still makes sense today...In limited applications, they work fine, although whether they are economically feasible is debatable.
For much of the driving that many Americans do, they're not feasible. Economically or practical. And may never be.
Always remember, Operation Valkyrie was an act of sedition.
Warning: I post things that interest me. Read and comment at your own discretion. -
@Jolly said in My first drive of an EV:
.In limited applications, they work fine, although whether they are economically feasible is debatable.
For much of the driving that many Americans do, they're not feasible. Economically or practical. And may never be.
I agree with your first two sentences. The last sentence, I do not agree with that.
I predict in 20 years, there will be battery technology for cars that will allow 800-1000 miles per charge, and the recharge rate will be no more than 10 minutes.
(I guess that only addresses the practical part of your statement. LOL Economically, I am not 100% sure, but my "crystal ball" tells me that it will be economical as worldwide economy of scale (and technical improvement) for these vehicles continues.
I think of big screen TV's and computers and how they have improved so much while dropping in price (vs. Inflation))
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@taiwan_girl said in My first drive of an EV:
IT definitely seems like the product is ahead of the infrastructure. Call me in a few years. (Though actually, with the type of driving I do, an electric car would probably not be an issue)
We did some shopping a Meijer this morning. They are installing a 10-unit Tesla station. But I still don't want to take half an hour to charge my car.
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@Rainman said in My first drive of an EV:
Jon, your #2 bothers me just a bit. I rely on the brake lights of the car in front of me for obvious reasons. If the brake lights don't come on, I may plow into you if I'm slightly distracted or something like dark rainy night driving. Personally, I always consider turning on my brake lights with a gentle push of the pedal just so the person behind me knows I'm slowing down. That's why I hate tailgaters, I always figure they're not that good in reacting to driving circumstances as they think they are.
Apparently this has been an issue with some brands.
DON’T let them eat cake.
- RFK Jr -
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@George-K said in My first drive of an EV:
@jon-nyc that's interesting.
I love the adaptive cruise control in my car. I use it all the time, even in heavy traffic. I wonder how the brake lights function with it enabled.
I'm pretty sure the brake lights come on with mine - at least, the break light indicator showed. I don't use it because I hate having somebody else brake for me.
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@George-K said in My first drive of an EV:
I wonder how the brake lights function with it enabled.
Asked a friend who is kind of knowledgeable about this, and he said,
"Federal motor vehicle safety standards require the brake lamps to illuminate whenever the service brakes are applied whether they're being applied by the driver or by the vehicle."
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Fun to drive, tons of bells and whistles. Exhilarating performance. Interesting not to have to hit the brakes to stop. You really have to adjust your expectations to the way the car’s features work. The autopilot put me in Tesla jail because I didn’t comply with its demands. It’s different.
