Interesting car rental (electric or dino juice?) experience

[Leo Enticknap]

My wife, child, and I are taking a vacation in a few months' time to visit our relatives in England. As we're going to have to cover a lot of ground to get to all of them during the trip (including Bognor Regis, Lutterworth, Leicestershire, and Craster, Northumberland), and with three of us in the party making train and plane tickets horrifically expensive (multiply by three every time we go anywhere), we decided to go the car rental route.

I noticed something interesting when booking it. Hertz are virtually giving electric car rentals away. Their website offered me a Tesla for literally around half the price of a Vauxhall Astra (the British equivalent of, say, a Nissan Rogue or a Honda HR-V), and the other EVs on offer were also between a third and a half cheaper than their gas- (sorry, petrol-) powered equivalents.

I had to opt for the more pricey dino juice guzzler, because I am not confident about chargers being available when and where we'd need them, and I don't want to waste what precious little time we'll have stuck at a Burger King in a service station on the M1, waiting two hours for the car to charge. I paid $1,100 for the Astra for a 10-day rental (not bad, I thought, given that this is for collection and return at Heathrow, and includes a child seat and full comp insurance), but I could have had a Tesla Model 3 for $680.

Given that the Tesla costs over twice as much to buy as the Astra, what is going on here? Is there some political "nudging" going on (introduce people who have never driven an EV to them, and they'll fall in love with it), have Hertz done a deal with Musk whereby they buy a container ship full of the things for a tiny fraction of what you or I would pay, do they believe that they can pass on that much in lower maintenance costs, or a combination of all of these?

[Frank Cox]

Flintstones-car-melville-2020.jpg

How about one of these?

A friend of mine (the guy in the driver's seat) built that for his grandkids a little while back. (It's pedal powered.)

[Leo Enticknap]

In northern England in the middle of winter? Global warming would have to progress a little further before I'd be willing to brave that!

[Marcel Birgelen]

Due to COVID and regular, somewhat-self-inflicted travel woes (I'm looking at you, Brexit), I've opted to stay away from the Island for quite a few years now, so I have no recent information about the general state of charging infrastructure on said Island.

That being said, I've driven a Tesla Model S back and a plugin hybrid for quite a few years. I didn't like the Tesla experience at all and also wasn't really convinced with the plugin-part of the experience of the plugin-hybrid... So, now I'm back to "normal" hybrid, without a plug and it works fine for the time being.

I'm not claiming that electric vehicles don't work, but I still think they currently fit all use-cases. E.g., if you primarily use your car to commute from home to work and have dedicated/exclusive charging opportunities on either side, then it may work out beautifully for you. Combine with some state-sponsored solar panels at home and all is fine. But, if you travel around to more or less random destinations, your life gets ugly, very fast. And while the charging opportunities are vastly increasing in most of the "western world", so are the amount of electric vehicles on the road.

In my time with "plug in" EVs, the only -almost perfect- experience I've had was in Norway, where there were sufficient chargers all around the country and all of them were FREE and didn't require any obscure subscription or semi-religious ceremony to be activated. Otherwise, the experience was usually somewhere between meh and borderline madness:

• Despite having like 7 mobile phone apps, 4 different subscriptions to all kinds of "charging clubs" that work together with 434256.4 different EV-charging providers, about half of the time, the damn charging station simply wouldn't accept any of my "payment options" and would require a subscription to yet another obscure service. This experience was especially true in Belgium, where about half of the charging stations needed a subscription to e.g. the local power company... just stupid.
• Most chargers aren't "power chargers", so be prepared for lengthily charging sessions, if stuff works.
• Many chargers don't provide cables of them own, so you need to plug in your own cable.
• There often are errors in communication between the charging station and the car, most likely due to the result that most of those charging stations seem to be programmed by complete incompetent idiots. Over the years I must have encountered hundreds of charging stations displaying some kind of error or erratic behavior.
• In continuation of crappy software engineering: In order for your $500+ charging cable not to be stolen, they're usually locked at both the car and the charger side. I've had several instances where the charging station would not release the cable... In most cases, this could be resolved by a call to the service provider of said charging station, but I also had one case, where I had to wait two hours for someone to show up physically at the charging station to do some magic and another situation where I had to leave the cable behind, because nobody would answer the phone...
• Many of those charging stations that DO provide cables, have cables so short or positioned them in such a way, you often need to park like an idiot in order to be able to reach the charging port.
• I have lost the count on the times that I arrived at a parking location that should provide charging, only to find them either all being in-use or inoperable.
• I've lost the count of times I arrived at a hotel, while clearly indicating that I was arriving with an EV, only to find out that "all chargers were already taken", or the goddamned thing simply didn't work for whatever reason and nobody could figure out why.

I could continue this rant for hours. I'm not against electric vehicles out of any principle, other than that this whole industry seems to be runned by incompetent idiots, which make the experience far more miserable than would otherwise be necessary. This includes car manufacturers, charging station providers and anything in between...

So, for now, I think you opted for the safe bet by choosing for a classic dinosaur-juice burning style vehicle. While they may eventually blow up the planet, for now they're simply the only reasonable choice to get you reliably from A to B, especially if time is a limited resource.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

On renting an electric car... be sure you know exactly what the typical range is on the Tesla you might rent, they are not all the same. Know exactly where the charge stations are located AND how long it takes to recharge it. Also, keep in mind you may have to wait in line to recharge. You will also likely have to pay for the recharge, so know what the rate on that is.
Also, I would never buy a Tesla. They have the cheapest crappiest all plastic interior ever devised!!

[Allan Young]

I noticed something interesting when booking it. Hertz are virtually giving electric car rentals away. Their website offered me a Tesla for literally around half the price of a Vauxhall Astra (the British equivalent of, say, a Nissan Rogue or a Honda HR-V), and the other EVs on offer were also between a third and a half cheaper than their gas- (sorry, petrol-) powered equivalents.

Wouldn't this simply be down to supply and demand? On several occasions hiring cars in the States I've booked cars that cost significantly more to purchase than ones that were more expensive to rent. Most memorably, last year I rented a Mustang GT convertible out of Atlanta airport for less than the cost of a "full size" car.

[Carsten Kurz]

Some governments may force or nudge manufacturers, car rentals, etc. to improve their fleet CO2 footprint by making electric cars cheaper/more attractive.

- Carsten

[Leo Enticknap]

On renting an electric car... be sure you know exactly what the typical range is on the Tesla you might rent, they are not all the same. Know exactly where the charge stations are located AND how long it takes to recharge it. Also, keep in mind you may have to wait in line to recharge. You will also likely have to pay for the recharge, so know what the rate on that is.

Which is exactly why I decided against it for this trip. And Marcel's horror stories about public chargers (other than in Norway) reinforces my belief that I made the right call.

Wouldn't this simply be down to supply and demand? On several occasions hiring cars in the States I've booked cars that cost significantly more to purchase than ones that were more expensive to rent. Most memorably, last year I rented a Mustang GT convertible out of Atlanta airport for less than the cost of a "full size" car.

I've found that in the US, rental companies will often try to foist a big SUV or pricey sports car on you if they have one on their lot and no-one booking it. In particular, one one trip to do an install in El Paso sticks in my mind: I booked a regular compact, but on arrival was told that I was getting a "free upgrade" to a BMW convertible. I politely declined, and asked for the compact. "Man, why would you turn down a set of wheels like that?", he persisted. I explained that I didn't want to park a car that effectively had "Steal me!" written all over it at a hotel that wasn't in the nicest part of town, or have to explain the gas purchases on my expense report for a vehicle with consumption that is likely measured in gallons per mile. He eventually got the point, and, very reluctantly, gave me a Nissan Kicks. I'm guessing that this was because he had demand that exceeded supply for compacts and sedans, but could not shift the more exotic vehicles.

[Allan Young]

I've found that in the US, rental companies will often try to foist a big SUV or pricey sports car on you if they have one on their lot and no-one booking it. In particular, one one trip to do an install in El Paso sticks in my mind: I booked a regular compact, but on arrival was told that I was getting a "free upgrade" to a BMW convertible. I politely declined, and asked for the compact. "Man, why would you turn down a set of wheels like that?", he persisted. I explained that I didn't want to park a car that effectively had "Steal me!" written all over it at a hotel that wasn't in the nicest part of town, or have to explain the gas purchases on my expense report for a vehicle with consumption that is likely measured in gallons per mile. He eventually got the point, and, very reluctantly, gave me a Nissan Kicks. I'm guessing that this was because he had demand that exceeded supply for compacts and sedans, but could not shift the more exotic vehicles.

Well, quite. So Hertz UK have a glut of electric vehicles, hence the low rental rate. We're basically saying the same thing, yes?

One of the more bizarre rental experiences I had was out of Houston airport. I spotted a 15-seater minibus available online for considerably less than an economy car. Assuming it was was glitch on the website or something, I went ahead and booked it and asked at the desk on arrival if I could downgrade to an economy car. Nope! They wanted a surcharge for the downgrade. So me and the missus ended up driving around Texas in a bloody minibus. Parking up wasn't fun.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

You could have made a fortune dropping off arriving passengers at their Hotels!!

[Mike Blakesley]

• Despite having like 7 mobile phone apps, 4 different subscriptions to all kinds of "charging clubs" that work together with 434256.4 different EV-charging providers, about half of the time, the damn charging station simply wouldn't accept any of my "payment options" and would require a subscription to yet another obscure service. This experience was especially true in Belgium, where about half of the charging stations needed a subscription to e.g. the local power company... just stupid.
• Most chargers aren't "power chargers", so be prepared for lengthily charging sessions, if stuff works.
• Many chargers don't provide cables of them own, so you need to plug in your own cable.
• There often are errors in communication between the charging station and the car, most likely due to the result that most of those charging stations seem to be programmed by complete incompetent idiots. Over the years I must have encountered hundreds of charging stations displaying some kind of error or erratic behavior.
• In continuation of crappy software engineering: In order for your $500+ charging cable not to be stolen, they're usually locked at both the car and the charger side. I've had several instances where the charging station would not release the cable... In most cases, this could be resolved by a call to the service provider of said charging station, but I also had one case, where I had to wait two hours for someone to show up physically at the charging station to do some magic and another situation where I had to leave the cable behind, because nobody would answer the phone...
• Many of those charging stations that DO provide cables, have cables so short or positioned them in such a way, you often need to park like an idiot in order to be able to reach the charging port.
• I have lost the count on the times that I arrived at a parking location that should provide charging, only to find them either all being in-use or inoperable.
• I've lost the count of times I arrived at a hotel, while clearly indicating that I was arriving with an EV, only to find out that "all chargers were already taken", or the goddamned thing simply didn't work for whatever reason and nobody could figure out why.

This electric-car thing is like the digital cinema thing all over again. Why don't we (as in, all these manufacturers) ever learn?

They had this brand new product and needed to design an infrastructure for it. Wouldn't you think they'd have taken the ONE thing that makes gas-powered cars so easy to rely on (the fact that they all have the same size hole in their butt to pump gas into) and adapt that for E-cars? No, they have to get all fancy and make it complicated.

I don't know why all commodity-based industry doesn't follow a one-size-fits-all model when it comes to disposables and consumables. It would make manufacturing more efficient (cheaper), and ownership so much easier (and probably a little cheaper).

But that would make too much sense, so it'll never happen.

[Frank Cox]

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[Frank Angel]

Yes, there is a lot of nudging going on. The CEO of Uber says by 2030 all Uber drivers will be required to have an electric car. Prior to it being mandatory, the company plans to will give incentives to both the drivers and the customer to choose an electric ride. Amazon will be the next to make some dramatic move in that direction. This probably will be how we do make the move to really significent moves to EVehicles in any significant numbers -- have all the fleets make that move first ...much easier at this stage of the game for large corps to go all-electric than for individuals.

[Marcel Birgelen]

This electric-car thing is like the digital cinema thing all over again. Why don't we (as in, all these manufacturers) ever learn?

They had this brand new product and needed to design an infrastructure for it. Wouldn't you think they'd have taken the ONE thing that makes gas-powered cars so easy to rely on (the fact that they all have the same size hole in their butt to pump gas into) and adapt that for E-cars? No, they have to get all fancy and make it complicated.

I don't know why all commodity-based industry doesn't follow a one-size-fits-all model when it comes to disposables and consumables. It would make manufacturing more efficient (cheaper), and ownership so much easier (and probably a little cheaper).

But that would make too much sense, so it'll never happen.

We can't even globally standardize the plug we use to charge mobile phones, because one company, with a fruit as a logo, thinks they're above the rest. There are usually one or more of those companies in every sector. Their reasoning is that they're "better" and that standards block "innovation". In the U.S. for example, until yesterday, there still was a battle between EV plugs... Over here in Europe, at least those plugs are mostly standardized since 2018, but it took some serious force from above to make that happen.

People may say that government mandated standards aren't good for the economy, but I beg to differ. If we've let the economy decide about common infrastructure, then your Ford would require different roads to drive on than your Honda... And you couldn't call your mom on an Android phone, with your iPhone...

Same with stuff like money. While there are many people that loathe such a thing as the Euro, most people seem to have forgotten how it worked out for the many people like me, living and working in between three countries. Keep in mind that your average European country is comparable in size to your average U.S. state, so being confined in a single country is seriously limiting your freedom of movement. Before we had a common currency, you needed to have three wallets, two or three accounts in two or three different countries and debit cards often wouldn't properly function between countries. Meanwhile, you constantly were ripped off by banks and their conversion fees... Or flashback a few years earlier, before the "Schengen Area" was established and you were constantly harassed at the border by over-eager border patrols. We got a taste of how fun that was, the last few years, when European countries started to close the border to each other because of COVID and the result was utter mayhem...

[Leo Enticknap]

Well, quite. So Hertz UK have a glut of electric vehicles, hence the low rental rate.

Yes, there is a lot of nudging going on.

The question is, how much of one and how much of the other.

It wouldn't surprise me if Hertz UK was overly optimistic in their expectations as to the development of charging infrastructure, when they decided to buy a crap ton (sorry, metric crap tonne) of Teslas. If you're only going to be traveling short distances in the 'burbs around Heathrow and are staying in a hotel with chargers, there would likely be no problem in renting one. But the mass transit (tube and buses) in London is so good, and parking so difficult (I haven't lived in London since 1992, but even then, roadside parking spots were rapidly becoming resident permit only), that you'd be unlikely to rent a car at all if you were making that sort of a trip. My guess is that the only people who do rent cars on arrival at Heathrow are those who need to drive a relatively long distance, to a destination that is not easy to get to any other way. And if that's what you're doing, the lack of charging infrastructure rules out an EV, hence Hertz struggling to find customers to rent their Teslas.