The PERILS of Renting an EV

You might have seen that rental company Hertz is making a big push to rent EVs. It recently made the news that it’s scaling back, selling off a lot of those cars it bought a couple of years back and losing a lot of money in the process. As I had to rent a car recently, I thought I’d try a Hertz electric vehicle to understand the experience. Is it as easy as hiring a regular internal combustion engine car? Are there any benefits? What are the problems? And why did my experience end with me crawling down the motorway with no heating in the height of winter?

#bigcar

[heiner]

That's ridiculous. You rent a car to go places and forget about it. The rental car should not become the central focus of your trip.

[GryphLane]

£53 for to charge it up themselves is an absolute extortion

[Ethans]

Sitting in a $65K car and being cold because you can’t afford to turn on the heat is a uniquely EV experience.

[jamesengland]

Hertz policy is forcing many users to charge the cars to a high level with EVERY rental. Bad idea.

[hktrader]

I found the same issues in UK with a rented EV that I had in/around the west London area. As an Englishman living overseas, when I returned to UK - I tried a Polestar too. Quite liked the car but issues I found included - some charge points (when you can find them) required you to download their app to the app is only available to a UK registered a foreign registered one like mine (even with data !) - so I could not download the app to use their charge network.
Another network I found would not accept my HSBC foreign credit card to be I moved on from there too.
Finally found charging at a regular gas station that had a single charge point but BIG warning signs saying you will be fined if you stay there more than an hour (!). My car needed at least 2hrs to charge to 80% - meaning I had to leave there before the hour and before the car was charged to where I needed it for my journey. On that trip I did around 300miles total.

Needless to say on a recent return trip to UK, I rented a regular petrol car and had no issues at all covering the 1200miles, filling up whenever needed!

[rockymount]

Not only did Hertz announce back in January that it was selling off 20K Tesla's from it's fleet, but now the rental giant is also abandoning plans to buy 60K Polestar EV's.

[st-ex]

In June of 2019, I rented a Tesla Model 3 for 4 days. I was so impressed and delighted by that experience, that I ordered one the next day.
The rental wasn't cheap...but the local company I rented for charged me NOTHING for returning the car with a quite depleted battery. The car was immediately hooked-up to a level 2 charger.... and the charge would have cost them a few (single-digit) bucks.
Not including charging the battery in the price is a major marketing error of Hertz!

[rdvil]

Renting a normal car at Hertz, especially in the US, is so easy and nice, almost the favourite part of any business trip. Renting an EV however...only did it once, not by choice, and absolutely hated everything about it. It was a rainy night and coming out of the garage I realized I don't know how to operate the wipers on a Model 3, and also unlike on any other modern cars, raindrops just congregate on the mirrors of that Tesla. Most uncomfortable drive ever. On the other hand, did rent a C4e in Brüssels once for 2 days, and that was just a delight! Knew I didn't need to drive enough to worry about charging, and in a city that was the perfect vehicle. No stress at all.

[beem]

You are so British, I thought the whole USA scenario was some sort of roleplay. Even the shelves behind you look like BnQ units I had in my house in Ireland. I actually dug into your channel details to check location. Definitely my surprise of the year, that you're base in the US! Anyways Love the videos (in Terms of merit) and your voice. Very soothing after a stressful day. Greetings from Poland.

[shaywhelan]

I rented a Tesla Model Y in the South of France last October to try one with Europcar.Hated the ride, too firm. But, I was told, and did, that I could return the car with any level of charge. I received no additional charges for returning the car with quite a low amount of battery left.

[Chris.Davies]

2:47 - I did some research, and I was absolutely horrified to discover how much electricity costs in Britain. It's like a 3rd world country, with domestic electrons costing more than double the standard rate in New Zealand homes. Then I was even more horrified to discover that fast-charging rates are up to 8 time the NZ average - and this means that EVs charged at public fast chargers in the UK cost more to run than even a thirsty petrol car.

This on top of the pathetic and woefully insufficient charging stations (with many chargers not working) in the UK makes buying an EV there little more than personal and financial suicide. A Taycan losing 30, 000+ pounds a year in resale "value" is simply insane.

Here in NZ, fast chargers are often free (yes - free) and there are no waits to use them. And normal charging is usually at about 70 cents/kwh (More than double the domestic rate) - that's 34 pence, by the way. On top of this, we don't have freezing winters, and so battery performance is optimal at all times of the year.

[MyBrilliantChannel]

We rented a car in iceland, little petrol suzuki, was spot on. Filled it up and dropped it off when we were done. No range anxiety, studded tyres, heater. It was ideal. We'd of never of even been able to do half what we did with an EV in the time we had, i never remember seeing a charger to be honest. EVs have a place, maybe in 30 more years time. Great video :D

[jamesengland]

As everyone knows, the fastest car in the world is a hire car 😂

[matthewgodwin]

I don't know what puts me off an EV the most, the horrendous impracticality of trying to charge the damn things, or the putrid vile spewing from the EVangelists in the comments section. Every single time somebody reports the true reality of living with an EV, the trolls bombard them with insults and abuse. It's so utterly childish. The more I learn about life with an EV, the less I want to get involved with them. I'm sticking with petrol and diesel cars. I don't want anything to do with battery operated vehicles.

[Spannertech]

Ugh that’s a harsh experience. I too am a Brit living in the US and have been driving EVs since 2017. We recently rented an EV from Europcar for a trip in Northern Italy. The only positive thing about the experience was that they didn’t care what charge level it was at when returned. The “will charger actually work when we get to it” plus the awfulness of charging apps made for a stressful few days. Switched to a gas car for the second road portion of the trip.. one tank of gas and no stress. Still a ways to go…

[krfett]

You’re speaking out of my mind here. I was on a business trip in Berlin recently, I booked a small combustion engine car with unlimited miles at Europcar. When picking it up at the BER airport, I was asked if I’d go farther than 250 miles. I was surprised by that limit but it was explained with offering a larger EV that I don’t (!) have to recharge when returning. I wasn’t so sure because I was also visiting friends in the evening on this three day trip. In the end, I only traveled 60 miles, but it was mid January in Berlin. I didn’t know where I could charge and how much the mileage of the given EV would drop using heat, heated seats and so on. I passed and got an Opel Corsa with an automatic gearbox (so was basically a sickness on wheels) but at least I knew I’d get to my destination.

[harapaki]

exactly.. LONG LIVE the reliable internal combustion engine!!!!

[markwoodley]

Found myself in a similar circumstance recently. My wife's knee injury from a MVA last February began troubling her and we decided to rent a vehicle while on vacation. I'm not sure if the rental agency had EV's in their fleet but for ease of use and peace of mind I rented a hybrid vehicle. No fuss, no muss. Enjoy watching your videos!

[martinlanza]

In Australia both Sixt and Hertz have bailed out of EV's - Hertz had a huge multi year purchasing contract with Tesla which they terminated.
Both companies cited these reasons:
Customers didn't want EV's
Depreciation was too high
Repair costs were too high

[timothycarpenter]

My experience of hertz EV hire was excellent. I returned the car with around 75 percent charge and was charged per kilowatt, came out at around 14 british pounds. This was hertz Bristol airport xmas 2023.