>Tesla has an 8-year, 100,000 mile warranty on its battery packs, and there’s still a good bit of that battery warranty remaining on this particular car, assuming Tesla will honor it on a used rental car.
This feels like a load-bearing assumption that makes or breaks the thesis of the article that deserves more than being an assumption.
The model 3 warranty on Tesla's website does say that it covers ownership transfer, but who knows what language is in the Hertz purchase agreement.
Well... the article goes on to say pretty much at the end...
"For what it’s worth, there are a ton of used Teslas on the Hertz Car Sales site, but anything priced this cheaply shows well over six digits on the odometer, and isn’t nearly as appealing. It’s unclear if this Redditor just got a particularly good deal, or if Hertz is just trying to sell everything not nailed down before the end of the calendar year."
I mean, if this is what the article is predicated on... seems weakly reported, lets just say.
It’s Jalopnik, it’s basically guaranteed to be poorly sourced and usually not supported with more evidence than a single tweet or Reddit post. Half the article is a ramble about the author never actually trying a Tesla.
The Hertz situation is in my opinion more their own fault vs Tesla. I’ve rented Teslas from them every time they were available when traveling in like 10-12 cities and all of them were poorly handled by local staff imho. As a Tesla owner from back when there was long wait lists (aka before the price cuts), I do sympathize with the insane depreciation aspect though.
First, I think they were just too far ahead of the market. I don’t think there are enough EV owners out there for this to work well.
I wouldn’t mind renting an EV, I’ve done it. But that’s because I’m an owner. I wouldn’t expect any random ICE owner to be ready to just accept one.
But from talking to my local Hertz (I asked him about this when I had to rent from them last year) basically no one in my area wants them. I assume very few of their customers are existing owners.
On top of that I know that they’ve had big problems because even though they’re saving a ton of normal maintenance the cost of scratch and dent/fender bender stuff is way higher than expected since only Tesla sells Tesla parts. Makes me think going with another brand would’ve been smarter on this specific point.
There’s of course anti anti-EV sentiment out there combined with anti-Musk stuff now. There’s no way that’s helping.
I think renting EVs is a good idea. I understand they chose Tesla both because they have the volume and the charging network. But I think that bit them on repairs and sentiment.
Mostly I think they were just a couple years too early. I think they thought the market would move faster than it has. I thought it would.
Once more drivers are used to EVs a lot of the problems go away. Then all your left with is charging and repair costs, both fully solvable.
> First, I think they were just too far ahead of the market. I don’t think there are enough EV owners out there for this to work well.
This is exactly the problem. They do zero education of substance to help a non-EV driver get used to the experience. If I wasn’t already an experienced EV driver (or intentionally using the rental as an extended test drive), I’d be super pissed personally as they really leave you hanging.
Sounds like a good way to go to jail, when Hertz sells you the car and then reports it as stolen to the police. Hertz does this very, very frequently to paying customers.
Wasn't that Hertz reporting rental cars as stolen, because Hertz lost track of them and assumed that the last renter had never returned them?
This would be Hertz selling cars. Even if they later mistakenly reported them as stolen the buyer should not be at risk of jail because the car would be registered to the buyer in the state's records.
If Hertz can't handle a simple rental transaction correctly without calling the police and resulting in a false arrest, I'm certainly not going to trust them to handle a car sale correctly.
I bought a used Nissan Versa from Hertz and regretted it immensely. Not only did the CVT transmission go on me (it took a while for my year's class action lawsuit, but they did offer me ... $1k on a new Nissan. No thanks), but Hertz is terrible at their maintenance and uses the cheapest parts possible.
The only good thing about Teslas from Hertz is that there aren't any third party parts to cheap out on, but I still wouldn't trust a Tesla that was maintained by Hertz.
I'm always unbelievably pissed off when I reserve a premium tier of car at SFO for a business trip, and Hertz tries to stick me with a Tesla, as if it is a premium car (horrible interior build quality), and with the assumption I have time to install apps and figure out how to use car charging infrastructure.
The Tesla is not the kind of car I'd like to just jump into for a two day trip, but the neither the car charger or key card entry requires an app, or is particularly weird. You touch the key card to the door column to open or lock, and you plug the charger in.
But the interior build and the touchpad interface mean it'll never be a top choice. It's just awful.
Maybe I want the novelty of trying out an electric car on a business trip. But far more likely I just want a bog ordinary car that I can drive from point A to point B.
Conversely, I get frustrated when I ask for a long range electric car and they either only have ICE cars or they have, like, a Bolt (an EV that I love, but long range it is not).
At the same price point Teslas have a very spartan and cheap feeling interiors compared to almost any European manufacturer.
Sitting on a Mercedes CLA is much more comfortable than any Tesla around US$ 45k. It becomes even more disparaging when you go higher on price, a Tesla Model S at US$ 73k interior looks dreadful compared to any Volvo/Audi/Mercedes/BMW at the same price.
It's not even a nice looking minimalism, it's just spartan and cheap looking/feeling.
So I only rent EVs when I travel. I specifically seek out Teslas, as I love driving them (I have two), but any EV works for me.
Besides the Tesla business model being, essentially, a huge flex from previous leadership that Elon and team were happy to enable, there were always numerous problems with renting Teslas at scale:
1. The experience of using a Tesla is unlike any other car out there. No other car lacks an engine/HVDC start button, for example. This hurt Hertz in both directions: time-stressed business travelers (many of whom don't have EVs at home) get fed up with trying to get them out of the parking lot (where a surprisingly high number of accidents involving Teslas have occurred), and leisure travelers who _do_ have time struggle to operate the car during their trip.
2. Charging. Everything about charging frustrates renters. Finding superchargers. Waiting 20+ minutes to charge, regardless of what's in the vicinity. (Many superchargers, especially in small markets, are behind malls.) Dealing with non-Tesla networks. (You don't need an app and an account to gas up an ICE vehicle.) Charging at scale is much better than it was when Hertz doubled down on this in 2022 but just isn't there yet.
2b. Many Hertz centers (including airport-attached ones!) didn't have charging infrastructure of their own. This was extremely problematic when a time-stressed renter decides to one-way their car to some other center with this predicament. Those EVs are either taken out of rotation for the day, which is extremely suboptimal, or, worse, are rented out at whatever state of charge they have. I've been assigned cars with a 2% SoC before. This is no big deal for me if there's a charging center nearby, but a renter who is IDGAF about their car (many/most business travelers) will take that sucker out of the lot and be calling roadside in an hour because their car died. This would never happen with a n ICE (since most people know how gas gauges work).
3. Repairing Teslas at the speeds that rental car companies require isn't possible without extra staff and a Tesla Service Center nearby. Tesla is Apple-like in their parts inventory. IIRC, You need to be a Tesla-approved service center to order parts from them. Once you do get the parts, (1) of my list applies again. EVs from legacy OEMs don't have this problem, but you still need techs who are certified in handling HV and EV drivetrains to work on them. That costs money, and car rental companies operate on razor thin margins.
The saddest thing about all of this is that Tesla wrote a really cool adapter for their car key auth flow that enabled Hertz renters to add the car to the Tesla app during their rental. The card key wasn't required when this was done. This was ONLY added to Hertz vehicles. I don't think Tesla intends on extending this to the rest of the fleet.
I primarily rent with Avis (who, unlike Hertz, still has a reasonably sized EV fleet). Having to use the card key for everything is annoying, especially in cold weather climates.
Which brings me to my last point. Hertz is divesting ALL of their EVs, not just their Tesla ones. It used to be stupidly easy to rent an EV with Hertz. These days, you'll be lucky to rent an EV with them at even their largest centers.
That said, assuming this next administration at least tries to continue subsidizing national charging networks and EV production (unlikely, especially if their EV or bust by 2030 mandate is rolled back), I hope that Hertz and others revisit EVs at scale in the future.
Readit News
This feels like a load-bearing assumption that makes or breaks the thesis of the article that deserves more than being an assumption.
The model 3 warranty on Tesla's website does say that it covers ownership transfer, but who knows what language is in the Hertz purchase agreement.
"For what it’s worth, there are a ton of used Teslas on the Hertz Car Sales site, but anything priced this cheaply shows well over six digits on the odometer, and isn’t nearly as appealing. It’s unclear if this Redditor just got a particularly good deal, or if Hertz is just trying to sell everything not nailed down before the end of the calendar year."
I mean, if this is what the article is predicated on... seems weakly reported, lets just say.
Compared to over 7,000 Toyotas.
And the Teslas aren't particularly aggressively priced. Which makes me question the validity of this entire article.
I wouldn’t mind renting an EV, I’ve done it. But that’s because I’m an owner. I wouldn’t expect any random ICE owner to be ready to just accept one.
But from talking to my local Hertz (I asked him about this when I had to rent from them last year) basically no one in my area wants them. I assume very few of their customers are existing owners.
On top of that I know that they’ve had big problems because even though they’re saving a ton of normal maintenance the cost of scratch and dent/fender bender stuff is way higher than expected since only Tesla sells Tesla parts. Makes me think going with another brand would’ve been smarter on this specific point.
There’s of course anti anti-EV sentiment out there combined with anti-Musk stuff now. There’s no way that’s helping.
I think renting EVs is a good idea. I understand they chose Tesla both because they have the volume and the charging network. But I think that bit them on repairs and sentiment.
Mostly I think they were just a couple years too early. I think they thought the market would move faster than it has. I thought it would.
Once more drivers are used to EVs a lot of the problems go away. Then all your left with is charging and repair costs, both fully solvable.
This is exactly the problem. They do zero education of substance to help a non-EV driver get used to the experience. If I wasn’t already an experienced EV driver (or intentionally using the rental as an extended test drive), I’d be super pissed personally as they really leave you hanging.
This would be Hertz selling cars. Even if they later mistakenly reported them as stolen the buyer should not be at risk of jail because the car would be registered to the buyer in the state's records.
Dead Comment
The only good thing about Teslas from Hertz is that there aren't any third party parts to cheap out on, but I still wouldn't trust a Tesla that was maintained by Hertz.
But the interior build and the touchpad interface mean it'll never be a top choice. It's just awful.
Deleted Comment
I think they were just too early in trying to put a lot of them in the standard rotation.
You’re not stuck with Tesla chargers. But they’re kind of neat because you only need to authenticate once, and not on every charge.
The rest of the criticism, I believe, applies to EVs in general.
Sitting on a Mercedes CLA is much more comfortable than any Tesla around US$ 45k. It becomes even more disparaging when you go higher on price, a Tesla Model S at US$ 73k interior looks dreadful compared to any Volvo/Audi/Mercedes/BMW at the same price.
It's not even a nice looking minimalism, it's just spartan and cheap looking/feeling.
Besides the Tesla business model being, essentially, a huge flex from previous leadership that Elon and team were happy to enable, there were always numerous problems with renting Teslas at scale:
1. The experience of using a Tesla is unlike any other car out there. No other car lacks an engine/HVDC start button, for example. This hurt Hertz in both directions: time-stressed business travelers (many of whom don't have EVs at home) get fed up with trying to get them out of the parking lot (where a surprisingly high number of accidents involving Teslas have occurred), and leisure travelers who _do_ have time struggle to operate the car during their trip.
2. Charging. Everything about charging frustrates renters. Finding superchargers. Waiting 20+ minutes to charge, regardless of what's in the vicinity. (Many superchargers, especially in small markets, are behind malls.) Dealing with non-Tesla networks. (You don't need an app and an account to gas up an ICE vehicle.) Charging at scale is much better than it was when Hertz doubled down on this in 2022 but just isn't there yet.
2b. Many Hertz centers (including airport-attached ones!) didn't have charging infrastructure of their own. This was extremely problematic when a time-stressed renter decides to one-way their car to some other center with this predicament. Those EVs are either taken out of rotation for the day, which is extremely suboptimal, or, worse, are rented out at whatever state of charge they have. I've been assigned cars with a 2% SoC before. This is no big deal for me if there's a charging center nearby, but a renter who is IDGAF about their car (many/most business travelers) will take that sucker out of the lot and be calling roadside in an hour because their car died. This would never happen with a n ICE (since most people know how gas gauges work).
3. Repairing Teslas at the speeds that rental car companies require isn't possible without extra staff and a Tesla Service Center nearby. Tesla is Apple-like in their parts inventory. IIRC, You need to be a Tesla-approved service center to order parts from them. Once you do get the parts, (1) of my list applies again. EVs from legacy OEMs don't have this problem, but you still need techs who are certified in handling HV and EV drivetrains to work on them. That costs money, and car rental companies operate on razor thin margins.
The saddest thing about all of this is that Tesla wrote a really cool adapter for their car key auth flow that enabled Hertz renters to add the car to the Tesla app during their rental. The card key wasn't required when this was done. This was ONLY added to Hertz vehicles. I don't think Tesla intends on extending this to the rest of the fleet.
I primarily rent with Avis (who, unlike Hertz, still has a reasonably sized EV fleet). Having to use the card key for everything is annoying, especially in cold weather climates.
Which brings me to my last point. Hertz is divesting ALL of their EVs, not just their Tesla ones. It used to be stupidly easy to rent an EV with Hertz. These days, you'll be lucky to rent an EV with them at even their largest centers.
That said, assuming this next administration at least tries to continue subsidizing national charging networks and EV production (unlikely, especially if their EV or bust by 2030 mandate is rolled back), I hope that Hertz and others revisit EVs at scale in the future.