Comment by ajmurmann | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ajmurmann | Hacker News Reader

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Why is there even a counter? With Hertz Gold we just get a text message that tells us where the car is. We get in. Papers and key are in there and those get checked for about ten seconds at the exit. That's it. So much more effective for everyone. Budget's equivalent has a weird board that someone needs to update with the info. So much more effective for company and customers. However, for some reason that's the premium experience for which you party the loyalty program. It makes no sense to me that this isn't the heavily encouraged experience. I'd want to make this the only experience so that I have happier customers and can fire large portions of the counter staff. Ideally the paperwork that's in the car right now would be a PDF as well, so that you can lay off the people who do the printing.

When I return cars at my local Enterprise it's so absurd. I have to park the car to then go into a little house where I wait in line to talk to a guy in a suit who then runs out to check on the car to then come back in and tell me we are all set. Hertz at SFO had people with iPads where you park the car and you are out in under a minute. Why doesn't Enterprise fire half the guys in suits and put the remaining ones in yellow vests into the parking lot and get rid of the little building?!

This industry couldn't seem more ready for disruption.

I don't know how popular car sharing is in the US, but it's common in a lot of European cities, and there's literally nothing to renting a car (either short term or multiple days, admittedly, not at great prices for multiple days) than choosing one in an app and driving off. They validate your driver's license when you sign up.

I suspect the reason the counter is there is to upsell people, and that car rental companies make significantly more money because of that bad experience. But god, I would and do pay a premium to not have to deal with that crap.

These services tend to cater for the people who reside permanently in a particular city / country though. So not really useful for a traveler.

I used to use Drive Now as they were in ‘Europe’ (I.e. geographically spread across the continent) and they were even at the airport in Helsinki. Then they pulled out of London and Helsinki (and others) where they had been ubiquitous claiming that it was un-profitable. Before that it was ideal though as you could unlock a car at any airport or city with the same app, credit card, agreement etc. And the cars were basically identical too!

Now I have no desire to sign up for a different app/service etc in each city in a language I probably won’t understand and have to get familiar with how they operate (where can you park it, for how long, etc) so it’s back to the familiar rental car desks.

I hadn't tracked which cities they'd pulled out of, and have used them in a few places.

But my point was more that there's no structural reason for the rental friction, other than to upsell people. The risk profile, and things that need to be handled are basically identical for car sharing and car rental, and car sharing makes the process seamless, while car rental makes it intentionally annoying.

Absolutely - that is indeed a valid point. It would seem though that these sharing operations seem to be going after a different - perhaps newer and bigger, market slice than the traditional agencies.

It would indeed be great if they could bring this new way of operation to those too.

Isn't car sharing significantly more expensive?

Yes, but not insanely so. A compact car for a week with Share Now is €42/day, and with Sixt it's €32/day. In a lot of cases, I'd happily pay that for the 1-2 hours of saved time in not dealing with the rental company, or booking things in advance.

I know specifically a lot of my friends who basically fall into that category: don't own a car, and decide same-day that they want to do a weekend trip, and would rather pay €20 more to not deal with contract, aggressive up-selling, pick up and drop off, refueling, inspection, etc.

It usually is, but there is a reasonable ‘convenience factor’ that sometimes tipped it.

Of course, multi-day long road trip in another country that I plan in advance, hit up Kayak and the major agencies, no question.

How does the pickup work with car sharing? Do I have to the owners house?

I also have to admit that probably 90% of my annoyances comes from a mental issue I have where it really, really bothers me when I think something could be more efficient than it is, when I'm not impacted.

I think that's not the kind of car sharing they mean.

The car belongs to a car sharing company. In Munich for example there is Share Now, Miles, Sixt Share, and some specialized ones. The cars are parked all over the city in normal parking spots on the side of the road. Using the app, you find the closest one, usually you'll find 2 or 3 within 500 meters (strongly depending where you are). You select it in the app, walk up to the car, use the app to unlock and are ready to go.

They are usually paid by the minute, but there is also packages for multiple hours or days. But I think for renting over multiply days, normal car renting is better. Sixt is pretty good. Takes no more than 5 minutes to pick up the car. You don't reserve a specific type, but a class of car. And when I reserve the cheapest class, until now I was upgraded to the higher class every single time. They even have a "Lucky Class" which will explicitly get you whatever they have available, up to the really nice ones.

Ah, thanks! I assumed they were talking about something like Turo which is like Airbnb for cars. We used to have something like you described with Smart cars in Portland. Zip car also used to be like this.

Sixt has the most streamlined rental of the major German rental companies (if you have their member card), but their prices aren't really lower than DriveNow or Miles, with still significantly more friction.

No, "car sharing" in this context is by large companies -- the main one here is a joint venture between Daimler and BMW.

Inside of the city, they can be parked in any public parking (mostly on street), and you can find them in the app. Just checked, to give a point of reference, and there are two cars available within 200 meters of my apartment, and 7 available within 500 meters. There are also special parking lots at the airport where car sharing cars park.

You can also have one delivered to you at a particular time, but that costs €30, and makes it where a taxi would be cheaper.

Oh, we had that for a while with Smart Cars in Portland and I think Zip cars were similar. However, I've never seen them at the airport and had never considered renting them for multiple days. I think with how car centric the US is you frequently don't just need a car for a specific ride, but multiple days to not get stuck.

My company used to use National. It was so nice. You could just walk into the garage, get into a car, and leave. I used the National Emerald Aisle for years, domestic and overseas, and also was able to use it for personal travel (on my own dime of course).

Then we switched to Avis and now I have to wait at the counter for someone to help me. Last time I traveled I had to wait like 20 minutes because the line was long. I hate it so much.

Sign up for preferred.

Honestly, even the preferred Experience at Avis leaves a lot to be desired. I’m switching back over to Hertz after being a National (Emerald for almost 10 years) and Avis (President’s Club for the last 8 years or so) and having horrible experience after horrible experience this year.

I’ve literally had Avis come and get a vehicle that I still had a week left on its rental from a hotel parking lot…and still can’t get an explanation from Avis as to why (or, even better yet, why they charged me for that extra week!)

>Why is there even a counter?

Yes! It makes no frickin' sense in an age of internet booking, and this is why I, too, use Hertz Gold. As much as Hertz was raked over the coals in that recent Twitter post (seemingly justifiably), I have generally have pretty good experiences with them and hope to never again stand around at a counter having a moronic experience instructing somebody else to re-type all the information I've already typed in when I made the reservation in the first place.

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