Comment by macspoofing | Hacker News Reader

Comment by macspoofing | Hacker News Reader

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>In an alternative world, Hertz could have become _the_ EV rental company if they turned every rental office they have in the US to a fast charging center, and told customers "Look, just drive this thing and dont worry about returning it at a certain charge level". Such an action could have actually had a positive impact.

I think you just demonstrated exactly the thinking that got them into trouble. EV rental business, turns out, has superficial benefits, but major underlying issues. They failed because of the basic economics of EV rentals: maintenance costs and depreciation. Also, there are massive challenges with building out a charging network as well. And yes, they pretty much have to give the option to customers to not return car fully charged, especially business customers. For business, taking 15 minutes to tank up is reason enough to overpay for the option to not do that, and that's 15 minutes - for EVs, charging up is a 3 hour exercise. Who would sit at a charging station for 3 hours (so now you need to be 5-6 hours before your flight at the airport?)?

>Instead they focussed on "technology that will automatically open the doors for the users, adjust their seats, adds their favorite playlist"... I mean

They didn't fail because of that.

A 3 hour charge is pretty far out of the norm in the modern world. Most EVs will go from 20-80% in 20 minutes or so if you're at a reasonably modern fast charger.

I think a big part of the problem is that Hertz did a terrible job of instructing people new to EVs about the quirks of the platform. Charging to 100% is almost never necessary or even a good idea. It takes so much time that you're better off just making one more charging stop instead. The built-in computer in the cars is excellent at figuring out where to charge and even does stuff like pre-warm the batteries right before you arrive to make the charging go as smoothly as possible. But of course if Hertz doesn't tell you this you instead have a panic attack as you suddenly realize you have no idea how to find a charger in your area. It doesn't help that there are two competing standards currently so you have to know which kind of plug your car has and where the available chargers are. Of course the on-board computer has all of that information, assuming you know to ask.

Given how many stories there are of people wandering around looking for chargers, it is clear that Hertz did a terrible job of informing customers of how their cars worked.

The problem is these companies ask you to return the car at at least 70%. Or levy a 20-30 dollar charging fee. So that only leaves say 10% of margin between the optimal charging level (80%) and the minimum level at return. I won't want to take the risk of being charged a charging fee and so will instead try to over-charge.

I am ok if they charge reasonable rates (like say $2 per 10% of battery) for the recharge. But that's not what they do.

>Given how many stories there are of people wandering around looking for chargers, it is clear that Hertz did a terrible job of informing customers of how their cars worked.

If that was the core issue, that's solvable. They didn't fail because of that either.

> They failed because of the basic economics of EV rentals: maintenance costs and depreciation

That sounds like a Tesla problem, not an EV problem.

There's no particular need for body work on an EV to be particularly expensive, and the depreciation issue is from Tesla changing their new prices.

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