EV cars have fewer moving parts and maintenance items. Most notably there’s no need to replace the engine oil, and it’s rare to need to replace the brakes. Battery degradation is probably on par with engine rebuilds. Only limitation is maybe the tires due to the high torque and increased weight, which is exacerbated by it being a rental car. But Hertz could always just limit the torque in software. Vehicle maintenance is clearly cheaper for EV cars than ICE cars.
The biggest difference in cost of ownership though is the cost of gas. 80 kWH is much much cheaper than 25 L of gas, so the biggest savings from the EV car are felt by the person renting instead of Hertz. By switching back to ICE cars, people renting their cars will have to pay a lot more to drive, due to the increased fuel costs.
I’m not sure what economic calculations Hertz is doing here, they’re citing higher repair costs due to Tesla’s repair monopoly, and other people have mentioned the value depreciation of the car as battery prices go down. But the cynic in me says that Hertz can get away with renting a ICE car for the same price as an EV car and pass the increased cost of ownership of ICE cars onto the driver.
EV cars have fewer moving parts and maintenance items. Most notably there’s no need to replace the engine oil, and it’s rare to need to replace the brakes. Battery degradation is probably on par with engine rebuilds. Only limitation is maybe the tires due to the high torque and increased weight, which is exacerbated by it being a rental car. But Hertz could always just limit the torque in software. Vehicle maintenance is clearly cheaper for EV cars than ICE cars.
The biggest difference in cost of ownership though is the cost of gas. 80 kWH is much much cheaper than 25 L of gas, so the biggest savings from the EV car are felt by the person renting instead of Hertz. By switching back to ICE cars, people renting their cars will have to pay a lot more to drive, due to the increased fuel costs.
I’m not sure what economic calculations Hertz is doing here, they’re citing higher repair costs due to Tesla’s repair monopoly, and other people have mentioned the value depreciation of the car as battery prices go down. But the cynic in me says that Hertz can get away with renting a ICE car for the same price as an EV car and pass the increased cost of ownership of ICE cars onto the driver.