Yeah a company called Hertz pushing DC powered cars is absurd
Seriously, watt are they even doing?
Ohm my god, right‽
These puns are re-volt-ing.
Ohm my god. I see what you did there.
Amended title: Rental giant to take a huge step back in climate change fight and generate more GHG to protect their bottom line.
Alternate alternate title: EVs’ cost of ownership too high compared to ICEs.
EV cars have a lower cost of ownership than ICE cars, especially for high-use cars like taxis and rentals. Hertz is just pushing the cost to the customer here.
How do you mean? I’m not following.
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.
I’m not even sure it’s just that. A guy i know had to wait a couple of month until he could get his tesla windshield replaced. I still don’t really know where all these tesla owners around here go to service their cars, because i only know of a dealership, but that’s no garage. The only people i know with a teala bring their car there and they bring it somewhere from there. And service and shit takes for ever.
Real alternate title: EV manufacturers are trying to be like apple and misrepresenting your ability to repair your shit for profit.
If you read the article, it’s nothing to do specifically with EVs, they just had an unusually high crash rate.
“Likelihood of crashing” is part of the cost of ownership (regardless of engine type). For example, suppose a particular model comes with certain features that are more likely to distract the driver, thus increasing the rate of highway collisions, thus either increasing the cost of repairs over the life of the vehicle or just shortening the life of the vehicle—all else equal, this vehicle has a higher cost of ownership than a different model with fewer distractions, collisions, repairs, etc.
“Likelihood of crashing” is part of the cost of ownership
Uh, no, it’s definitely not.
We’ll have to agree to disagree.
IMHO the full title should read, “Hertz replaces shoddily built and expensive-to-fix cars, which just happen to be EVs, with more reliable models, which happen to be ICE cars.”
That, and there was something about charging infrastructure.
Exactly. Hertz vocally blames higher repair costs and long repair times for the Teslas that make up the bulk of their EV fleet. Other EV manufacturers don’t share those problems.
they are just too expensive to maintain… would you like to rent a BMW?
What maintenance?
Sounds like a boost to the second hand market
I rented a Bolt EV from Hertz once. The car was fine, but the charging stations in the area were mostly broken, or they required downloading an app and giving personal information to charge.
I got the feeling the charging networks are all about collecting government incentives and the sale of private information from subscribers, and not at all about service.
My new preferred rental car is no rental car at all.
Global EV production is so focused on making and meeting the demand for more vehicles on the road that the after market is handled as an after thought. This is partly offset by EVs being mechanically simpler and more reliable (mechanically) but that is little comfort when you do have an issue that needs parts to fix. And for Hertz it hurts when a car is out of commission for an extended period, so this is a very reasonable action in my opinion.
I think Tesla not having any independent mechanics is by design.
EVs are a greenwashing scam. Mass transit is the only way that is sustainable for our population.