I thought there was a climate EMERGENCY? Hertz has shown electric cars have been a failure for them and is now glad Telsa and Polestar didn't deliver all the hundreds of thousands they ordered. The much higher repair and depreciation costs of electric cars compared to gasoline powered ones means that they weren't anywhere as profitable and Hertz is beginning to sell them off to buy more gasoline cars.
I thought there was a climate EMERGENCY? Hertz has shown electric cars have been a failure for them and is now glad Telsa and Polestar didn't deliver all the hundreds of thousands they ordered. The much higher repair and depreciation costs of electric cars compared to gasoline powered ones means that they weren't anywhere as profitable and Hertz is beginning to sell them off to buy more gasoline cars.
They are practical around town if you have a charging port. When traveling, most people are not going to want to wait at a charging station or spend time finding one. So for rentals this is not surprising.
The problem Hertz had is that the EVs were in more accidents than the ICE vehicles and the cost to repair Teslas and Polestars are higher than for ICE vehicles because there are fewer shops that work on EVs and parts are very expensive due to the relatively smaller number of EVs out there compared to ICEs.
The problem Hertz had is that the EVs were in more accidents than the ICE vehicles and the cost to repair Teslas and Polestars are higher than for ICE vehicles because there are fewer shops that work on EVs and parts are very expensive due to the relatively smaller number of EVs out there compared to ICEs.
Why would Hertz be on the hook for accident repair costs?
I thought there was a climate EMERGENCY? Hertz has shown electric cars have been a failure for them and is now glad Telsa and Polestar didn't deliver all the hundreds of thousands they ordered. The much higher repair and depreciation costs of electric cars compared to gasoline powered ones means that they weren't anywhere as profitable and Hertz is beginning to sell them off to buy more gasoline cars.
They are if you live in Norway, where over 80% of new cars sold are electric.
Which is ironic, since Norway derives a lot of its national wealth from its extensive offshore oil production. They are actually one of the largest exporters of oil in the world.
bravo for this exercise in illogic. there being a climate problem is not necessarily connected to the market caring to do a thing about it. you in fact underline that market actors may have incentives contrary to fixing climate. hertz is neither a charity nor an environmentally-oriented business.
there are other businesses like amazon trying something else but if you drive past an amazon hub, it's charging stations as far as the eye can see, and with a set delivery day scheduled up, they can plan within range to have the trucks circle back home. then charge overnight. someone on vacation wants more freedom to drive, to improvise, and needs abundant charging that does it faster. if hertz was thinking it could maybe steer customers on work trips with commutes and overnight charging stations -- as well as enviros -- to the EVs, then let tourists burn gas. until the infrastructure is there.
if i wanted to get real punchy the US has entrenched interests behind oil and gas, and will not change until the planet is on fire. by that time trying to switch to EVs will not mean much as heat will be locked in for centuries.
you folks mock or even legislate against ESGs but it's businesses playing the long term game as opposed to looking next quarter. even worse than the pandemic, climate gets out of hand and it will decimate business as we know it. to me its survival instinct. but we resist survival instinct these days. abbott in texas doubled down on LNG-power after LNG plants froze in the winter storm. he tried to incentivize reopening old LNG plants to add capacity. no one took him up on it as they want to prop up expensive electricity not dilute their own price with more capacity. so we have added no capacity and are about to have another hard freeze.
we no longer respond to reality with common sense.
Remember when we used to burn liquefied lead in our cars so that we could then breath it back in as fumes and all become brain damaged? And they decided to ban it and all the car enthusiasts complained and said cars were going to become slow and unreliable? What happened, did they end up banning it and/or did all the older cars blow up?
And then remember when the Prius came out and all the coal-rolling bros told us hybrids were never gonna catch on and they were unreliable and slow and actually worse for the environment than their bro-dozers? Whatever happened with those?
I could go on. Smog controls, seat belts, air bags, ABS, etc. All had plenty of detractors, many of them only caught on in fits and starts, but nobody's looking back now.
I rented an EV from dollar (owned by Hertz) a couple of months ago out in Arizona. They are different than driving an ICE vehicle, which is why they may be involved in more accidents, in spite of their added safety features. It sounds like the rapid depreciation and down time are bigger issues (an idle vehicle is not making money for them). I’d also imagine the charging time when they get back vehicles is problematic, as a lot probably get returned without having been charged.
The same thing happened back when Hertz rented horses, they bought automobiles and had to sell them because the population didn't understand/like them. In only a few years after that they were 100% automobile in the way I anticipate them now to be 100% electric by 2030.
The problem Hertz had is that the EVs were in more accidents than the ICE vehicles and the cost to repair Teslas and Polestars are higher than for ICE vehicles because there are fewer shops that work on EVs and parts are very expensive due to the relatively smaller number of EVs out there compared to ICEs.
Why would Hertz be on the hook for accident repair costs?
Most big companies self insure these days. The get a garage policy with a million dollar deductible. That means any first party claims for damage to their vehicles are basically out of pocket for them.
Remember when we used to burn liquefied lead in our cars so that we could then breath it back in as fumes and all become brain damaged? And they decided to ban it and all the car enthusiasts complained and said cars were going to become slow and unreliable? What happened, did they end up banning it and/or did all the older cars blow up?
And then remember when the Prius came out and all the coal-rolling bros told us hybrids were never gonna catch on and they were unreliable and slow and actually worse for the environment than their bro-dozers? Whatever happened with those?
I could go on. Smog controls, seat belts, air bags, ABS, etc. All had plenty of detractors, many of them only caught on in fits and starts, but nobody's looking back now.
Minor difference being we didn't make all cars without seatbelts illegal 50 years before we were able to produce reliable seatbelts.
Why would Hertz be on the hook for accident repair costs?
Most big companies self insure these days. The get a garage policy with a million dollar deductible. That means any first party claims for damage to their vehicles are basically out of pocket for them.
They, in the case I know, which is a different company a buddy works for, they just wholesale damaged cars, they don't fix them. If you total a car and bought the insurance, they sell it for whatever they can get, even scrap, but some wrecks get shipped overseas to be rebuilt or for parts. If you did not buy the insurance, they settle with your insurance on the damage cost, and then don't fix it and just wholesale it so its off the books and someone else's problem.
Travelers are mostly unfamiliar with driving EVs. Most are looking for convenience, not novelty, and EVs provide the latter in spades. No surprise that unrented EVs are sitting on the lots.
A lot of the extra costs they incurred actually had to do with depreciation and sales of used ev's being undercut by price cuts. But price cuts mean ev's are more affordable and so the market will grow.
As someone who frequently rents cars, I wouldn't risk renting an ev. If you have to return it fully charged, you have to find a charger. No one wants to waste time on vacation looking for a charging station and possibly burning time waiting for a charge. The great selling point of ev's is the convenience of home charging.
