How wonder how Hertz intends to handle turnaround delays. If I turn in an ICE car at noon, they can clean and gas it and (as a guess) a new customer can drive away in it at 12:15. With an electric, filling it with energy could take quite a long time. I'm sure Hertz considered that, but I wonder how that works into their calculations.
Takes around 30min to 80% charge a Tesla. Have you ever been to a rental car lot? It's almost always full of cars. And when not full, it's because of the same event everyone is renting for, which doesn't indicate fast turnarounds. There's plenty of extra inventory to charge all the Teslas between customers.
Their lots really aren't "always full of cars". A lot of rental companies, especially franchises, have sold a lot of their cars due to reduced demand and insane used car prices.
That's due to a miscalculation around the sudden death of demand due to a global pandemic (which bankrupted a bunch of car rental companies, including Hertz). Now that demand is back, they're rebuilding their inventory, as exemplified by this 100k car order. Things will stabilize, and lots will mostly go back to having plenty of inventory in not too long.
Not the person you asked the question to, but... I've rented recently (1 month ago). The parking garage was filled with an absurd number of unused cars. There were entire levels of the parking garage which were filled with cars which weren't being used because the rental car companies associated with that floor weren't even open. Meanwhile the rental car operator which was open wasn't even close to having rented out all their cars.
Recently I've had a hard time finding available cars. Many times in my life, I've had to wait while they turned around a car that had just been returned.
Cleaning and turning around keys-in to keys-out in 15 minutes probably rarely happens at Hertz in what I've witnessed (I've rented >100 times from them). But that said, most cars probably will come back at least 50% charged, so it is only 15 minutes to charge (while cleaning in parallel).
And perhaps if you're a customer picking out Model 3 cars on the lot and you pick one not fully charged.. you could decide to wait it out or just drive.
Yeah this is not really going to be a problem. Cars spend a lot of time waiting, so rows of 120V outlets will do plenty. Level 2 chargers can keep busy cars topped up. They could have superchargers for fast turnaround, but as a renter I frankly don’t really care. If there’s a supercharger near the airport (and, newsflash, there is) then all I really need is to take the car and return it at half charge or better. Having it be fully charged at pickup is nice, but not necessary.
FYI Hertz already announced that they will require a minimum charge of 10% for returned cars. So they thought about it and deemed it worthy to comment on in the announcement.
If you don't require your customers to return a full vehicle, they don't need to deliver them full to the customer either. I experienced this in Croatia when I discovered they are actually not allowed to require the car be returned full (some local legislation apparently). So they delivered it about 3/5th full and I returned it back in the same state. They just eyeballed it and it was fine. Actually annoying like this because I had to remember when to fill it up (and by how much) in order to return it with that quantity. In the end I put about 10 liters in it when it was about 2/5th and then drove another 20km.
They'll probably do a quick top up using their own chargers while they are cleaning the car. No need for them to charge to anywhere close to 100%. It's actually bad for the battery to do that regularly. So, it's also not something they'd want their customers to do. Anything over 10% is fine and can be topped up in 20 minutes or so to about 70-80% if you have the right charging infrastructure. But probably lower once they start cutting cost a bit. I wouldn't be surprised to get a Tesla rental with 40-50% charge only. Plenty of range on that and I can fix it at the next super charger in 20 minutes. For free because its included in the rental price (also announced). They just eliminated fuel as a variable cost for the driver. They'll probably charge per mile instead.
> FYI Hertz already announced that they will require a minimum charge of 10% for returned cars. So they thought about it and deemed it worthy to comment on in the announcement.
That may just be to help avoid people planning poorly and running out of battery trying to just barely make it back to the return. There's almost certainly nothing magical about 10%, and charging the car from 5% will be almost no difference. It wouldn't surprise me if they don't charge a fee as long as they can still get it over to the cleaning bay or a parking spot with a charger.
They're likely just setting ground rules for people who have never used EVs. It's not quite as easy to solve if you run out of juice half a block away from where they want it to be returned. Or if it won't start but you got it parked in a spot out front without a charger. "It doesn't need to be full but please leave 10%" is a fair rule of thumb.
> If you don't require your customers to return a full vehicle, they don't need to deliver them full to the customer either.
Every U-Haul I've rented in the US works the way you're describing: you fill it to where they tell you. Not to a full tank.
I think that especially when you're looking at multi-day rentals, Hertz doesn't really need to turn things around.
rent the car in the morning, keep it for a while, you bring it back some evening, it gets rented out the next morning.
It's like hotel rooms. Sure you could clean them in 5 minutes after someone steps out the door, but is someone actually there to take the room afterwards?
You have to also account for the free 1/8. Really enjoyed returning all my cars at 7/8 and them considering it returned full :). Part of it is most fuel gauges still read full anyway.
actually, I nearly always buy the tank because my time is worth more than <$x>, it's one less thing to stress about, and the refill prices are really punitive and when it's on your dime, they top it up.
