More EV stuff - the "Surprise" rental EV

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
41

It all depends on how you look at it. If you look at it on an individual basis, perhaps. But what about over an entire year?

EV - For 50 weeks a year, I get home, I plug the car in, it takes 5 seconds, say 200 times a year or so. For 2 weeks a year, I stop every 200-250 miles at a supercharger for 15 minutes, and find a hotel with a charger. Say 10 times, so 150 minutes plus another 15 minutes at home, that a total of 165 minutes a year.

ICE - For 50 weeks a year, I fill up every 10 days or so, half the time while driving somewhere so it’s just a stop hopefully on same side of road. So 18 times for 5 minutes. And the other half, I drive a few miles away to get to the gas station with a good price, so 20 minutes or so total. That’s 18 times for 20 minutes. And then 2 weeks a year on a road trip, I fill up primarily at rest stops, 8 times for 5 minutes. So 90 + 360 + 40 = 490 minutes total.

Seems like the ICE across the whole year takes a lot more minutes in total to fill up. At least for someone in my situation. Someone who has a gas station with decent prices on the corner of the road they drive everyday might spend somewhat less time. But even so, if they fill up 36 times a year (every 10 days), for 5 minutes, it’s STILL 180 minutes total which is more than the typical EV case!

1 Like
42

I thought we were looking at things in the context of travel, and more specifically renting an EV after arriving at a destination via airline (or train, I suppose).

Of course, in a different context, EVs are a lot more convenient. I’ve said so before. If you can charge where you live or where you work, and don’t have any unusual needs (like transporting a family of 8) the EVs available today are an attractive option, assuming you can afford the purchase price.

–Peter

2 Likes
43

PS - Your Tesla spends WAY more time connected to a charger than my diesel chugging van spends connected to a fuel pump. If you couldn’t charge at home or at work, that would become a significant personal time sink.

–Peter

2 Likes
44

Yes, if you can’t charge at home or at work, an EV isn’t for you right now. Unless you drive very little, then you can use a supercharger once every few weeks, but I don’t recommend it.

1 Like
45

I disagree in some cases. If where you shop has superchargers, it’s easy to just charge while you’re shopping. Takes effectively next to no time. I am lucky enough to be able to do that fairly regularly while grocery shopping, taking my car that gets free supercharging.

Yeah, I was trying to address that scenario. That’s why I said that charging up an EV usually takes less time that gassing up, rather than almost always. Anybody with a Tesla experienced with road trips knows that a little planning can result in picking up a charge while doing other things. Certainly not always, but often.

And y’all should keep in mind that while EV charging becomes far more plentiful over the next several years, availability of gasoline will go from everywhere all the time to limited in type, time, and location, to rare. At the same time, gas cars will get banned from various city centers, and then entire cities, and/or they will incur heavy tolls and limitations on use. Gas cars will become a real pain insofar as free travel goes, much more of a problem than an EV is now. This will go hand in hand with plummeting resale value. I wouldn’t advise anybody to buy a gas car now with the intention of owning it for many years. Far too risky.

I think this potential catastrophic plunge in resale value is another thing that is pushing rental companies to EVs. This could be existential for them.

-IGU-

2 Likes
46

Free level 3 charging (“supercharging”) is extremely rare. The only one within 50 miles of me just started charging a few weeks ago.

1 Like
47

It’s a function of the car, not the system. The reality is, of course, that it’s really pre-paid supercharging. The car was no doubt more expensive because it came with free supercharging. But it’s free to all appearances now. Tesla often provides some amount of free supercharging when they sell their cars, especially when they want to provide extra incentives to clear things out before the end of the quarter (like now).

My current Model S, which I got on New Year’s eve at the end of 2017, was a showroom vehicle which I got a several thousand dollar discount on. That was around the end of the time when free supercharging for life was available on some cars, but it’s only for as long as I own the car. My first Model S (2014) came with free lifetime supercharging that transferred if sold.

-IGU-

2 Likes
48

It’s not so often. They ended that program in 2018 or so. And they’ve sold the vast majority of their vehicles since then. As you mention, they do offer amounts of supercharging sometimes as an incentive. For example, I received 1000 supercharger miles when I bought my Tesla via a referral code. And they do sometimes give some supercharging at end of quarter when they are clearing the lots or otherwise boosting sales. Some manufacturers include free supercharging for the first 2 years (limited to some amount per session and/or per year), usually only at specific brands of superchargers. Anyway, there aren’t that many vehicles on the road with free supercharging.

A friend of mine has a model S of the vintage that included free supercharging for life, and he does most of his charging at local superchargers, but he still periodically charges at home (for convenience). I see his car quite often, and it is still beautiful and pristine.

I was talking about a literally free supercharger. It is a 62.5kW CCS/Chademo charger, and was free to all comers for a few years. Just a few weeks ago, the proprietor changed it to have some sort of fee per kWh. I never used it myself because I don’t have CCS compatibility in my car. But a family member used it a few times with the Leaf we own. I once saw a Ford F-150 Lightning charging there for over 2 hours until it reached 90% and stopped, that thing must have a huge battery!

1 Like
49

Not in anyone’s lifetime reading this. In spite of EV’s “meteoric” sales rise, 90% of the cars being sold today are gasoline based, and they will last 20 years or longer. In another 10 years, an optimistic forecast is that 50% will be EVs (most say 40%, but let’s be positive), so tens of millions of gas cars will still be sold new and will be on the road for another 20 years or more.

That’s not to say some gas stations won’t close; they will. But with increasing population fighting the growing EV trend, there will be plentiful ICE cars - and places to fuel them - for decades to come.

This will be a mostly rare phenomenon, limited to a tiny few areas. As for “the pollution”, the increasing numbers of EVs will automatically take care of some of that problem, lowering the political will for governments to mandate closures.

This is funny. In the “screwball comedy absurdist” realm, but still funny.

10 Likes
50

When getting and using an EV becomes cheaper than maintaining an ICE vehicle, the transition will become pretty much instantaneous. No ICE car bought today will be used for twenty years. Maybe ten.

But, there’s little point in getting into a “the future will be this way”, “no, it will be this other way” kind of contest. We’ll get to see who’s right (if either of us), but we won’t know for a while.

So, I think you’re completely wrong about this, but only time will tell.

Meanwhile, it remains a bad idea for rental companies to surprise their customers with vehicles that are unfamiliar to them.

-IGU-

1 Like
51

Nothing comprised of large numbers is ever instantaneous. That’s because it is literally impossible for it to be. Transitions from one form of energy to another can’t even be close to instantaneous. Look at all the talk about transitioning in Europe (Germany?) from fossil fuel heating to heat pumps. Even if they can build 10% of the heat pumps every year (to transition over 10 years), they don’t have anywhere near enough installers or equipment to install all those for 15 or 20 years. And even if they train more people, there will be other bottlenecks, or other choices that have to be made - do you use all those trained installers to install heat pumps or do you use them to install windmills or do you use them to install solar or do you use them to install EV chargers, etc. Nothing big happens instantaneously.

3 Likes
52

It’s…

S-Curve
S-Curve800×528 36.5 KB

The Captain

1 Like
53

Cell phones, as universal a product as we have seen in the past century, took 40 years to achieve a 90% adoption rate in the US. (Smartphones, launched a couple decades later, have yet to get to 90%; they’re at 85% and growing, while a cell phone is owned by 97% of the populace.)

I read an interesting statistic that said 45% of all corn produced in the country now goes for ethanol (hence the mandatory pilgrimage to the corn states by political candidates who swear fealty to the farmers). I’m going to guess selling EVs in that part of the country will be as tough a putt as selling solar panels to coal miners in Kentucky and West Virginia. Not that any of that will stop the transition, of course, but it sure won’t make it “instantaneous”, whatever that means.

I don ‘t think the general redneck population in the oil patch is going to be thrilled at the idea of putting themselves out of work either. Change is inevitable, but it sure isn’t going to happen more quickly than humanly possible, or without dragging some of the Neanderthals along in spite of themselves.

6 Likes
54

A better analogy is perhaps the transition from pulse to DTMF. Just like EV is technically (and performance-wise) better than ICE, DTMF was also better than pulse. And just like central offices needed to change equipment, places to “fill up” will need to change equipment. And just like customers needed to change their phones, people will change their vehicles. And just like some phones did both pulse and DTMF through the transition, some cars (PHEVs) do both (and this last analogy isn’t as strong because phones did both for decades, not sure if PHEVs will last decades).

55

One follow up.

The EXACT scenario that happened to me back in May ALMOST happened to me again last week. Luckily, I ran off of the bus first and got to the last ICE rental they had left.

After a week of working (one extra night than before) in the EXACT same region with the exact destination, I had just under 1/2 a tank left when I returned it. I DID have the great opportunity to visit some landmarks and some tourist destinations (including the Yuengling and sons Brewery)Yuengling Beers

My coworker who arrived at a CLOSER airport managed to get through our week of working with his rental M3 Tesla. He was forced to leave work early by 1 hour to ensure he had enough charge to make his outbound flight. Shame on Hertz for doing this.

(we are bound to one company for rentals through corporate contracts)

4 Likes
56

Really? Except it couldn’t possibly happen again since that involved multiple problems caused by your ignorance. That ignorance has been remedied, right?

I’d kind of expected that since people had explained to you how things could work smoothly, your follow-up would be that got yourself a rental Tesla and everything went fine. Instead you tell us that you (whew!) made some effort to avoid getting a Tesla and survived. Congratulations!

Seriously? He was forced? In an entire week he couldn’t charge the car up? In an entire week he somehow didn’t arrange for the car to be charged up overnight at his accommodations?

I’ll grant you that it is possible to be sufficiently ignorant so as to run out of gas. Running out of charge is fairly similar at this point.

Maybe your company should get Hertz to give you a tutorial on how to use an EV. Or maybe y’all should watch some of the tutorial videos Tesla provides.

I mean, it has some advantages over proudly touting your ignorance and suffering the consequences.

–IGU-

1 Like
57

IGU,

I think you severely underestimate (you’ve forgotten it, never worked in places like that or are intentionally, obliviously ignoring) the personal capital costs of working 12+ hour days on a factory floor in heavy industry.

During the week, after dealing with the host of very complex problems that our teams face, driving somewhere to charge up an EV which is not your restaurant, nor your hotel is not a viable solution.

Lots of negatives in there, so please keep up.

I intentionally didn’t reserve a Tesla or any other EV in reservation. I almost got one by lack of choice again. I intentionally didn’t sit around while the ICE vehicles were taken so I could replan my entire trip around an inferior option.

I DO NOT CONTROL MY DESTINATION. I DO NOT HAVE CONTROL OVER MY SCHEDULE DURING THOSE TRAVEL WEEKS.

I have control of the few hours between work and sleep with strong emphasis on FEW.

If I rented a Tesla again, I would know that I need to recharge twice and that I need to take a special route which costs me more than 52 minutes each way (plus tolls!). I would also need to find a hotel with EV charging stations that would support enough charge to get me through until the next cycle without too much inconvenience.

No EV charging stations
No EV charging stations1384×725 101 KB

Now, if I had wanted to deal with the issue more, I would have PLANNED for it, just as you mentioned. As you can see in the screen grab above, no hotels in the vicinity have chargers. I support I could walk the 2 miles to the level 1 chargers and let the car sit there until charged, then get up and walk 2 miles to the charger again in the morning, hoping that it didn’t get unplugged or that it was charged enough to continue viable use.

You see, the Tesla rental would have GUARANTEED an extra 52ish minutes BOTH ways. It would have also possibly required some poor night’s sleep to plan around walking through depressed areas to get to a charger that may or may not be available.

Yes, my coworker was forced. He arrived to find no ICE vehicles in the lot. Apparently, either Hertz is not supplying enough ICE vehicles in the fleet, or customers are all staying the hell away from EV during the periods we are traveling (hint: we travel all the time).

I’m still pro EV, IGU. Listen to what I’m saying. Rural PA is NOT ready for these things. I did take note of how many Teslas I saw.

1

That one was rented by my hapless colleague who was worried about range and charge points.

As a bonus, I also polled him with no comments about my own experience to see if it was just me. His story was practically identical, except his airport connection was closer to the area we are working in last week.

I am planning on purchasing an electric car as soon as:

  1. My fleet at home wears out
  2. Battery life/charging cycles are optimized to allow regional trips to work without delay.

It looks like 2027-30 is the first opportunity for our family.

I don’t like to wait more than the absolute minimum for fuel
I drive more than 1000 miles in a set when I visit friends and relatives.

By the way, my above post about this week’s experience was as much of a follow up to say this isn’t an isolated event as to show that it’s also happening around the region and to other people. It was not in anyway directed at you, so please don’t take it as a personal affront.

For reference, there are 3 chargers within 25 miles of the area I work/stay in. Each of Those chargers would be more than 1 hour round trip (not including charge time).

7 Likes
58

There’s a Wawa a mile or two away with 250kW superchargers. Stop there for breakfast on the way to the plant and the car will be fully charged before you finish your first coffee.

3 Likes
59

Still though, on business trips your time is not your own. If this were a vacation trip it might have been awesome, but it wasn’t. I’m with @GDavenport. You can’t surprise someone at the rental counter with an EV. I say this as an EV proponent. If you plan it, an EV might be better than an ICE. But it isn’t reasonable to try to schedule a restaurant trip on the fly.

4 Likes
60

It won’t be a surprise. That’s because the rental agencies, especially Hertz, are suddenly WAY onboard with EVs. I’d guess that they realized that the low cost of maintenance for EVs will increase their profits. In a few years, I wouldn’t be surprised to see half, or more than half, the cars on the rental lots being EVs. Keep in mind, rental companies switch over their fleet in 2 years or so, not like the overall population who switches over in 12 or 15 years.

If they’re even more clever, they will install superchargers on/near site, so they can also capture some of the profit margin on electricity that their customers need to re-charge the cars before returning them.