Electric vs petrol car

As long as you book accommodation with charging you will probably only need one or two charges on short trips like that.

Unless you get a 6€ a day Dacia Spring. Although to be fair they're a small city car so not really one for Aix to Monaco

I'm currently on a family vacation in Florida and my brother-in-law rented an EV. My advice is if you've never driven an EV before and you're in a strange place, it may not be the time to figure it out. The act of driving is the same, but the coordination around charging can create confusion and eat away at valuable vacation time.

Obviously, electric is cleaner,

Based on an article I read recently, that is true only when the EV is used for 180k miles. Otherwise the upfront energy investment for the battery negates the 'benefit' on not burning gas to propel it.

Until charging a car is the same simple quick process as filling a gas tank, having an EV as a rental is a a plan of dubious merit.

My vote is a petrol or petrol-hybrid

Charging station provision has improved a lot in France lately, but I would still be very wary of 2 things:
- Ability to use the payment systems (various charging station networks use subscription services)
- Availability of charging stations in the rural region north of the A8 (if you are planning to see the Verdon gorge...forget electric cars, IMO)
- Waiting times in peak summer season

This being said, charging points (expensive) are available on the A8 motorway from Aix to Nice, and if you have a good model, you might only need to charge once during that trip.

https://blog.ricksteves.com/cameron/2022/11/ev-europe-road-trip/

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/france/renting-ev-hybrid-outside-of-paris

Since you’ll only be driving about 130 miles, it’s not likely you’ll need to recharge the vehicle at all if it is fully charged, as it should be, when you pick it up.
A gasoline-powered car is certain to need to be refueled at your expense.

We had a hybrid last year in Germany and France and it worked well. Only one of our lodgings had a charging point. Since we drove through many rural areas I’m glad we didn’t have an electric only vehicle. Petrol stations were plentiful so we didn’t worry about finding an operational charging point or wondering what we’d do while waiting for the vehicle to charge.

We rented a plug in hybrid small SUV, a few weeks ago from Hertz, via Europcar.com. We picked up and returned to Bordeaux train station. We've never used electric plug in before and there was not much in the way of explanation, but the charging cable was provided. We never ended up trying to charge it, but I was surprised at how many places had charging stations. We spent 4 days in the Dordogne region and almost every parking lot we saw had at least a few stations in Bergerac, Sarlat, Les Eyzies etc. also in St. Emilion on the way back to Bordeaux. If you are familiar with charging and/or understand enough French to use the stations (I never really looked, maybe they have a multi language selection) and/or your rental has charging ability then you might be ok. Or maybe, your petrol car will actually be plug in hybrid and you can try it without the stress of it being your only choice. Good luck

This is just me, but I wouldn't rent an electric car in the US, let alone overseas.

It's one thing to own an EV; you learn where the charging stations are and you can charge at home. Neither of these are true if you're renting.

Hertz is taking a bath on all the Teslas they've purchased because no one wants to rent them and they depreciate rapidly. There's a reason EVs are cheaper to rent than ICE vehicles, and it's not because EVs are so popular with renters.

Is there a hybrid option? We rented one in Norway and got 47 mpg+ with a vehicle comparable to our Equinox. To make things easier, we choose not to plug it in, but the battery charged during braking helping the gasoline usage.

I'm with Allan, unless you are already in the EV Club this is not the best time to join. Gas still rules.

We spent 4 days in the Dordogne region and almost every parking lot we
saw had at least a few stations in Bergerac, Sarlat, Les Eyzies etc.

Do not confuse this small tourist area of ​​the Dordogne with the entire Dordogne departement.

To date in Dordogne there is approximately 1 charging station per 1000 inhabitants. With tourists the population is doubled in summer

Thanks for the tips, everyone. I will look for a hybrid option, or stick to gasoline for now.