Hertz Pushing EVs in the US

EV’s are not “a traveler in a strange land” friend as you pointed out. Give me gas or a hybrid car that is straight forward to drive and fill up. Turn on a AC or heat and who knows what mileage an EV will get. Heaven forbid you get caught in a traffic jam and the battery runs down. Shame on Hertz.

Thanks for the warning, Trotter. That’s exactly what we don’t want to be doing during precious vacation time!

agent who happily tells us a brand new EV Volvo with only 4 miles on it is available. Would we like it?

Depending on one's age group, its either a 'blast from the past', or time do a search, but the phrase "Just say NO" comes to mind.

Until charging a car is a simple and straightforward as pumping gas, I do not see an EV being appropriate to be a rental car.

EV as a daily commuter car you can charge at home each night makes sense.

I rent with Hertz quite often. And yes, they are offering EV's at great prices. But I always decline because I'm not sure where I can find charging stations.

Welcome to Tidewater, Trotter! And July 20 is on average the hottest day of the year for us.

Not that I drive an EV, but it sure seems that the infrastructure for EVs is truly lacking here.

If the car had the 150-200 mile range we thought it would have we would have been fine. We were in the area for only one full day and for only one very limited reason. Our hotel was 25 miles from the airport and our activities were within a 5 mile radius of the hotel.

I can’t help but wonder whether Hertz’s “green” experiment will come back to bite it when they have to go out and rescue folks who are stranded.

VAP, we have found the folks in the Tidewater area to be extremely friendly. We ended up charging the car at a Hyundai dealership. While there, the service manager walked by and admired it. When we told him what had happened he disconnected the car then reconnected it on the dealership’s app. So basically paid for charging our car. He also told us to comeback when we needed to recharge the car and on his dime. So with the exception of Hertz, we have felt quite welcomed in the Tidewater area.

When you return an EV, are you expected to return it fully charged? Surely not...

I wouldn't rent, much less own, an EV on a dare. Too many stories about hunting for charging stations, etc., for me to be bothered with it. Until they make them with a very long range, like 1,000 miles, I will stick with a gas burner, or maybe a hybrid.

You would think they would have charging stations at the rental facility. And they should provide a map with local charging stations with the car.

As of a year or so ago, the only southside charging station was Lynnhaven Mall!

I'm looking at a vehicle rental in the middle of nowhere Texas in October - and contemplated an EV but there are only 2 charging stations around so a regular car it is for me!

The infrastructure is not everywhere for EV's.

I would avoid renting one unless you're already an EV owner and familiar with what it takes to find and charge one.

They're just not worth the hassle at this time.

Curious what model of EV they are pushing that has (or apparently doesn't have) a 150-200 mile range.

Katiecem: it was a Volvo C40. The agent said the top end range was 210. But the car only lets you charge up to 90%. Plus with the heat and humidity the charge dropped like a rock.

I've rented EVs from Hertz several times, but have never been offered one if I didn't specifically book that class. The first time I did my research ahead of time and found the charging network very easy to find (from Denver to Omaha, then down to St Joseph, MO, and back to Denver through Kansas). I will say Teslas are much easier to use because you can use their fast charging network, but have also rented a Polestar and didn't have any issues finding chargers with a tiny bit of planning. When I first rented a Tesla last year, they were doing free charging in the Tesla network, which was great for my 1200+ mile road trip. Plus the cost of renting a Tesla was maybe only $10 more per day than a gas car. We saved a lot on that trip. I just rented a Tesla a couple weeks ago and they are now charging you to use the superchargers, but we still saved close to $75 on what we would have paid in gas. Also the Teslas make it super easy to find chargers along your drive with their navigation system.

All EVs can be charged to 100%, but they usually set it to 90% for battery efficiency. You just have to adjust the charging settings.

Also, there are several apps that make it very easy to locate charging stations nationwide and you can filter by their power, if you need a fast charger. Charge Point and Plug Share are two good ones.

Thanks so much for your post! Not an issue I've thought about. I post a lot on the Trip Advisor forum for Yellowstone and we've gotten more questions about EV's recently. Those of us who answer frequently know the resources for EV charging in Yellowstone but have not had anyone mention they'd been "upgraded" to an EV. I'll be aware of what happened to you and mention it from time to time.

To me they are not a good situation for the West and particularly for National Park travel where resources are slim anyway. YNP does have some of it's own EVs for their rangers out on a rove or for other administrative business but I'm guessing they have their own charging stations as I've not seen them at the public ones.

"When we told him what had happened he disconnected the car then reconnected it on the dealership’s app. So basically paid for charging our car. He also told us to comeback when we needed to recharge the car and on his dime."

My word....what an awesome guy! So very nice.

The following is a great article by Cameron, one of the RS guides/writers. Parts of the US are very EV- charger-stations friendly, others, not so much. I live in NJ and virtually all the restaurants we go to have several charging stations in the parking lots.

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

Thanks for the warning. I rent cars all the time for my work travel and have never considered this possibility. I would have the same reaction, concerns and feelings as you expressed and I will also do everything I can to not let this happen to me. Thanks again!!

I wouldn't want to take a road trip with only 210 miles range maximum. My EV has a range of about 300 miles when fully charged. We recently took a 1500 mile road trip up the Oregon Coast and had no problem at all charging. I love love love my EV. I like to "slow travel" so charging for 45 minutes while exploring or reading a book works great for me. Also the heat should have improved the mileage you got. I get great mileage in the summer. EV's hate the cold.

Interesting article on high heat effect on reducing range of EV batteries: https://jalopnik.com/its-too-hot-for-evs-to-work-right-1850663950

Huh. Interesting. I have not experienced this (yet?)

EV's hate the cold.

I have no experience with EV's but the cold is my biggest fear while driving on the Canadian Prairies. We routinely make a 1100km trek from Calgary to Brandon, Manitoba and we can do it in 10.5 hours in one day. We calculate that in the winter with an EV with 200km range and factoring in delays to charge, that same trip may take 3-4 days.

After Hertz gave me a car that had been beaten with a baseball bat and smelled like an ashtry as an "upgrade for our highest tier members" I walked to National and have never looked back. Last year I made an error in a moment of weakness and made a reservation to pick up at a hotel.... get there and discover that location had been closed for TWO years, but Hertz still takes reservations for cars there... They would give me a car if I got to another location, at my own expense.

Yeah. I am not surprised that "Fully charged" was 52% You can do better by just avoiding this losing operation IMHO