Rental Car EV Pains, No One in their Right Mind Wants Them Now

People not familiar with EVs are increasingly forced to use them for car rentals. Horror stories are numerous.

Growing Pains for Travelers

The Wall Street Journal reports the shifting mix of cars means Growing Pains for Travelers unaccustomed to operating electric vehicles.

The electric-vehicle revolution is coming to rental-car counters, ready or not. Plenty of travelers fall into the “Or not” category.

Some report picking up EVs that aren’t properly charged, lack accessories or come with little to no operating instructions. Charging availability is also an issue on the road and at hotels.

Anne-Marie Angelo reserved an intermediate car from Budget Rent A Car for a one-way drive from Virginia Beach, Va., to Dulles International Airport with her 79-year-old mother in January. The rental agency didn’t have her car or much else, so it assigned her a “specialty” Kia.

The Kia Niro she got is an EV, which no one at the counter mentioned, the history professor says. Despite getting charged overnight, the battery drained quickly. With at least 70 miles to go on the drive, the range flashed 30 miles. She had to hunt for a charging station so it didn’t die on I-95 in cold weather.

The first location, a gas station listed in a crowdsourced app, didn’t have one. Budget roadside assistance said they couldn’t help because they don’t have mobile charging units, she says. By the time she found one at a car dealership, she had to move their late flight to London and pay for a hotel.

“Normally I can get from home to Dulles on one tank of gas,” she says. “I don’t plan for random stops in weird places.”

Hertz has made the biggest EV bet among rental agencies. It has deals to buy more than 300,000 cars from Tesla, Polestar and General Motors and a partnership with Uber to rent EVs to ride-share drivers. More than one in 10 cars in its fleet are electric, a figure the company says will jump to 25% by the end of 2024.

Turned Off Forever

The WSJ has more tales of woe and misery including that of Nicholas Cicio who rented a Tesla only partially charged, the battery drained quicker than expected, then died on a busy street.

Hertz sent a tow truck but the first three charging stations were a bust. 20 miles outside the city they located a charging station that worked.

This kind of nonsense only has to happen once to be turned off forever on EVs. Strike that, one only has to hear of these stories to be turned off forever.

With an EV, I Had to Learn to Drive All Over Again

WSJ writer Joanna Stern reports With an EV, I Had to Learn to Drive All Over Again

How to drive the car

OK, you know how traditional automatic-transmission cars creep forward when you take your foot off the brake? That generally isn’t the case with EVs. To move, you tap the accelerator. (Even in reverse, which can be a little unnerving.) As soon as you take your foot off the accelerator, the car slows and brakes on its own. You only hit the brake pedal itself if the car isn’t slowing quickly enough.

Most EVs let you do “one-pedal driving”—that is, driving with only the accelerator.

Why change how we’ve driven for so long? Regenerative braking. These brakes use motors that capture energy and return it to the battery. Hybrids often have a variation of this too, but EVs are all about it.

The rapid, automatic deceleration can be unsettling at first. And some people told me it can make passengers nauseous or queasy. Don’t worry! On many EVs, you can turn off the setting or minimize its intensity. The Volkswagen doesn’t even prioritize it—you have to select the mode. Its default drive mode feels much more like a regular car.

Stern loves her EV. Great. If all you do is tool around a city they are likely perfect.

But if you select a mode that makes the EV drive like a regular car, why not just drive a regular car?

Stay Away From Hertz

Rental agencies are at the bottom of the list of where EVs should be used.

It’s one thing to have an EV where you have a charger at home and quickly discover which stations are both nearby and reliable.

It’s another thing to be on vacation, worried about whether your hotel or destination has charging stations, and not knowing the neighborhoods from the rental place to the final destination.

Since Hertz is cramming EVs down people’s throats faster than other rental places, I advise staying away from Hertz.

Electric Vehicles for Everyone?

On July 19, I asked Electric Vehicles for Everyone? If the Dream Was Met, Would it Help the Environment?

My follow-up post was What Do MishTalk Readers Think About “Electric Vehicles for Everyone?”

Please note Biden’s Green Energy Inflation Reduction Act Needs a Big Bailout Already and EVs don’t do a damn thing for the environment.

The Shocking Truth About Biden’s Proposed Energy Fuel Standards

In case you missed it, please consider The Shocking Truth About Biden’s Proposed Energy Fuel Standards

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration NHTSA did an impact assessment of 4 fuel standard proposals and compared them to the cost of doing nothing. Guess what.

The NHTSA conclude: “Net benefits [of stricter mile standards] for passenger cars remain negative across alternatives” vs doing nothing at all.

The EV push is a big pain in the ass for no benefit. Expect a lot of pain because it’s coming.