If I’m renting a car, I don’t care what it cost them to buy it.
That isn’t really how economics works in the real world, though.
Looking into it, it appears that they require you to bring it back with the same charge you left it with, which would be a dealbreaker for me. I’d be willing to pay a premium for an electric car in those rare circumstances where I am planning on doing some, but not a lot, of travelling, yet cannot hitch a ride with anyone, which has probably only happened once in the dozen or so times I’ve rented a car. Provided that I’m not also forced to do the refueling rigamarole at the end of my week.
If it were made that easy, then that one time that I was planning on a side trip by myself of around 150 miles I definitely would have sprung for the electric had it been available for a small fee, since I would have easily been able to do it without a specific stop to charge, and could even have just topped up with level 1 charging at my relatives’ house just to make sure that I had enough.
Remember not that long ago we were hearing that because ICEs are highly complicated machines with thousands of parts while EVs are much simpler that EVs are going to have much lower maintenance/repair costs over the years. And these lower costs should at least partly make up for the higher costs for the vehicles.
Hertz found much lower maintenance/repair costs not to be true.
No, they don’t. At least Hertz doesn’t, and I assume most other renters would be competitive. The Hertz policy is similar to the ICE gas policy if you don’t refill the tank to the same level, except that if they have to recharge an EV afterwards, there’s a flat fee of $35. Cite.
Yes, that is what I was referring to. There’s no way a full charge could cost them $35 of juice. Most of the time it wouldn’t even be an inconvenience to Hertz except when they’re planning on immediately turning the car around and renting it out again, but if they have that baked into their plans, then if the last customer decides to pay the $35 anyway then the next customer will have to wait around regardless.
@PastTense you’re making some inaccurate generalizations based on the Hertz reporting. That article came up in the general EV thread, and if you read them, the vast number of Hertz rentals were Tesla - with repair costs 30+% or more than ICE. Other, non-Tesla vehicles were being reported with increased repair costs around 10% more, which, well, isn’t surprising considering the current percentages on the road and availability of spare parts.
Even in the piece you cite, where it mentions the costly depreciation, that was once again largely driven by Tesla, because as Tesla started to lose market share, they dramatically slashed prices on new cars, which killed the value of the used rentals.
So, a more accurate version of your posts on Hertz screwing up (and they did from a cost basis) was that Hertz took a major hit by overinvesting in TESLA rather than EVs in general.
On a more general note, I want to remind all readers that our board is going to represent quite the outliers on the bell-curve. Most of us are older, many are partially and fully retired which means we lean towards very limited drivers, OR people who have the leisure to travel. And that’s just the American and Canadian posters!
Using me and my wife (just turning 50 in 2024) - we have commutes that run between 12 and 20 miles each way, 5 days a week. I’m not saying that’s average, but probably much more in line with the national (USA) use. Yesterday, the average per gallon (we just tanked up for a 630 mile drive tomorrow to visit my folks in New Mexico) was $3.19 a gallon.
So yeah, as I stated elsewhere, we’d be actively shopping for a BEV or PHEV (current plans for one of each as long as the PHEV has 40 + miles of electric range) if our estimates didn’t require rewiring the house due to an overloaded panel.
ETA - which, according to the electrican, was already overloaded PRIOR to asking about a level 2 charger, so more-or-less moot in terms of increased cost, but may or may not be factored into the OP’s article which I haven’t read because, duh, I need to go to sleep for tomorrows marathon drive.
Bring jackets, there are storms just hanging out and randomly tossing rain around.
Moving on, this thread has been very informative to me so I do appreciate all of the responses.
I’ve always been in the habit of driving a car until the wheels fell off (that happened at 340,000 miles for the last one…always, ALWAYS change your oil on schedule)
I have been interested in EV’s for quite a while, but my current car is 6 years old and has less than a hundred thousand miles due to retirement and general sloth.
From what I’m seeing, the environmental impact will be less if I keep up my habit of driving cars until they cost more to repair than to replace is better than buying an EV.
Sometimes it’s not about breaking even, though. In a lot of cases, it’s not about breaking even. No one tries to justify a Corvette as being more fuel efficient than an Expedition. My Mach E is a fun car, and I didn’t get it because I’m a skinflint.
On the other hand, as much as I like the idea of a solar plant in my home, there’s no break-even point versus the stock market. All of the solar ROI calculators assume I’m going to waste $20,000 on hookers and blow instead of leaving it in VTI.
From my perspective, EVs are a savings from day one. I want(ed) a reasonably high performance sedan, so my Model 3 replaced a BMW 330i. A Model 3 AWD currently costs $48k without rebates. The closest BMW to that in performance is the M340i xDrive, which has similar perf (0-60 in 4.1s vs. 4.2) and costs $57k. And the BMW has fewer perks–things like heated seats, remote engine start, premium nav, etc. are all extras. Why would I want to pay almost $10k more (or even more if you count rebates) for something that feels like it’s shaking itself apart and wakes the neighborhood when I hit the accelerator? Not to mention other perks like charging at home.
Yeah.
There are two utterly different economic baselines we can start from:
- I’m absolutely positively gonna buy a brand new new car next month. Which new model with feature set X has lower life cycle costs?
- I have a paid-for car with 15 serviceable years left in it. Which brand new car can I buy next month that will be cheaper overall than my current car over the next 15 years?
Very obviously different answers will obtain.
If the government or the manufacturers want to replace the in-service fleet quickly they need compelling answers to question #2. Answering #1, as e.g. @Dr.Strangelove’s Model 3 has done so well, is nice but far from sufficient.
And, it should be added, the answer to #1 depends on one’s priorities. I value good acceleration, so in my comparison I matched 0-60 times. But another person might not care one iota whether their car does 0-60 in 4 seconds or 7. They would likely benefit less from an EV because one of the differentiating factors of an EV vs. ICE is the acceleration.
Agree completely. Hence my “feature set X”
I drive a 700hp ICE. There are very few cars I respect off the light. Except Teslas and Ferraris. And I encounter a hell of a lot more Teslas.
I totally get what you’re saying.
My own feature set is handling, cachet, acceleration, and cachet. Not necessarily in that order, but mostly. I haven’t found the EV that does it all … yet.
I value self driving everything else is far secondary although I do love the way my Model Y drives and I like the idea of electric over gasoline.
You should probably test drive a Lucid Air Sapphire. Just sayin. I’m not sure about the viability of the company (at all), but it’s a hell of a piece of engineering. 700 hp means you’re driving a Hellcat or top of the line BMW or Merc, I presume?
Same thing regarding the premium of the electric vehicles themselves. Some people say “hey, you’re probably spending $50k on a car anyway, so why not electric?” But if you’re already buying a cheaper car than that, the electric cars in your price range won’t have the rosy range scenarios that people always cite. Which isn’t to say the cheaper models aren’t for people who don’t travel far and have access to charging.
If you’re serious, I recommend you have a look at the Jaguar iPace. I’ve had mine almost 5 years, and I still get people stopping me in parking lots to talk about it.,
It’s crazy quick. Handles great. And it’s middle name is cachet.
Thanks for the reference.
God is their factory website stunningly useless. They do not have a single picture of the vehicle in conventional lighting. It’s all weird dramatic film noir looking stuff meant to emphasize the electric nature of the thing somehow. I finally found a picture of the whole thing, not just one tidbit of headlight and fender. The vehicle itself is a crossover hatchback. Not my thing.
I have admired various model years of the F-type sports car though. If they do an electric F-type I might be all over that.
Wow. You got that right. I hadn’t seen that before. Truly unhelpful.
Fair enough.
Lamborghini has a similar hatchback. I find that one pretty sexy. I may have prejudged the IPace a bit harshly from my website frustrations. I’ll visit one in person and let you know.
As to the Lambo … I ain’t dropping $200+K on something named the “Urus”. I had an infection in my urus once and don’t want a daily reminder ;).
I don’t know who’s in charge of naming at Lambo or Maserati, but damn near none of their vehicles have names that sound desirable in English.