@Persimmon I've only rented EVs with Hertz in the US and they have always been between 70-100% charge upon pickup.

 

@Persimmon Next time this happens, get the manager over at the Avis pickup location and quote their own terms and conditions to them.

"Avis will rent the EV with at least a 70% charge on the battery."

I would also suggest you complain to customer service at Avis USA and let them know what happened. If they don't hear from you, how will they fix any problems?

 

Do they also rent out ICE vehicles with 4 litres left in the tank?

I guess not....

 

ICE cars are usually rented full to full. For an EV this would mean giving it back on 100%. I have heard at least one case where this was expected (could have been 80% or 90%) and it sounded like a nightmare. Of course you can sometimes also rent ICE full-to-empty but it's usually just a scam to increase the price by overcharging you for a tank of petrol, I always reject it out of hand. The rental sector will need to standardise a new way of managing things for EVs. It would probably be best to say they'll give it to you on 80% and you return it on 40% or something with an agreed up-front cost to recharge to 80%.

 

And why don't you get an rfid card pre-registrated on the different networks?

That would really help with getting folks into the journey of ev.
And then you'll get charged on return for usage.

 

And why don't you get an rfid card pre-registrated on the different networks?

That would really help with getting folks into the journey of ev.
And then you'll get charged on return for usage.

@Noraf142 I've rented EVs quite a bit in the USA with Hertz. Mostly Model 3/Ys and once with a Kia Niro (new model) - With the Teslas, it was always so easy (esp in california or even in florida) using the supercharger, and then Hertz pass the charge fees automatically to you from the supercharger usage.

With the Kia (again in California), I was at the mercy of the non Tesla chargers (which are pretty awful over there vs UK/parts of Europe) but I the area I was driving around, had some non Tesla chargers that worked, and Hertz directed me to an app called Presto (which I downloaded, registered my UK credit card for payment) and was then plugged in and charging at a supermarket.

 

This topic has been widely discussed on various blogs and media platforms. Clients are used to returning cars just before their flights and often don’t consider the need to recharge beforehand. With an ICE refueling takes only a minute or two, but with a BEV, they first need to locate a charger and spend an hour or more charging. As a result, they frequently return the car with an empty battery (and pay the associated fee).

Rental car employees are then responsible for recharging the vehicles. However, staff shortages in recent years, especially during busy periods, have made this challenging. Additionally, management disapproves of using fast and costly DC chargers, as they’ve usually installed a few slow AC chargers in the parking lot for recharging their BEVs.

 

@Fran K I have to disagree with you on some of what you put forward. I was returning an ICE car at San Diego airport the other week and the traffic to get towards the gas station that was closest to the car rental return place was crazy. Plus it must have been closer to 10 mins just to fill up the massive gas tank in the car! Took me almost 30 mins just to "gas" up.

When I've rented Teslas in the US, then returning them over 70% many times, actually worked out so easy, simply because of the plethora of superchargers (in certain states) that meant you go grab a bite to eat/go shopping/chill out on your normal route back to the airport and there would be lots of superchargers easily accessible, whilst you shop or eat. And even picking an EV up at a big busy airport like SFO or MIA, I'd always get given an EV that had between 70-90% charge.

I think it also matters how valuable your time is especially when overseas. Some of the trips, I returned the Tesla rental or the gas rental car (prepaid gas option) with almost empty battery/gas tank, because in those trips, I wanted to maximise my time for my trip (and every minute of free time mattered to me), and I was happy to pay the extra fee.

Teslas used to be SO cheap to rent with Hertz in the US (vs a gas car) that even returning with low battery and getting hit with $35 recharging fee, I was still saving so many dollars on the rental.

 

@raspy Hertz has been trying to get rid of electric cars, I believe they've already sold 10 or 20 thousand of them.

Hertz loses $2 billion, largely because of electric cars

Hertz has posted its fourth loss in a row as it slashes its fleet of Tesla and Polestar electric cars.

www.drive.com.au

The rental company still plans to meet its previously announced goal of selling 30,000 electric vehicles from its fleet by the end of 2024.

As a student, I worked at a car rental company, and occasionally customers would return a car with the tank nearly empty. If there was a queue at the petrol station (we were on an island with only one gas station), I would have to ask to wait or if they would take an empty car. However, such cases were rare, whereas with BEVs, they're unavoidable. We wouldn’t be able to operate with a BEV. If fuelling an ICE vehicle at a station dispensing 40-60L per minute (100-130l/min for trucks/boats) can be a challenge, imagine trying to charge a BEV.

There is still no fast charger in that place (an infrastructure problem, 600 people live there in the winter, 16,000 tourists come in the summer). It takes 4-6 hours to charge a BEV on a slow AC (11kW) charger, which means you can't rent a car that day. If you have 2-3 chargers and 20-25 bevs,...

 

@Fran K Yes, I'm aware of the challenges Hertz in particular faced with having EVs on their fleet. It was fun whilst it lasted. I should have rented the Polestar 1 they had on the lot at Miami airport!

 

Old thread, but just to chip in with my recent experience hiring a Polestar 2 from Hertz in Sydney last week - on checkout the car had 88% and the standard invoice wording was:

“I understand Hertz will provide the electric vehicle with 85.00% charge on pickup. Should I decide to return the vehicle below this level, I understand Hertz offer a recharging service based on $0.80 p/kwh to return the vehicle to the applicable charge percentage. If the vehicle is returned at 15% or less, I will be charged for the recharge plus an additional recharging service fee of $10.00. I agree to be responsible for any charges associated with using a recharge station prior to return of the electric vehicle.”

However without any prompting the chap on the collection desk said, don’t worry about the retuning it with the higher charge level, I’ll issue you now with a new invoice, so that you can return it with 20% charge on return. New invoice received 5 minutes later as I was collecting the car and the wording above in the new invoice duly reflected that.

That was great customer service from them.

As it happens I had charged the car fully the night before returning (overnight AC in the Rocks run by EVX @ 39c per kWh) and with a trip or two on the day of return actually handed it back with 87%. It was good peace of mind knowing I didn’t have to hand it back full-ish, but then again I didn’t want to abuse the goodwill, and the overnight charge was no bother and relatively cheap in the grand scheme.

 

I regularly rent EVs in Spain and they come fully charged and you return them with as low as you dare. There is no penalty for this. Also lots of the small villages have free charging so if you play it correct it does not cost anything for the mileage you travel

John

 

We had an 3008 EV rented from Enterprise, while our Ioniq 5 was being repaired. The car had 8% SoC and 20 milea showing, so we had to head straight to an O2A supercharger for a quick top-up, which was luckily only 6 miles away. Ok, we could have charged it home cheaper overnight, but need to run some errands the day we picked it up.
They told us needed to come back with at least what we picked it up with.