Hertz is selling 20,000 used EVs due to high repair costs

The rental car company will replace them with gasoline-powered vehicles.

See full article...

 

[Tagbert]

This is why the new rhetoric includes things like "well we really need to make it so that you don't drive as much"

Go look at why Norway isn't happy with an almost entirely EV nation.

Norway’s complaint is that because people like driving EVs, they are taking buses less often. That is not the indictment of EVs that you think it is.

 

[Tagbert]

I like EVs. I plan on my next car to be an EV. EVs are the way of the future. However, I cannot imagine renting an EV.

EVs are great if you’re parking them at your house where you have the infrastructure to fill them up.

Road trips are trickier. EVs can work on road trips because there are enough level 3 charging stations around. However, this all takes planning. Freely roaming without an idea where you're going doesn’t work out quite yet when you’re driving an EV.

Renting one for a work assignment? Is my work going to book me at a hotel with a level 2 charger? Will the places I visit have charging facilities? Road trips with EVs take a bit of planning. I don’t think I have the flexibility to do that when I’m assigned to fly somewhere and put out a dumpster fire.

Some day, we’ll have the infrastructure everywhere, so renting an EV will be great — especially since I don’t have to fill it up before I return it to the rental company.

I rented a Tesla M3 from Hertz last summer. Wanted to see what they are like. I knew that I would be doing most of my driving within about a 75 mile radius for a week so charging was pretty easy to manage. Yes, charging takes a little more planning right now, but it’s not too bad if you aren’t on a road trip through low population areas and have just a little flexibility.

 

[Tagbert]

Well a lot of the points are not totally wrong, if you really care about the environment, you should prioritize public transit/alternative to cars, not more cars (for example)...

You may still have more impact encouraging EV driving rather than public transit, even though transit is often more efficient. It can be easier to convince people to change to an EV than to completely change their approach to transportation and switch to a bus.

 

[Tagbert]

The study I saw mentioned 100000 km (60000 miles), it depends on your use, but in my case, it would take around 15 years to pollute less with my ICE than I would do with an EV.

That might be the case if you lived in one of the (very few) areas where coal is the sole power source, but in most areas an EV will much more quickly pay off the CO2 manufacturing debt. One year / 13,000 miles is a common finding.

Even this calculation assumes 23% for coal in the US grid, but that is dropping and is now at or below 20%.
https://www.reuters.com/business/au...become-cleaner-than-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/

 

[Tagbert]

I've had ICE cars that made 300,000 miles on their original engines. The battery in my Volt hybrid started to fail at only 110,000.

My brother’s Jetta was making lots of smoke by 100,000 miles and lots of Volts have gone 200-300,000 miles on their batteries. Too many variables to predict a specific vehicle but EVs are proving about as long lasting as ICEVs.

 

[Tagbert]

Did they have dual motor/performance model 3s at Hertz? The base model 3 isn't exactly a rocket.


Half a second? When I launch my ICE it has 6PSI on tap and just goes with no delay. Unless you're trying to take off from idle with a turbo setup I can't imagine a half second delay.

Other than in a drop-clutch situation, most ICEVs have noticeable delay after pressing the accelerator before actual acceleration can be felt. The engine is generally causing at a lower rpm with little output and has to rev up to produce power. On most cars that takes a noticeable time. Add to that that most cars in the US have automatic transmissions when generally try to keep the engine revs low, when you hit the accelerator and the engine tries to go, the transmission has to be pushed to township before you can really get going.

A really sporty ICE engine and a manual transmission can help reduce these delays but it is most people's experience with ICEVs. EVs on the other have very little lag between pressing the assertor and the resulting movement. With a single-speed transmission that doesn't need to shift and lots of torque at nearly any rev range, EVs are very good at quick changes in speed. They may run out of acceleration at higher speeds, but in the 10-60 mph of most streets and freeways, EVs can move quickly for the short bursts that you need to get around in traffic.

 

[Tagbert]

If I remember correctly, the answer is "it varies from manufacturer to manufacturer"


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0YW7x9U5TQ

Hyundai has corrected that.

AFAIK all other manufacturers do engage the brake lights on regen braking though some only trigger once it reaches a certain level of deceleration. A light regen is treated like the minimal deceleration when you back off the throttle on a manual ICEV and the brakes are not triggered.

 

[Tagbert]

I don't think he has driven a powerful ICE, that may be why he thinks so. A 99hp ICE with a CVT is pretty bad. Not 1/2 second bad, but I can see the impression.

Modern slushboxes are pretty good and there is a delay, it is minimal. Again, you are traction limited more than anything once you get to those levels of power. That noticible delay is in milliseconds. One advantage an EV has over ICE is the single speed transmission. No delay while an ICE has to kick down some gears at low speeds.

That kick-down of the transmission and the time before it happens is one of the biggest differences in how responsive an EV feels vs an ICEV.

 

[Tagbert]

Human interfaces today vary considerably. It would make sense to have industry standards because unlike a desktop OS lives and property are at stake. Automobile control layouts and functions used to be easy to learn because they were very simple and industry had little reason to complicate them.

Rental agencies should consider posting vehicle familiarization videos because reading an owners manual with understanding is a bridge too far for many Americans who read at 8th grade level on a good day. (Ars is not representative of the general public.) The public prefer fewer and simpler choices (Apple is successful because it understands this).

Did you see today's article on BMW using an LLM to help users understand how to use the various features in their cars. This kind of thing might really help people who rent cars and aren't familiar with a particular one.

 

[Tagbert]

What's annoying is that in the late teens batteries like the one in the Bolt were supposed to have been designed so they could be easily be serviced at the module if not cell level (with the right tools; thank you Dr. Kelly for demonstrating that process). Unfortunately, batteries are now integrated inseparably with the vehicle structure (thank you Tesla), are mostly bespoke designs with little sharing across EV platforms so far (meaning low production of battery and vehicle types - Ultium was supposed to fix that for GM, but we have seen how that's (not) working out), and have encountered resistance (after claiming the batteries could in fact be serviced in the field (at dealers)- see GM when questioned early on about battery life in Bolts) to providing proper training and parts. The "refurb" process is well-developed for Prius and Leaf batteries where there's a market for it now that there are many on the road needing life extensions, so the concept is clear. It's the execution that isn't happening, mainly by choice of the EV makers.

BTW - GM is using the Ultium platform for some of its China vehicles and those are now being produced in quantity so it seems that the production issues are more specific to North America.

 

[Tagbert]

The car rental thing is a real problem... I'm driving a car old enough to vote in my daily life, and a couple of weeks ago I was in a rental whose behavior was wildly unexpected.

In what way was it different?