The Hertz-Tesla EV Disaster...What Happened - Logically Answered

I flew into Heathrow a couple of weeks after the announcement and went to pick up my rental (I had booked a 'standard sedan'.) They pulled around a Tesla M3. My first reaction was 'nope' due to being unfamilair with charging networks and range. This was further entrenched when I saw the absolutely lousy fit and finish in the interior. The plastic surround on the a-pillar was already pulling away, etc. The paint was also showing significant (factory) flaws, too. Hertz intially refused to switch the car claiming they had no other vehicles available so I started to cancel my booking at the desk, thinking I'll flip over to Enterprise. Suddenly they 'discovered' a VW Passat TDI 6 speed, which I was more than happy about.

So if I am in a strange city, on a trip, the last thing I want is an electric car. I won't have my convenient home charger. I have limited time to see the sights or conduct business ... so don't want to look for charging spots or spend the time charging. This was dead from day 1.

LOL @ the downvotes! 😁

Honestly not a bad thing to get instead. Better interior than the Tesla and TDI engines are usually more reliable than VW’s TSI engines

Agreed. Thw only issue is had was the Passat was slightly bigger than I wanted due to some if the very small country roads I would be occasionally driving on. But in the end it worked out OK. And yes, the TDI brought back memories of my Golf which was such a fun car to drive in that low, flat torque band.

That was my experience, too. I had had no experience at all of EV driving let alone charging and was quite uncomfortable when the Tesla was offered to me.

Unfortunately? the only diesels I’ve really driven are a few 2021 GWM Cannons (one of which I might’ve crashed) and a 2013 Hilux with the 3.0L in a manual, so can’t speak to how fun the TDI Golf’s are, but even that Hilux was a good fun drive to me.

Tesla $Tsla $330 by 11/28/25

I didn't say 'unfortunately' 🤷‍♂️ But if you've ever driven in the UK or Europe you need to be very aware of the road sizes you'll be driving on. Fortunately, the Passat worked out fine but i was a little unsure when I was offered it. Great car!

Sorry, just meant unfortunately for myself cause I don’t have a proper comparison, so not really sure how good the smaller cars with diesels are. And I’ve definitely seen enough photos and video to know how dreadful those roads are for cars, but I’m glad it worked out for you. Would honestly be interested in getting a Passat like that when I start looking for a “new” car in February.

Counter to your point. I rent cars often for day trips as it’s cheaper/easier than an Uber for 2/3 meetings. It’s quite nice not having to go fill it up at a petrol station. However teslas are not designed to be a rental, everything is unnecessarily different which is the last thing you want in a rental. I don’t want to have to hold a card to door pillar to open / lock it or download an app. I don’t want a bespoke entertainment system I want to just use CarPlay etc etc

My understanding is that Hertz wasn't charging the cars between rentals, and was getting tighter about making customers charge them. That simply won't work, even if people wanted to drive electric cars. For EV rentals to work at all, a rental company would need at least slow chargers for every EV. Even if that didn't fully charge cars between uses, it would be a start.

Yes it was poorly thought out and executed, so it was actually a great match

I would have had no trouble at times considering an EV, but even when I’ve rented a Grand Cherokee 4xe it’s never been plugged in. Can I assume the rental companies are actually bothering to charge EVs? Last time I rented a car they literally got it back, cleaned it, and turned it around in 15 mins. Can’t necessarily do that with an EV

Exactly my feeling. I once booked an EV by mistake with hertz. They wouldn’t change to a different vehicle so I just stood at the desk and booked a different car instead. Then they let me have it. So stupid.

👍

Exactly this; Tesla made a huge sale to a new logo and the stock price increased accordingly, but it requires an actual change to the rental business and processes. Which is definitely not hard to do, it's actually way easier to make a rental business out of EVs, once you think it through. Especially with a software defined car like a Tesla. I rented one via a sharing platform and the owner just sent me the key in the app. With some tweaking, a Hertz branded Tesla app could work wonders! When the car is parked between rentals, they can slow charge. You can charge customers to the kWh exactly what energy had to go in once they return the cars. Maintenance/oil changes, most of it is gone. It just makes so much sense if some people get their head of out of their arses (and tell the oil companies to gtfo).

It would require installing slow chargers, if someone was motivated to do that. And customers would still need to know how to charge.

This was my experience. I received the car with the battery at about 65% charge. Had to find a charger before I reached the hotel. Charged it up to over 80% when I returned it, but was still given a “fuel charge.” When I asked what it was, I was told that it was charged because I brought back the car “with less than a full tank of gas.” I had to argue with one of the attendants to have the charge repealed.

Yep. Owned EV over a decade and road trip my own now and then-- but flying into a new place I always get gas rental. Not even a question.

It would have made more sense for Enterprises Rent A Car servicing body shops that fixed Teslas. If you own a Tesla you’d want a Tesla rental car when dealing with a repair.

How much do you guys drive on your trips? A full battery would last so many work trips or even personal ones. Could probably get 1-2 years of trips on one charge.

As a counter, I've rented an EV for the last two summer trips to Sweden, and it's been working *perfectly*. But Sweden has also had a massive build-out of charging networks, so you have a ton of options. A couple of minutes from my apartment there's a city parking lot with overnight 10kW chargers. Plenty of gas stations have 350kW fast chargers. Every rest stop along the main highways have fast chargers. And every single one of them is tap-to-pay. Memberships and apps and shit is *optional*. And every car I've had has had built-in navigation that can get charging speed and spot availability info from all the various networks. It's all open, it's all built-in. Tesla's charging moat is completely obliterated. I have never gone to a supercharger, and I never will. There's a plethora of competition from other private companies for your money, and they're been building like crazy. It's so telling that every single gas station company is building fast chargers. They all see the writing on the wall, and they are *not* gonna keel over and go under due to the market shifting to EVs. (But I would never rent a Tesla. 😛)

> Hertz wasn't charging the cars between rentals What the...? When I get to the rental parking area at the Stockholm Arlanda airport, every single rental company (Hertz included) has EVs, and every single one of those are plugged in and charging. When you grab your car, it's at 80%. They even charge their plug-in hybrids! The contrast is quite striking, it seems like in Sweden, everyone has understood that the EV change *is happening*, no matter what you think about it, and then every company is just adapting to that future. So everyone is just building out their part of the infrastructure. They might be grumbling and wishing they wouldn't have to, but they're fucking doing it.

It was a stock pump for both Hertz and Tesla. I saw 4 mobile L2 chargers (probably L2, but could be L1) at a Hertz location for about 10 EVs.

Yep. Back when Hertz first started selling off their Teslas I read about a dozen articles that mentioned loss of value before I found one that said they had installed Level 2 chargers at something like 7 of thousands of locations and were adding fees it the cars weren't brought back at 90%+. So the user experience was 1) Get a car from the Hertz lot with no charge and find a place to charge it 2) Use it normally 3) Unless you return it after an overnight charge at a hotel you return it with less than 90% battery and they charge you a huge fee. 4) Never rent an EV again. I thought the charging industry had figured it out but I was at a station a few months ago and this guy pulled up next to me in an ID4 and asked me how to charge. Turns out they sent him a video link to charging instructions, there was no cell service at this station so he couldn't watch it and he couldn't believe that he had to sign up for multiple apps and his phone was too old to download them. He and I both assumed they would have given him RFID cards and charged him back for the cost. Nope. I ended up tapping my RFID card for him and he venmo'd me money a day later. Kept in touch during his trip and he had to arrange with 3 charging networks that when he needed a charge he would call them with the charger ID number and they would authorize it to charge without him having to download an app, but it would take 5-15 minutes each time for the authorization.

As an American I can tell you that we often do not understand why companies do the things they do here and the only explanation is there are zero consequences for high level executives making huge mistakes. If they screw up badly enough the company will pay them to leave and then even if the mistake was very public, another company will hire them.

The Passat in the US is different from the international version though. The US version is cheaper and less comfortable and dynamic. The international Passat version is very close to the Audi A6. Most are sold as station wagon (Passat Variant, A6 Avant, for the Passat only the station wagon is available in Europe), not as sedan - not available in the US. Manual transmission is not available any more. The 2.0 TDI engine is very popular with businesses for employees driving long distances due to its fuel efficiency and excellent suitability for driving long distances (top speed 223km/h even though it has just 150hp, excellent seats if the ErgoActive option is chosen). This is a 50k-70k vehicle though ...

I’m in Australia, so guess we’d have that international version probably, and honestly ours seem to have nice interiors from what I’ve seen. I would honestly be using it for trips and sometimes travelling to work if it’s raining for instance. My plan is to get a licence for a motorbike and use that a lot of the time for things.

In neighbouring Norway, 95% or something of all new cars sold are EVs, so it's very easy for everyone in Sweden to look at what's going on over there, and what the entire car market/industry/business is going to look like in a couple of years, and adapt to. So there's that. I'm guessing the US is stupidly thinking they're the industry leaders still or something, so they don't have to do anything because that EV trend is apparently reversing or something?

Some Americans prefer to be as ridiculous as possible whenever possible because that is owning the libs which is all they care about. I want these people to self deport themselves so the USA can get back to being a progressive and sane country but who in the world would take them?

Indeed, Hertz would have had to install chargers at the parking spots where the cars would be. And customers would indeed need to learn how to plug in a car, but it's hardly a new concept with the average American owning more than 3 digital devices with a battery that needs to be charged on a regular basis.

Plugging something in isn't a new concept, but finding EV chargers and knowing which ones are which is a learning curve. Especially in the US, where our charging infrastructure is a sh*tshow of issues.

For Teslas, this is a solved problem. Drive up to a Supercharger location, the car knows where to go to, and plugin. That's literally it.

Hertz fucked me on a Model Y rental in Sacramento, giving me a car with 60% charge and finding that my destination had no Tesla chargers anywhere close. Never again have I used Hertz.

Hertz customer service at airports has been horrible in my experience, where they will often refuse to help if you booked online. at least my experience in Denver and Sacramento. I stopped using Hertz and removed much of my burden with travel

I've been a solar installer since 2006 and installed one of the first Tesla Roadster EVSE's in the country back in 2009. This is a discussion we have pretty frequently. Its obvious to us cars will eventually be 100% EV and its obvious to everyone in Europe and Asia. Regular American, and to a lesser extend Canadian people don't see the trend because the North American auto companies won't admit where the industry is headed. A good example is Ford does not make "cars" in North America anymore. They make cars in Mexico, Europe and China, for those markets, but they only make high profit margin SUVs and pickup trucks in North America. My dad owns a Chevy Bolt EV because his Ford Focus died, he'd bought Fords since 1956, there was no option to buy a new for car and he had no interest in an SUV or Pickup. So he ended up changing brands to an affordable EV. They claim they make SUVs and pickups because "thats what people want" but ignore that they have exclusively marketed those vehicle types for 40 years. In Europe industry generally has carrots and sticks. In the USA they only have carrots. There is as little regulation of emissions as car companies can lobby for, no plan to tax CO2 and they haven't raised the federal gas tax in over 20 years, so there is no incentive for car companies to make efficient vehicles. As is the tradition in the USA eventually the industry will fail, file for bankruptcy, stiff their creditors, the executives will get "golden parachutes" and the Federal Government will make up for the 401k retirement plans the car companies abandon.

Owning a Tesla is a big learning curve, in a rental environment, the average ICE owner would need a lesson on how to even operate it let alone charge it. Then there is a time investment in getting an account to charge it. I was a typical power renter, rented cars every week on business, sometimes several different rentals in a week. Like every other corporate traveler, was required to return car full to avoid fueling charge. More often than not, was usually hurrying back to the airport to catch a flight. The last thing I would want to do is waste time looking for a charger, waiting for the charge, etc. I rented a hybrid once several years ago, I got in the car, pressed the start button and was confused why it wouldn't start. (I didn't know it was a hybrid). I finally discovered I only needed to press the accelerator pedal to move forward.

I was at a rental center recently that had Tesla superchargers on site. I believe it was the Dallas Fort Worth Budget/Avis lot but I'm not certain.

Americans allow institutions to fuck them over. We are cowards.

The video points out they needed more maintenance. People crashed the cars due to acceleration and the repair facilities were limited and backlogged. You’d think Tesla would want this to work and give them support.

I rented a hybrid at night once. It was pitch black and I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the lights they couldn’t either and cell service sucked. Car rental shops don’t give a shit about you not do they know anything about the vehicle they rent.

I’d still be driving my 2005 TDI Jetta if that damn tree hadn’t fallen on it. I did have to have the transmission dome at one point, though.

I love EVs and that's exactly why I don't rent them. I want to pick it up full and bring it on empty. - I don't have 1-2 hours to charge an EV at the airport before I return the car.

I rent Polestars every time from Hertz. They do keep changing the rules. But I drive an EV as a daily, so I'm used to it. The last time I rented, in Florida, they said I had to bring it back with a 70 or 75% charge, which is what it had when I picked it up. I charged about 20 miles away. The car said I would arrive with the SOC at around 68% but that was with my prior average consumption. I set my cruise at 10 below the speed limit and arrived with 2% to spare and about 5 or 10 minutes later. But I have read horror stories about non-ev people being handed the keys and told "here's your car." That isn't good for anyone. My personal cars have been 3 Teslas, a Kia Ev6 and my current car, a GV70 Electrified. So driving a rented EV is second nature. But turn the tables. What if someone has only driven EVs and is suddenly handed the keys to a gas car. What would that be like? The other issue that I read about with Hertz was repairs were expensive.

They went through 6 CEOs in the last 11 years. Dumbasses in charge is par for the course for them.

90-100% charging and treating like a rental is silly. becomes a range and time issue and not efficiency and care. rental cars also need resale: they drop under 40% after 6 months abuse. clearly also they did not see that Tesla is not a trad Oem and pricing n cycles dont sync

>I finally discovered I only needed to press the accelerator pedal to move forward. Ah, we've found the reason for people ramming their EVs into buildings. Discovering the instant torque while messing around looking for ways to make the thing go. /s but probably true.

That's a fun side-effect of American Exceptionalism. So many US consumers are convinced that they live in the best possible country, and that the services they can buy are simply the best option anywhere, because if it doesn't exist in the US, then it simply can't be done or something. They don't think better exists, so they don't demand better. When five seconds of googling could tell them how behind they are. As far as I can tell, all the large rental companies in Sweden, Hertz, Avis, Europcar, Sixt, they all have EVs. And they all have a huge variety of brands, and most of them have (had) Teslas for rent. Right now, only looking at EVs at Stockholm Arlanda airport, Avis offers Kias and Peugeots, Europcar has Skodas, Cupras, and Volkswagens, Hertz has Volvos (and Polestars at other locations), and Sixt has Volvos and Lynks. I know for a fact that in the past, they have had Teslas, Mercedeses, BMWs, and Nios. They're all private companies, and they're all obviously testing different EV brands. They buy a bunch, see how it works renting them out, depreciation, repairs, maintenance, wear and tear, customer satisfaction. You know, how capitalism and the free market is supposed to work! No huge proclamations, no grandstanding, no government programmes, just companies doing the free market thing. Meanwhile, Hertz in the US did this huge proclamation, said they were gonna buy 100000 Teslas, actually bought 35000, and have since sold most of them, while enshittifying the service instead of committing to the change. For shits and giggles I just checked SFO and LAX for what cars they have available. SFO has 0 EVs, but you can get a Polestar 1, the weird hybrid prototype they did? LAX has 0 EVs, but you can rent a Ford F150!

Better six than one

It was so poorly done. I rented many teslas through hertz and it was just inconvenient and odd. Also, Tesla through them under the bus. A simple perk would have been to link my rental with my Tesla account and suddenly have all of my settings on the rental car. How cool? But no, you couldn’t even use the app and had to use the key card. It was all around bad.

Thanks, bot „No, thanks“

Yeah, that would be one of my gripes about renting an ev, with gas, I can just pull over at a nearby gas station and fill up in a couple minutes.  Ev is a lot harder and it would get worse if ev adoption continues to increase without more infrastructure built out and significant increases in charging technology

Poor execution, but also…unless your hotel has a charger, when you are on a trip the last thing you want to deal with is charging. I’m an EV owner, but I won’t rent one again.

Exactly this I rent cars 40+ weeks a year for work, I've had and EV 3-4 times. I now refuse them and will Uber from the airport to get something from a local branch if EVs are all that's available at the airport.

Some trips 30 miles, some trips 600 miles. It varies, and sometimes I don't know ahead of time. I've had an EV as a rental 3-4, now I refuse them and will leave with out a vehicle if that's all they have.

Biggest takeaway to me is that although EVs are cheaper to own and operate, the monopoly that Tesla holds on repairing the vehicles eats up that potential savings if/when you do have a repair. Tesla is reaping profits from the savings that people anticipate realizing on maintaining an EV.

As an EV owner, we deliberately rented on Turo in order to get "our" EV for a 2-week road-trip/vacation. It was nice, a little slice of home. And my wife is amazing at navigating to chargers that have food (or coffee) - it becomes part of the adventure. :)

I actaully talked to the rental manager when we had one from the dealership and he was driving us back to the dealership to pickup ours... The turn-around time for rentals is typically less than 20 minutes. So they don't have time to charge them up between rentals. If the car is sitting idle, it's not earning them money.

>The turn-around time for rentals is typically less than 20 minutes. Interesting, but large rental locations typically have lots full of cars waiting to be picked up. So if those cars were charging while sitting, that would help. And there are reports that EV rentals are working in countries with high EV adoption rates, so it's a proven solvable problem.

Yeah, that's the bit that didn't make sense... even at an Airport - which is the bussiest rental location I know of, there's rows and rows of cars. You could implement a gantry-style system (similar to those that electric go-cart tracks use)... DCFC a dozen cars from "overhead" (so the stupid drivers don't run over, or into the charging infrastructure). Plug them in as soon as the car stops, and even if it's "20 minutes" that'll add a fair bit of juice. Couple with some load-sharing SoC smarts and yuo don't even need a tonne of incoming power, just a logic switcher to supply to the lowest ones. Where I see EV adoption taking off is Dealership loaners. Those "one day" loaner cars should be EVs. perfect use-case as you don't need to train ppl on charging.

Wheewww how's that depreciation on your genesis going bud

It’s a lease. I’ve decided that the tech is changing too quickly to buy something this expensive and let it depreciate. I would rather have an excuse to go shopping every few years. I really like driving electric. But these cars are not designed to be 50 or 60 year old classics (like I am) so no sense owning it. In May of 27 we’ll see what’s out there. In the meantime I’ve got a car that starts when I need it and it has free EA charging.

The lower maintenance is kind of a fallacy. Saving on an oil change doesn't help you when everything else is much more expensive. There is a lot more to Fast Moving Parts (your common maintenance items) that have nothing to do with the powertrain. Especially in rentals. Cracked windshields, broken door handles, side mirrors, lights, trim pieces, sensors, more sensors. source: I sell containers of Fast Moving Parts and have massive quantities of demand data.

I'll immediately believe you. I'm now convinced Tesla is being murdered by Musk's insatiable greed. I don't have personal experience, but I've heard those parts are very expensive for Teslas. Are there no 3rd party/aftermarket parts for Teslas available?

It's pretty limited on S/X, better on 3/Y. Windshields took what felt like forever to get to market. There's a legal challenge in offering a windshield for vehicles that have through-windshield cameras tied to driving assists. If your glass doesn't calibrate the same as the OEM, you are liable.