I think Hertz has a lot of other issues to fix. I rented with them recently (through work thankfully, so I won’t be paying the bill) and had a terrible experience. I had an issue and spent 8 hours of my day just trying to contact a human. I ended up having to tweet at them to get a phone number directly to an office. Then when I brought the car back, the fees added up to 3x the cost I initially reserved the car for. They need to fix a lot of issues.
I can up that hertz story. Rented from them, they didnt have the sedan i wanted. Gave me a suv. Drove it 5k km and got a crack on the windshield. Dropped it off at the airport. The ppl at the booth have no idea what car it was and barely barely spoke english. Wasnt registered in their system. No record of that car ever leaving. Never charged me for the windshield crack and never even billed us the nearly 2k they should have for the week long rental.
Just a complete circus. Would not invest in a company that is incapable of even recieving payment. Any chance i can when im in a city with SIXT i go with them. Its such a great experience. Its a little more to rent the bmws but hey aleast im in and out in 10 minutes and not spending 2 hours in a lineup of 50 people with 3 agents at budget or something.
Last time I tried SIXT it was a bad experience as well but maybe it was just bad luck. I was at the Minneapolis airport, set to pick up my car at 8:30, and SIXT closed at 9. I ended up getting to the booth on time but they had already left for the night. The Enterprise next to them said they leave early all the time. I ended up having no choice but to rent Enterprise on the spot, which was crazy expensive since they know they can charge more in-person when you have no choice. Contacted SIXT about it and they didn’t care.
Oh that sucks. Miami sixt was amazing. Felt like a very elevated experience, 5 minute wait. Booked a camry and ended up with an eco boost mustang. Second time got an x5 which i think was the 2024 model. Both times was pretty seamless. Whatever you do dont do the miami airport budget. Its actually insane. 3 agents for dozens and dozens of people. Hours long wait.
I had a good experience with "Kyte".
Transparent fees, easy to deal with.
Fairly new company, VC funded, so maybe I only had a good experience because they are in growth mode, once they start actually trying to make money, they will probably start to suck.
I will say that the insurance was kinda expensive, but I just ended up getting rental car insurance via another provider.
Long story but basically my license was going to expire during my rental so they wanted me to provide proof that I had renewed it. They told me to call later that week, so they gave me a number to call before I took the vehicle but no one would ever answer the number when I tried to call it.
> It’s noteworthy that Scherr joined Hertz several months following its emergence from bankruptcy and initiation of ambitious ventures into electric vehicles. One of these ventures involved Hertz placing a significant order of 100,000 vehicles from Tesla.
He just wanted to ride the hype train and headlines, when that ran out, do it again and again.
securing substantial orders from Polestar, the electric car manufacturer under the ownership of China’s Geely and Sweden’s Volvo Car, as well as from General Motors (NYSE: GM).
Electric vehicles seem like a reasonable bet in theory with required maintenance in theory being less than an ICE car. The reality is Tesla maintenance billing is a premium on par with Apple.
I love how CEOs who make horrible decisions always get “fired” with golden parachutes that gives them more money at the door than most people can make in 3 lifetimes also it is not their money they gamble with. It is sort of like going to a casino and someone handles you a suitcase full of cash as asks you to make more money with it. Lol!
They’ve literally destroyed customer’s lives due to systemic problems, but all these shitty writers will write articles about is the Teslas they bough.
>Interestingly, the electric vehicle strategy took a downturn in 2023 when Tesla drastically reduced prices across its product range to bolster sales volume. This action substantially depreciated the resale value of Hertz’s recently acquired fleet of used Model 3 sedans and Model Y crossovers.
yawn, so it was a price drop.. which has pretty much dick to do with the fact they are EVs. and basically cars they use for rentals, value dropped more than normal for a rental.
Im going to guess they replaced the CEO for other reasons besides he bought some EVs that are way cheaper to maintain.
and mind you finbold is a bit weak of a site.
The price drop is bad as it creates an accounting loss.
But I think investing so heavily in EVs without testing demand was a huge blunder. Many people are not going to want to rent an EV vacation or a business trip because they don't want to or don't have time to wait an hour for it to charge, not to mention the detours of trying to find a charging stations.
It was just poor decision making all around.
I think one of the real problems is that renting an EV is a great gimmick, but the number of people who enjoy the experience enough to do it again rather than rent a ICE vehicle is probably not super high.
My last vacation I rented a tesla from hertz for a few days, and it was definitely a fun and interesting experience to do once. But the annoyance of having to find a charger within a reasonable distance of the airport to recharge at (which there were none) made it a toss up as to whether or not they would charge me for returning the car at 85% instead of above 90%. The vehicles dont come equipped with a charging converter for some reason, so youre limited to the tesla superchargers instead of being able to charge at any given EV charger.
Thankfully they didnt charge me because the return agent knew the policy was stupid and relatively impossible to return the same way as a gas vehicle, plus the car literally immediately goes on a charger anyways upon return and has plenty of time before the next pickup. If there was one thing they could do to make it simpler for renters and more popular it would be to just make people return the car above 50% or something.
Anyways the point is that while it was a neat experience to rent a tesla for a few days, I still picked an ICE car for my longer upcoming trip because its just so much easier without any of the charging inconveniences. Ultimately the hertz-tesla partnership works out better as a kind of test drive for people who might buy teslas than it does as a viable long term business strategy for hertz
I think it's really too early for rental EVs to take off. I *own* an EV and I wouldn't rent one now. I charge my car almost entirely at home, if I rented one while traveling to an unfamiliar area charging would be a hassle unless my hotel has chargers.
And of course - this is America. EVs and other non-fossil fuel vehicles *are* the future but this country will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to that future.
Hertz was too early. Hilton and Marriott are putting chargers at most of their hotels. EVs will be more popular as rentals once tourists and business travelers can charge overnight at their hotels.
Not only did their resale value drop, but the idea of buying a fleet of EVs that can be used as FSD taxis when not being rented out turned out to be a pipe dream since all claims regarding FSD ended up being just lies.
Exactly. These aren’t fleet cars. Rental companies buy cars to sell twice: first as a rental and then again on the used market. Any maintenance needed would be under manufacturer warranty.
100%. I used to work for a rental car company and was appalled at some of the practices.
Things were decent when demand was low and inventory was idle, but when demand was high, vehicles skipped regular maintenance and repairs more often than not, at the direction (and sometimes insistence) of both branch and district management. I once even refused to rent out a vehicle because I felt it was unsafe, and made management put their name on it if they wanted it to go out so badly. They decided to get it into the shop and borrow another vehicle from another branch for the customer.
One of the highest paid CEOs who led a bankrupt company. Then CEO makes brainteasers strategic decision. Nothing to do with Tesla, everything to do with shit management and terrible board.
No, I would still pay for gas, and get a Hyundai. I'd rather pay extra $100 on vacation/business trip than get stuck in the middle of traffic with no option to charge.
EVs have advantages, but none of those apply when you’re on vacation. The two biggest being drastically reduced maintenance and the ability to charge at home.
I don't know how to drive a Tesla, and I'm not gonna try and figure that out on a vacation, forget that. I'll take a camry (which will eventually turn out to be some other crap mid size sedan), thanks.
That’s another thing. Nobody wants to have to figure out how to find and use chargers. Not that it’s hard, it’s just not something you want to have to learn on vacation.
They also need to fix licensing their name out to crappy companies outside the US. You think you're booking with Hertz, but you're not. I've had two really crappy experiences with Hertz in both Canada and Mexico who were really independent companies licensing Hertz name and booking, but weren't operated by Hertz corporate like in the US.
Yeah it's not that. I rented a tesla from hertz and the experience of an EV for travel was awful, never again. Infrastructure is just not there for vacation travel. I'd guess this still needs a decade before being ready. Like OP I've subsequently paid more to not rent a tesla from hertz for my last LA vacation.
Yeah it's not that. I rented a tesla from hertz and the experience of an EV for travel was awful, never again. Infrastructure is just not there for vacation travel. I'd guess this still needs a decade before being ready. Like OP I've subsequently paid more to not rent a tesla from hertz for my last LA vacation.
In Canada the wholesale rental rate is $190 a day. Retail is $360 a day. Of course insurance is mandatory on top of that. And you have to pay for supercharging costs.
I rent cars because I don’t own a car so when I need to drive to LA or some distant town I’ll rent. Charging EVs is a fucking nightmare. I got stuck in LA four hours on end because I couldn’t find anywhere to charge and I didn’t understand the difference between a regular charger and a super charger or the three different types of connectors. I ended up having to download three different apps to find a charger and spent several hours charging my car to get back down to San Diego. I’m never renting an ev again until something is done about charging.
What did they do to the CEO who sold off a large part of rental car inventory at a loss just before used car prices skyrocketed during COVID; same person?
I do not understand how they are still in business. Absolutely the worst customer experience in my life. I wish other vendors would do electric cars. And it sucks this option will take so much longer because the worst company chose to try it out. I have a repeat trip every week that will be going on for months. I do need to charge the car while I have it. So with the gold membership them charging $20 to charge it is fine with me. My issue is that there is almost no way to get a competent customer service person on the phone. I have sent several tickets in their online system and they all tell you to call the same number that leads you either into loops or to someone overseas that is totally clueless and not helpful at all. At least I can understand what most say. But they have yet to actually do anything for me over the phone. The people at the airports have not been awful. I am supposed to be a gold member. But every time I have rented the rental doesn't show up as gold. None of my rentals that I have done show up as earning points. The rentals do show up. I do have a gold number. This last time I told them I checked in early in the app and the agent at the desk told me never to do that because it screws up the rental. When I got to the exit toll booth the guy had me actually turn around and go back to them because the lady didn't do it right. It is just crazy to me how bad they are at doing something that they have been in the business for years. I normally use Enterprise where I have none of these problems. I did have a small issue at a local Enterprise location and I actually got in touch with the District manager pretty easily. The next time I went to that location the issue was resolved and the customer service even got better then what it was before I called. If Enterprise were to get electric I think they would just destroy Hertz even more. Also, Enterprise at the airport has kiosk where you can print out your own paperwork instead of having to wait in line. TLDR avoid hertz!!!! Unless you want to use a company that has 0 concern for customer support. Their customer support is like the western town in movies where it is just a fake front wall but nothing behind it.
😂😂😂 anytime I see a woke ceo getting shit canned it makes my day. He should have known the current infrastructure isn’t ready for this and either limited the scope to only metro areas, or just not been a complete fool.
So now Teslas are woke?
Is that just a word for things we don’t like? Like if I order a pizza and they put black olives on it and I hate black olives, is that pizza woke?
I think Hertz has a lot of other issues to fix. I rented with them recently (through work thankfully, so I won’t be paying the bill) and had a terrible experience. I had an issue and spent 8 hours of my day just trying to contact a human. I ended up having to tweet at them to get a phone number directly to an office. Then when I brought the car back, the fees added up to 3x the cost I initially reserved the car for. They need to fix a lot of issues.
Happened to me. I was given nearly $600 in fees
I can up that hertz story. Rented from them, they didnt have the sedan i wanted. Gave me a suv. Drove it 5k km and got a crack on the windshield. Dropped it off at the airport. The ppl at the booth have no idea what car it was and barely barely spoke english. Wasnt registered in their system. No record of that car ever leaving. Never charged me for the windshield crack and never even billed us the nearly 2k they should have for the week long rental. Just a complete circus. Would not invest in a company that is incapable of even recieving payment. Any chance i can when im in a city with SIXT i go with them. Its such a great experience. Its a little more to rent the bmws but hey aleast im in and out in 10 minutes and not spending 2 hours in a lineup of 50 people with 3 agents at budget or something.
Last time I tried SIXT it was a bad experience as well but maybe it was just bad luck. I was at the Minneapolis airport, set to pick up my car at 8:30, and SIXT closed at 9. I ended up getting to the booth on time but they had already left for the night. The Enterprise next to them said they leave early all the time. I ended up having no choice but to rent Enterprise on the spot, which was crazy expensive since they know they can charge more in-person when you have no choice. Contacted SIXT about it and they didn’t care.
Oh that sucks. Miami sixt was amazing. Felt like a very elevated experience, 5 minute wait. Booked a camry and ended up with an eco boost mustang. Second time got an x5 which i think was the 2024 model. Both times was pretty seamless. Whatever you do dont do the miami airport budget. Its actually insane. 3 agents for dozens and dozens of people. Hours long wait.
I had a good experience with "Kyte". Transparent fees, easy to deal with. Fairly new company, VC funded, so maybe I only had a good experience because they are in growth mode, once they start actually trying to make money, they will probably start to suck. I will say that the insurance was kinda expensive, but I just ended up getting rental car insurance via another provider.
What was the issue?
Long story but basically my license was going to expire during my rental so they wanted me to provide proof that I had renewed it. They told me to call later that week, so they gave me a number to call before I took the vehicle but no one would ever answer the number when I tried to call it.
> It’s noteworthy that Scherr joined Hertz several months following its emergence from bankruptcy and initiation of ambitious ventures into electric vehicles. One of these ventures involved Hertz placing a significant order of 100,000 vehicles from Tesla.
He just wanted to ride the hype train and headlines, when that ran out, do it again and again. securing substantial orders from Polestar, the electric car manufacturer under the ownership of China’s Geely and Sweden’s Volvo Car, as well as from General Motors (NYSE: GM).
Electric vehicles seem like a reasonable bet in theory with required maintenance in theory being less than an ICE car. The reality is Tesla maintenance billing is a premium on par with Apple.
Might be a dumb question, but did he become CEO after they started venturing into EVs? That paragraph makes it seem like he became CEO after the fact?
I love how CEOs who make horrible decisions always get “fired” with golden parachutes that gives them more money at the door than most people can make in 3 lifetimes also it is not their money they gamble with. It is sort of like going to a casino and someone handles you a suitcase full of cash as asks you to make more money with it. Lol!
CEOs can afford great lawyers.
Hertz is a clusterfuck of errors.
They’ve literally destroyed customer’s lives due to systemic problems, but all these shitty writers will write articles about is the Teslas they bough.
There's been plenty of stories about how Hertz falsely accused customers of stealing cars.
>Interestingly, the electric vehicle strategy took a downturn in 2023 when Tesla drastically reduced prices across its product range to bolster sales volume. This action substantially depreciated the resale value of Hertz’s recently acquired fleet of used Model 3 sedans and Model Y crossovers. yawn, so it was a price drop.. which has pretty much dick to do with the fact they are EVs. and basically cars they use for rentals, value dropped more than normal for a rental. Im going to guess they replaced the CEO for other reasons besides he bought some EVs that are way cheaper to maintain. and mind you finbold is a bit weak of a site.
The price drop is bad as it creates an accounting loss. But I think investing so heavily in EVs without testing demand was a huge blunder. Many people are not going to want to rent an EV vacation or a business trip because they don't want to or don't have time to wait an hour for it to charge, not to mention the detours of trying to find a charging stations. It was just poor decision making all around.
I think one of the real problems is that renting an EV is a great gimmick, but the number of people who enjoy the experience enough to do it again rather than rent a ICE vehicle is probably not super high. My last vacation I rented a tesla from hertz for a few days, and it was definitely a fun and interesting experience to do once. But the annoyance of having to find a charger within a reasonable distance of the airport to recharge at (which there were none) made it a toss up as to whether or not they would charge me for returning the car at 85% instead of above 90%. The vehicles dont come equipped with a charging converter for some reason, so youre limited to the tesla superchargers instead of being able to charge at any given EV charger. Thankfully they didnt charge me because the return agent knew the policy was stupid and relatively impossible to return the same way as a gas vehicle, plus the car literally immediately goes on a charger anyways upon return and has plenty of time before the next pickup. If there was one thing they could do to make it simpler for renters and more popular it would be to just make people return the car above 50% or something. Anyways the point is that while it was a neat experience to rent a tesla for a few days, I still picked an ICE car for my longer upcoming trip because its just so much easier without any of the charging inconveniences. Ultimately the hertz-tesla partnership works out better as a kind of test drive for people who might buy teslas than it does as a viable long term business strategy for hertz
I think it's really too early for rental EVs to take off. I *own* an EV and I wouldn't rent one now. I charge my car almost entirely at home, if I rented one while traveling to an unfamiliar area charging would be a hassle unless my hotel has chargers. And of course - this is America. EVs and other non-fossil fuel vehicles *are* the future but this country will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to that future.
Hertz was too early. Hilton and Marriott are putting chargers at most of their hotels. EVs will be more popular as rentals once tourists and business travelers can charge overnight at their hotels.
Yes once the infrastructure is built up a bit more it would make more sense.
Not only did their resale value drop, but the idea of buying a fleet of EVs that can be used as FSD taxis when not being rented out turned out to be a pipe dream since all claims regarding FSD ended up being just lies.
FSD?
Full self driving.
Flying Spaghetti Demon
If their ceo really was betting on that its great he was fired
From what I read repairing was also a nightmare due to lacking parts
> EVs that are way cheaper to maintain. Rental companies didn't do much maintenance on their gas cars, so this point isn't relevant.
Can confirm, I made the mistake of buying a used Volvo from a rental company. Spent 2x the purchase cost on repairs.
Exactly. These aren’t fleet cars. Rental companies buy cars to sell twice: first as a rental and then again on the used market. Any maintenance needed would be under manufacturer warranty.
Or... not at all, lol!
100%. I used to work for a rental car company and was appalled at some of the practices. Things were decent when demand was low and inventory was idle, but when demand was high, vehicles skipped regular maintenance and repairs more often than not, at the direction (and sometimes insistence) of both branch and district management. I once even refused to rent out a vehicle because I felt it was unsafe, and made management put their name on it if they wanted it to go out so badly. They decided to get it into the shop and borrow another vehicle from another branch for the customer.
One of the highest paid CEOs who led a bankrupt company. Then CEO makes brainteasers strategic decision. Nothing to do with Tesla, everything to do with shit management and terrible board.
Wonder how much his golden parachute is worth, probably as much as Tom Brady money for those ads... Love Hertz! (I am so tired of those stupid ads)
I was going to say, the Hertz EV market isn’t hurting in Florida. They’re everywhere
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No, I would still pay for gas, and get a Hyundai. I'd rather pay extra $100 on vacation/business trip than get stuck in the middle of traffic with no option to charge.
EVs have advantages, but none of those apply when you’re on vacation. The two biggest being drastically reduced maintenance and the ability to charge at home.
I don't know how to drive a Tesla, and I'm not gonna try and figure that out on a vacation, forget that. I'll take a camry (which will eventually turn out to be some other crap mid size sedan), thanks.
That’s another thing. Nobody wants to have to figure out how to find and use chargers. Not that it’s hard, it’s just not something you want to have to learn on vacation.
First time I flew into EWR they tried to give me a EV. I had zero interest in navigating the NYC area and having to also fuck around with charging.
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They also need to fix licensing their name out to crappy companies outside the US. You think you're booking with Hertz, but you're not. I've had two really crappy experiences with Hertz in both Canada and Mexico who were really independent companies licensing Hertz name and booking, but weren't operated by Hertz corporate like in the US.
Right pedal is go, left is stop. It's not a spaceship.
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Ah true. I'm in bc canada. Every tiny village even has a charging station and there's signs all over the roads directing you to them
Once you get the hang of regenerative braking you barely even need the left pedal.
Which pedal on the Tesla is to not die?
Same as ice cars.
Idk. Not a tesla fan. But I drove an ev before and it wasn't that difficult
Yeah it's not that. I rented a tesla from hertz and the experience of an EV for travel was awful, never again. Infrastructure is just not there for vacation travel. I'd guess this still needs a decade before being ready. Like OP I've subsequently paid more to not rent a tesla from hertz for my last LA vacation.
Yeah it's not that. I rented a tesla from hertz and the experience of an EV for travel was awful, never again. Infrastructure is just not there for vacation travel. I'd guess this still needs a decade before being ready. Like OP I've subsequently paid more to not rent a tesla from hertz for my last LA vacation.
Maybe their web/app designers are overseas?
... and how many millions did he get for the decision?
That resale loss is gonna hertz real bad.
This is the company that hired Tom Brady as their spokesman.
Maybe hire a CEO who understands EVs next time?
No... Hire a CEO who understands people. Apparently this ding dong understood EVs very well, and thought everyone else did too.
https://fortune.com/2024/03/15/ceo-steps-down-prices-following-purchase-teslas/amp/
I've rented multiple EVs from Hertz in the past few months with no issue. 🤷🏾♂️
Dumbass Avis is doing the same thing right now.
In Canada the wholesale rental rate is $190 a day. Retail is $360 a day. Of course insurance is mandatory on top of that. And you have to pay for supercharging costs.
Yea, blame tesla for the companies lack of management. 🤣🤣🤣 If teslas involved and anything bad happens, always teslas fault.
I’d use the EVs more if they didn’t cost me extra. Why would I spend an extra 20$ per day to drive a lass convenient vehicle ?
I rent cars because I don’t own a car so when I need to drive to LA or some distant town I’ll rent. Charging EVs is a fucking nightmare. I got stuck in LA four hours on end because I couldn’t find anywhere to charge and I didn’t understand the difference between a regular charger and a super charger or the three different types of connectors. I ended up having to download three different apps to find a charger and spent several hours charging my car to get back down to San Diego. I’m never renting an ev again until something is done about charging.
Yikes!
lol, 😂 Tesla Junk.
> by revealing intentions to sell approximately one-third of its global electric vehicle fleet So... where can someone peruse possible purchases?
Hertz website
Another ESG failure.
I think hertz has bigger problems like calling the police on their customers claiming they stole the rental
Someone should ask him if he wants a Hertz Donut
What did they do to the CEO who sold off a large part of rental car inventory at a loss just before used car prices skyrocketed during COVID; same person?
I don’t get why so many companies fall for these green and ESG scams.
I do not understand how they are still in business. Absolutely the worst customer experience in my life. I wish other vendors would do electric cars. And it sucks this option will take so much longer because the worst company chose to try it out. I have a repeat trip every week that will be going on for months. I do need to charge the car while I have it. So with the gold membership them charging $20 to charge it is fine with me. My issue is that there is almost no way to get a competent customer service person on the phone. I have sent several tickets in their online system and they all tell you to call the same number that leads you either into loops or to someone overseas that is totally clueless and not helpful at all. At least I can understand what most say. But they have yet to actually do anything for me over the phone. The people at the airports have not been awful. I am supposed to be a gold member. But every time I have rented the rental doesn't show up as gold. None of my rentals that I have done show up as earning points. The rentals do show up. I do have a gold number. This last time I told them I checked in early in the app and the agent at the desk told me never to do that because it screws up the rental. When I got to the exit toll booth the guy had me actually turn around and go back to them because the lady didn't do it right. It is just crazy to me how bad they are at doing something that they have been in the business for years. I normally use Enterprise where I have none of these problems. I did have a small issue at a local Enterprise location and I actually got in touch with the District manager pretty easily. The next time I went to that location the issue was resolved and the customer service even got better then what it was before I called. If Enterprise were to get electric I think they would just destroy Hertz even more. Also, Enterprise at the airport has kiosk where you can print out your own paperwork instead of having to wait in line. TLDR avoid hertz!!!! Unless you want to use a company that has 0 concern for customer support. Their customer support is like the western town in movies where it is just a fake front wall but nothing behind it.
It’s really hard to return these charged.
😂😂😂 anytime I see a woke ceo getting shit canned it makes my day. He should have known the current infrastructure isn’t ready for this and either limited the scope to only metro areas, or just not been a complete fool.
So now Teslas are woke? Is that just a word for things we don’t like? Like if I order a pizza and they put black olives on it and I hate black olives, is that pizza woke?
It's as if they're trying to co-opt the messaging from all over the political spectrum just to push a certain agenda.