Ride the Lightning: Hertz Selling Off 20,000 Electric Cars

[Bill]

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/03...x-rental-cars/

EV bargains to be found as Hertz sells off some of its electric cars
More than 1,200 EVs are cheap enough to qualify for the used clean vehicle tax credit.

Jonathan M. Gitlin - 3/29/2024, 9:00 AM


Electric vehicles have many advantages over cars that still use internal combustion engines. They're far more efficient, they're quieter, and they usually have much more torque than their gasoline-powered equivalents. But we're still far from achieving price parity between powertrains. In other words, EVs are expensive.

One place you can find some bargains, though, is the rental company Hertz, which currently has more than 2,100 EVs for sale, more than half of which are affordable enough to qualify for the IRS used clean vehicle tax credit.

Hertz has been adding a lot of EVs to its fleet as part of the company's decarbonization plan. In 2021, it revealed plans to purchase 100,000 Teslas. However, the controversial car maker had delivered fewer than half of those two years later, and long repair times for customer-inflicted damage have seen the rental agency divest itself of many of those Teslas and diversify its fleet, adding plenty of Polestars, Kias, and Chevrolets.

This January, we learned that Hertz plans to sell off about 20,000 of its EVs, and there are currently 2,115 EVs up for grabs among the 31,134 cars for sale on its used car sales site.

There are 761 Teslas for sale, 63 of which are Models 3 priced at less than $25,000—the price cap for the IRS used clean vehicle tax credit. Some of them have been around the block a few times, with more than 90,000 miles on the odometer (145,000 km), but there are others with less than 50,000 miles (80,500 km) on them.

Better bargains are available if you want a Chevy Bolt—Hertz currently has 1,178 Bolt EUVs (and another eight Bolt EVs) for sale. All of these are cheap enough to qualify for the used clean vehicle tax credit, and plenty of them are low-mileage examples with less than 10,000 miles (16,000 km) on the clock.

There are a handful of other makes and models of EVs also available. You could pick from one of 126 Subaru Solterras, for example, which range from $27,027 to $33,002. And there are 42 Kia EV6s, ranging from $27,120 to $39,901. These are too expensive for the used clean vehicle tax credit, though.

Not everyone reading this will feel entirely comfortable buying an ex-rental car, given the hard lives that such vehicles often lead. But if you're feeling brave, there are some big savings to be had versus buying new. Anecdotally, the only thing that went wrong with the ex-rental Ford Ka I used to own was a worn-out clutch—not a problem an EV will suffer from.

[GrandSportC3]

Not so great deals.. Cars are listed at prices in the blue book value range for year and miles.

[LATB]

Originally Posted by GrandSportC3

Not so great deals.. Cars are listed at prices in the blue book value range for year and miles.

Wait until you read the fine print.

[KenHorse]

No battery warranty I bet

[dvarapala]

Never buy a used rental car.

[Yadkin]

Originally Posted by GrandSportC3

Not so great deals.. Cars are listed at prices in the blue book value range for year and miles.

No used EV is a good deal unless it's nearly new with few miles. It's not like a real car that can be fixed.

[Onebadcad]

Originally Posted by dvarapala

Never buy a used rental car.

I rememer when hertz sold all their special edition corvettes a few years back, SUCKAS!!

https://www.hertz.com/rentacar/misc/...orvettezhz.jsp

[zsr22]

Buying a used car I can work on is bad enough. Buying a used car made for me not to work on seems suicidal.

[69camfrk]

Even rental car companies now know what a fraud EV's are.

[Bill]

Originally Posted by Onebadcad

I rememer when hertz sold all their special edition corvettes a few years back, SUCKAS!!

https://www.hertz.com/rentacar/misc/...orvettezhz.jsp

Cool, but buyers HAD to know that every mile on those cars was a HARD mile. I suspect people who rented the Teslas probably floored them several times just to see what they could do. People who rented the Bolts? Probably not so much.

[GrandSportC3]

Originally Posted by bill_daniels

Cool, but buyers HAD to know that every mile on those cars was a HARD mile. I suspect people who rented the Teslas probably floored them several times just to see what they could do. People who rented the Bolts? Probably not so much.

My concern would be that renters often will not care or know about keeping the battery healthy. No way of knowing if renters left the car charged to 100% for days or let the car sit at 1% for a longer period of time which causes serious degradation to the battery. I would not buy a rental EV.

[RedLS1GTO]

Originally Posted by GrandSportC3

My concern would be that renters often will not care or know about keeping the battery healthy. No way of knowing if renters left the car charged to 100% for days or let the car sit at 1% for a longer period of time which causes serious degradation to the battery. I would not buy a rental EV.

Can you show me where Tesla explicitly highlights this on their website... not in the fine print?

You want to talk about misleading? This is the absolute definition of it. The published ranges from the EPA go from 100% to 0%. You can't do EITHER of those things without "serious degradation to the battery". EPA numbers not meeting the real world because of driving conditions, etc is 1 thing. Not being able to meet the numbers ... because it permanently damages your car is something completely different.
You can talk about Tesla not being liable for the EPA numbers because that is regulated, great, that's no different than ICE EPA testing, but Tesla (and the rest) is sure as hell responsible for the fact that if you actually do achieve what is advertised, it permanently f**ks up your car... which is absolutely NOT the same as ICE.

[Steve_R]

Originally Posted by GrandSportC3

My concern would be that renters often will not care or know about keeping the battery healthy. No way of knowing if renters left the car charged to 100% for days or let the car sit at 1% for a longer period of time which causes serious degradation to the battery. I would not buy a rental EV.

Wait, what? Leaving the battery "charged to 100% for days causes serious degradation to the battery?" What the actual ****?

[GrandSportC3]

Originally Posted by RedLS1GTO

Can you show me where Tesla explicitly highlights this on their website... not in the fine print?

You want to talk about misleading? This is the absolute definition of it. The published ranges from the EPA go from 100% to 0%. You can't do EITHER of those things without "serious degradation to the battery". EPA numbers not meeting the real world because of driving conditions, etc is 1 thing. Not being able to meet the numbers ... because it permanently damages your car is something completely different.
You can talk about Tesla not being liable for the EPA numbers because that is regulated, great, that's no different than ICE EPA testing, but Tesla (and the rest) is sure as hell responsible for the fact that if you actually do achieve what is advertised, it permanently f**ks up your car... which is absolutely NOT the same as ICE.

Under charging routing:

https://www.tesla.com/support/range

https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/m...641FFAEF4.html

If you can charge and leave charge at 100% depends on the type of battery you have. On LFP, you can and should charge to 100% every day if possible. On

[GrandSportC3]

Originally Posted by RedLS1GTO

Can you show me where Tesla explicitly highlights this on their website... not in the fine print?

You want to talk about misleading? This is the absolute definition of it. The published ranges from the EPA go from 100% to 0%. You can't do EITHER of those things without "serious degradation to the battery". EPA numbers not meeting the real world because of driving conditions, etc is 1 thing. Not being able to meet the numbers ... because it permanently damages your car is something completely different.
You can talk about Tesla not being liable for the EPA numbers because that is regulated, great, that's no different than ICE EPA testing, but Tesla (and the rest) is sure as hell responsible for the fact that if you actually do achieve what is advertised, it permanently f**ks up your car... which is absolutely NOT the same as ICE.

BTW, REGARDLESS of your charging routine, you got your battery warranty which includes degradation. Tesla has zero to do with the process on how EPA numbers are determined. It's not Tesla's standard. As long as they did not accurately abide by the standard, the blame has to go to the EPA, not Tesla.

[GrandSportC3]

Originally Posted by Steve_R

Wait, what? Leaving the battery "charged to 100% for days causes serious degradation to the battery?" What the actual ****?

Same thing happens to your phone. I set a 85% charge limit on my phone as leaving a Lithium Ion battery (except for Iron Phosphate ones) at 100% is not good for the any Li Ion battery.
Charging to 100% is not a problem as long as you immediately use the car. Same goes to running down the battery to 0%. You can do that as long as you don't let it set at that low charge level. That's just the way those batteries work.

[GrandSportC3]

Originally Posted by RedLS1GTO

Can you show me where Tesla explicitly highlights this on their website... not in the fine print?

You want to talk about misleading? This is the absolute definition of it. The published ranges from the EPA go from 100% to 0%. You can't do EITHER of those things without "serious degradation to the battery". EPA numbers not meeting the real world because of driving conditions, etc is 1 thing. Not being able to meet the numbers ... because it permanently damages your car is something completely different.
You can talk about Tesla not being liable for the EPA numbers because that is regulated, great, that's no different than ICE EPA testing, but Tesla (and the rest) is sure as hell responsible for the fact that if you actually do achieve what is advertised, it permanently f**ks up your car... which is absolutely NOT the same as ICE.

BTW, when you order a Tesla, they will send you tutorial videos for the car you ordered.

This one about charging:

YouTube

[dvarapala]

Originally Posted by GrandSportC3

My concern would be that renters often will not care or know about keeping the battery healthy.

These cars get supercharged every day - most likely up to 100% - by ignorant renters. Those battery packs are flogged.

And we won't even mention all of the "jackrabbit starts" at every stoplight.

[GrandSportC3]

Originally Posted by dvarapala

These cars get supercharged every day - most likely up to 100% - by ignorant renters. Those battery packs are flogged.

And we won't even mention all of the "jackrabbit starts" at every stoplight.

50% of the time, I fast charged my Plaid and my degradation is below average. Supercharging has minor impact. The worst impact on battery health is leaving the car at below 10% for a long time, followed by leaving it at 100% for a long time.

I get 323 miles range at 100% right now after almost 2 years, 35k miles.
New range was 333. Less than 4% degradation in almost 2 years. First year is usually 5% followed by 0.5% to 1% every following year.
Just pulled my BMS data.

[LATB]

Originally Posted by GrandSportC3

60% of the time, I fast charged my Plaid and my degradation is below average. Supercharging has minor impact. The worst impact on battery health is leaving the car at below 10% for a long time, followed by leaving it at 100% for a long time.

I get 323 miles range at 100% right now after almost 2 years, 35k miles.
New range was 333. Less than 4% degradation in almost 2 years. First year is usually 5% followed by 0.5% to 1% every following year.

My truck seems to get better MPG's as it ages.