Hype Aside, Americans Still Aren’t Renting Electrified Cars
It seems inescapable that sooner, rather than later, electrified vehicles will begin to predominate on the world’s roads, substituting their gasoline-burning counterparts. Countries such as France and Good Britain have pledged to ban the sale of fresh vehicles with conventional diesel and gasoline engines by 2040. That same year, electrified vehicles are predicted to make up more than half of the new-vehicle market. This summer, the official expose of the Tesla Model three received much media exploding, with the car portrayed as an EV for the masses that the masses seem to indeed want. More than half a million $1000 deposits have been thrown down for a car that most buyers won’t get until sometime in two thousand eighteen or maybe even later. And yet, when it comes to car rentals, the masses still seem uninterested in electrification.
Both Enterprise and Hertz, the two largest U.S. car-rental companies, confirmed to Car and Driver that they have been reducing their fleet of EVs because of a lack of request. Avis, which is in third place, does not suggest any fully electrified vehicles for rent. One big reason for soft EV-rental request is low fuel prices. But Kurt Kohler, senior vice president of fleet acquisition and remarketing for Enterprise in North America, pointed to some other factors that underscore how far a broader adoption of electrification has yet to go in the United States.
Kohler said most customers who have rented electrified cars have been struck by the way they drive. He said consumers have commented that the cars are “very peppy, very responsive.” However, some of those same customers have often rented EVs for a seven-day period, only to bring them back after a duo of days to interchange them out for vehicles with internal-combustion engines.
Typical reasons for the early trade-off include range anxiety, a dearth of charging infrastructure outside the country’s EV hotspots, and even just a general lack of understanding of how and when to recharge the battery. That’s despite the rental companies permitting consumers to comeback EVs with as much or as little battery life left as they please, as opposed to requiring a total fuel tank in internal-combustion cars coming back from rental. Enterprise’s own charging infrastructure at its five thousand eight hundred U.S. neighborhood (non-airport, non-urban) rental locations is “minimal,” Kohler said. The company as a entire has only about three hundred EVs for rent, most of which are found at city and airport locations where recharging is lighter. With some 1.9 million vehicles in service worldwide, the company considers itself a decent barometer of consumer taste.
At one point, Enterprise had about five hundred Nissan Leaf electrical cars for rent in the United States. Its total EV rental count now is predominated by the Tesla Model S, which is part of the company’s specialty, higher-end Exotic Car Collection, suggested only in select locations. Enterprise also has about 30,000 hybrid vehicles in its fleet. With regular-grade gasoline presently averaging less than $Two.50 a gallon, even these hybrid rentals have seen lukewarm request. “Nobody’s indeed telling us, ‘Hey, I need to drive a hybrid,’ ” Kohler said.
If gas prices spike and EVs abruptly become the rentals du jour, Kohler said Enterprise could adapt. “If [customers] commence asking for more of them, I think we feel like, structurally, we could pivot pretty quickly and make sure we have the right cars for them.” But for the moment, he added, “Everybody’s asking for trucks and SUVs.”
