39 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

Look, I'm not here to argue and try to change your opinion.

 

Fact of matter is, Europcar I saw and experience is much better adopted for EV in every way than Hertz that was reported.

It is not the first time businesses (in this case Hertz) were unsuccessful in adopting new tech through ridge policies, subsequently facing financial losses.

I was not arguing, I was just say maybe thats was why Hertz are NOT as good as Europcar are. Do you always look to pick a fight?

26 minutes ago, Winston_Woof said:

I think it was meant to be OTT rather than a daily driver lol

Agreed, but the actual style of the car is generally far more pleasing than many of the modern SUV's etc (ignoring the internal treatment and the windows in the front wings) it is basically just a Mercedes 300SL which was already a very beautiful car.

2 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

I was not arguing, I was just say maybe thats was why Hertz are NOT as good as Europcar are. Do you always look to pick a fight?

Directly answering your question because you asked: No. I never look to pick a fight.

 

But I also never ask pointless questions that try to sway people's opinions, such as

1 hour ago, Graham Butcher said:

they really don't think that EVs are really here to stay?

 

or pointlessly compare apples to oranges:

1 hour ago, Graham Butcher said:

How many rental companies actually have their own fossil fuel pumps, let me guess, none?

 

As always, if there's nothing factual I can contribute, or never been directly asked, I never hit reply.

4 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

Agreed, but the actual style of the car is generally far more pleasing than many of the modern SUV's etc (ignoring the internal treatment and the windows in the front wings) it is basically just a Mercedes 300SL which was already a very beautiful car.

yup and the nice thing is its a new bodyshell so no classic cars were harmed

(although given the price on a Real gullwing.................)

16 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

Directly answering your question because you asked: No. I never look to pick a fight.

 

But I also never ask pointless questions that try to sway people's opinions, such as

 

or pointlessly compare apples to oranges:

 

As always, if there's nothing factual I can contribute, or never been directly asked, I never hit reply.

It was you who was criticising Hertz, not me, I was just suggesting a few reasons as to why they appear so lacklustre.

 

Maybe Hertz's locations are possibly at the end of the power supply and suffer low power availability and could be a reason why they ask for cars to be RTB with a  SOC of 80%? Maybe Europcar have addressed that problem and invested in some on site charges and the returned cars can be plugged and charging while the paperwork is being processed and the car prepared for the next customer, who knows.

 

It could also be just that Hertz just has poor management policies, either way that was why I was merely putting some ideas out there for why one should be, from your description, head and shoulders above the other.

 

The point I was making about a fossil fuel pump was in my view highlighting that the need to be having their own on-site chargers was an unnecessary expense that ICE rental companies don't normally have to have because there are plenty of filling stations around and should a renter return a car running on fumes, then they could pop to their local filling station with a jerry can, and then stick a few litres of fuel back into the tank in just minutes at minimal cost. 

 

Nothing more or less was intended by me. 🙄

Edited 19 July, 20241 yr by Graham Butcher

Ok at the risk of being dog piled, I have long been opposed to way that public charging stations are solely reliant on a digital platform for their business model, from the need for RFID cards, account cards / apps and the need to have mobile phone coverage with no way of accepting cash. Indeed the world seems hell-bent ongoing digital, digital ID card etc and many businesses no longer accepting cash, how will this type of thing be affecting BEV owners/drivers needing to get a charge in order to reach their destination if the digital network goes down like it has today?  Microsoft IT outage live updates: Worldwide travel and banking hit after cybersecurity update causes IT chaos - BBC News

That’s a more general growing risk factor than EV specific 

15 minutes ago, Winston_Woof said:

That’s a more general growing risk factor than EV specific 

Thats true, but right now its very pertinent to EV as I'm not aware of any public chargers that don't rely on the digital payment system and if the reports are true, than there could well be many folk unable to make it back home or to their destinations.

London Cabbies are reported as claiming that they cannot accept card payments for instance.

Edited 19 July, 20241 yr by Graham Butcher

Charge Place Scotland administered chargers are not reliant on a Digital Payment System, with many  you can still can not use a Credit / Debit card, but you do need a RFID Card or App to activate a charger.  There are SIM cards and poor connections.  Where you can use a Payment Card is often more reliable.

 

The System can easily go down and has.

 

As to their new Payment System, i have 2 accounts registered to pay and both have taken payments and refunded me, yet presently they appear to have lost my details for over a month now and i am owing them over £100 and waiting for them to ask payment for this. 

 

 

Edited 19 July, 20241 yr by Ootohere

With a bit of luck you get that totally free 😁

There is an Article kicking about with statistics with the areas with the lowest take up of EV,s.

Registered in that area.  I spotted Blackpool, Orkney & Dundee in the top 10 of the lowest take up.

(That can be a nonsense way to count EV,s if you go by First Registrations in an Area like Orkney but it has Used Cars that get bought and taken there.)

 

Then i spotted that among the lowest number of EV,s per chargers they have Dundee.

I need to get a proper read of that because someone seems to have missed the figure might be because Dundee City has so many chargers. 

Edited 19 July, 20241 yr by Ootohere

3 hours ago, wyx087 said:

Directly answering your question because you asked: No. I never look to pick a fight.

 

But I also never ask pointless questions that try to sway people's opinions, such as

 

or pointlessly compare apples to oranges:

 

As always, if there's nothing factual I can contribute, or never been directly asked, I never hit reply.

 

I believe its their way of expressing, perhaps speaking out load without thinking/reading/reflecting what they post, I have unwittingly fallen foul of it several times.

 

Once I responded to a question directed to me with words to the effect of "how can I possibly answer a daft question like that" they said it was not intended for me (yet they had directly quoted me) but for the forum in general, not that anyone could have had an answer to it.

 

Amusing that you were accused of picking a fight when you were being polite by replying and trying to defuse the situation, reminds me of the blokes in pubs that used to say aggressively "You looking at my bird?" and if you say no then they give an even more aggressive "why not? whats wrong wiv er then!"

2 hours ago, J.R. said:

 

I believe its their way of expressing, perhaps speaking out load without thinking/reading/reflecting what they post, I have unwittingly fallen foul of it several times.

 

Once I responded to a question directed to me with words to the effect of "how can I possibly answer a daft question like that" they said it was not intended for me (yet they had directly quoted me) but for the forum in general, not that anyone could have had an answer to it.

 

Amusing that you were accused of picking a fight when you were being polite by replying and trying to defuse the situation, reminds me of the blokes in pubs that used to say aggressively "You looking at my bird?" and if you say no then they give an even more aggressive "why not? whats wrong wiv er then!"

The question I posed was so obviously a rhetorical question and not a direct question aimed at anybody, has anybody seen a normal car rental yard which has its own fossil fuel tank and pump to fill its cars up, I certainly never have and I have had plenty of hire cars in my time. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Graham Butcher said:

The question I posed was so obviously a rhetorical question and not a direct question aimed at anybody, has anybody seen a normal car rental yard which has its own fossil fuel tank and pump to fill its cars up, I certainly never have and I have had plenty of hire cars in my time. 

 

 

 

My local enterprise does not give you the car full and asks you to bring it back with the gauge in the same place as it is on the photograph they take when you pick it up. They have no re-fuelling on site.

5 minutes ago, Stonekeeper said:

 

My local enterprise does not give you the car full and asks you to bring it back with the gauge in the same place as it is on the photograph they take when you pick it up. They have no re-fuelling on site.

Thats always been my experience, both here and in Germany.

8 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

The point I was making about a fossil fuel pump was in my view highlighting that the need to be having their own on-site chargers was an unnecessary expense that ICE rental companies don't normally have to have because there are plenty of filling stations around and should a renter return a car running on fumes, then they could pop to their local filling station with a jerry can, and then stick a few litres of fuel back into the tank in just minutes at minimal cost. 

In my opinion, you over estimate cost of charging and waaaay under estimated cost of labour.

 

All returns need at minimum a few hours of clean up, that time would charge sufficiently for next rental. Charging is a matter of plugging it in whereas refuelling requires someone to do the legwork, away from their usual duties and pay for their time.

 

This is another case where flexibility of EV charging (not just 1 speed at 1 price) and lower cost means need a paradigm shift in the way we think about refuelling the car.

 

EVs when not being rented can also be used to make money:

 

Octopus Agile is the UK version.

https://octopus.energy/smart/agile/

2 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

has anybody seen a normal car rental yard which has its own fossil fuel tank and pump to fill its cars up,

 

Yes, probably more than 50% of the vehicle rentals in France.

 

In fact probably way more than 50% by numbers of rentals.

 

Most short term rentals are from the Hypermarkets and done in store, when the big chains open a new Hypermarket they build a huge shopping centre and trading estate to have everything in one place, it kills all the existing competition and forces those who survive or replace them to be their tenants under their conditions.

 

Everyone of the Hypermarché ZAC's (zone d'aménagent concerté)  will have a fuel station run by the Hypermarché (Leclerc, Intermarché Carrefour Système U), they charge you a forfait if you dont refuel the vehicle and spend the money within their own enterprise with the drivers only taking a couple of minutes to do so.

 

One in the Somme that rented box vans by the hour like most do had a sign in the cab saying that it should be refuelled at their adjacent fuel station before returning, what they dont tell you is that the height barrier is 4cm lower than the cab roof height and in the small print there is a forfait of €1000 payable for roof damage.

 

They get really riled if you insist they come out with you and note any defects, damage etc on the rental agreement before you sign it, spare wheels are usually missing, one I had had low brake fluid and the warning light was on, they expected me to buy some in their shop 🥸 I picked it up and walked straight out with it in front of the security guy, I had taken a stepladder and showed them the roof which had been beaten and scratched to pieces repeatedly by their barrier and never once repaired, got them to make a note of it and all the other panel damage and I photographed it before signing, they subsequently out of spite held the pre-autorisation of €1500 on my bank account for a couple of weeks, I think they found a way of repeating it until I made contact with the directeur through a mutual friend.

 

All the plant hitre companies who also hire vans etc have their own diesel tanks, not often petrol because other than lawn mowers, disc cutters etc they dont have petrol vehicles on their fleet, the small petrol stuff must be returned empty, the diesel vehicles full, same deal, they charge to fill up otherwise from their own fuel.

3 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

refuelling requires someone to do the legwork, away from their usual duties and pay for their time.

 

Exactly, which is why in my country the hire companies have their own fuel filling facilities, I've been away from the UK for 2 decades but back then all the major car hire operations at Gatwick and Heathrow had their own fuelling facilities for exactly the reason you describe, cake and eat it!

52 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

In my opinion, you over estimate cost of charging and waaaay under estimated cost of labour.

 

All returns need at minimum a few hours of clean up, that time would charge sufficiently for next rental. Charging is a matter of plugging it in whereas refuelling requires someone to do the legwork, away from their usual duties and pay for their time.

 

This is another case where flexibility of EV charging (not just 1 speed at 1 price) and lower cost means need a paradigm shift in the way we think about refuelling the car.

 

EVs when not being rented can also be used to make money:

 

Octopus Agile is the UK version.

https://octopus.energy/smart/agile/

WTF, I was not even talking about the cost of charging, just the added cost of maybe having to upgrade the power supply to the premises and the cost of having the charges installed in the first instance versus an ICE car on fumes only needing someone to make a short visit to their local filling station with a jerry can to give the next renter enough fuel to get started and drive to the filling station. 

 

Which I was suggesting maybe one of the reasons why Hertz was requesting that BEV cars are returned with SOC around the 80% mark, to save them the additional costs of carrying out the work as mentioned above, and suggesting that maybe Europcar had made that investment so the SOC on returned cars was not so critical.

Edited 19 July, 20241 yr by Graham Butcher

40 minutes ago, J.R. said:

 

Yes, probably more than 50% of the vehicle rentals in France.

 

In fact probably way more than 50% by numbers of rentals.

 

Most short term rentals are from the Hypermarkets and done in store, when the big chains open a new Hypermarket they build a huge shopping centre and trading estate to have everything in one place, it kills all the existing competition and forces those who survive or replace them to be their tenants under their conditions.

 

Everyone of the Hypermarché ZAC's (zone d'aménagent concerté)  will have a fuel station run by the Hypermarché (Leclerc, Intermarché Carrefour Système U), they charge you a forfait if you dont refuel the vehicle and spend the money within their own enterprise with the drivers only taking a couple of minutes to do so.

 

One in the Somme that rented box vans by the hour like most do had a sign in the cab saying that it should be refuelled at their adjacent fuel station before returning, what they dont tell you is that the height barrier is 4cm lower than the cab roof height and in the small print there is a forfait of €1000 payable for roof damage.

 

They get really riled if you insist they come out with you and note any defects, damage etc on the rental agreement before you sign it, spare wheels are usually missing, one I had had low brake fluid and the warning light was on, they expected me to buy some in their shop 🥸 I picked it up and walked straight out with it in front of the security guy, I had taken a stepladder and showed them the roof which had been beaten and scratched to pieces repeatedly by their barrier and never once repaired, got them to make a note of it and all the other panel damage and I photographed it before signing, they subsequently out of spite held the pre-autorisation of €1500 on my bank account for a couple of weeks, I think they found a way of repeating it until I made contact with the directeur through a mutual friend.

 

All the plant hitre companies who also hire vans etc have their own diesel tanks, not often petrol because other than lawn mowers, disc cutters etc they dont have petrol vehicles on their fleet, the small petrol stuff must be returned empty, the diesel vehicles full, same deal, they charge to fill up otherwise from their own fuel.

Phew, they are pretty sharp over there then, thank god that is not how things are here in the UK. Some of the large DIY sheds like B&Q for instance do operate a short term hire of a van (by the hour) in order to get big bulky things home, but there are no filling stations on their sites, you are free to get fuel anywhere, all you have to do is to return the van with the fuel gauge needle in the same position as it was when you took the van, just as @Stonekeeper said, and that is the same for all the hire vehicles I have ever had, from, cars, vans, trucks, lorries and minibuses from many different companies and locations, never been any different, I assure you.

3 hours ago, J.R. said:

 

Exactly, which is why in my country the hire companies have their own fuel filling facilities, I've been away from the UK for 2 decades but back then all the major car hire operations at Gatwick and Heathrow had their own fuelling facilities for exactly the reason you describe, cake and eat it!

When I was working on T5 at Heathrow when it was being built, it was very common to see the local hire depots around the airport, driving the cars across Bath Road into the Shell garage opposite the terminal, among others.

Edited 20 July, 20241 yr by Graham Butcher

7 hours ago, Ootohere said:

 

Then i spotted that among the lowest number of EV,s per chargers they have Dundee.

I need to get a proper read of that because someone seems to have missed the figure might be because Dundee City has so many chargers. 

why would that be wrong?

Sounds like Dundee City may have got the infrastructure in place before people have really started getting EVs, which is a good thing isn't it?

3 hours ago, wyx087 said:

Charging is a matter of plugging it in whereas refuelling requires someone to do the legwork, away from their usual duties and pay for their time.

Agreed, but that also assumes that they have the infrastructure to plug into, also in the case of ICE, the filling stations are never more than a few streets away and takes minutes to do.

@Winston_Woof  You seem to have missed just how long Dindee has not only had infrastructure but actually BEV drivers, council. Taxi Fleets, businesses and private users including those with Electric cars from Motability.

Why it is Electric City.  Not shy in getting the money in from the EU, Dundee and Tayside. seeing as Dundee is only 67 square km with a population of under 148,000. 

 

Car registration are not Dundee City they are Tayside. Then there are Perth that is part of Tayside.  The boundary to Dundee City is Angus and Perthshire and across the Tay Bridge Fife. 

 

 

Edited 20 July, 20241 yr by Ootohere

31 minutes ago, Ootohere said:

@Winston_Woof  You seem to have missed just how long Dindee has not only had infrastructure but actually BEV drivers, council. Taxi Fleets, businesses and private users including those with Electric cars from Motability.

Why it is Electric City.  Not shy in getting the money in from the EU, Dundee and Tayside. seeing as Dundee is only 67 square km with a population of under 148,000. 

 

Car registration are not Dundee City they are Tayside. Then there are Perth that is part of Tayside.  The boundary to Dundee City is Angus and Perthshire and across the Tay Bridge Fife. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah I get that  its had the infrastructure for a long time but the way you originally wrote

"Then i spotted that among the lowest number of EV,s per chargers they have Dundee.

I need to get a proper read of that because someone seems to have missed the figure might be because Dundee City has so many chargers."

which almost sounded as though you thought someone had fscked up

I mean a place that has (and this is only an example and not any sort of reality)  that has 100 Chargers and 500 EVs  will have less EVs per charger than a place with 500 EVs and 50 Chargers even though both places have 500 EVs

Edited 20 July, 20241 yr by Winston_Woof