Discussion: Hertz orders 100,000 Model 3's

[CapeOne]

Tesla appears to be selling at full price.

Not necessarily. If the $4.2 billion figure is accurate, 100k of even base/no option M3 SR+ sedans would have a current retail value of more than $4.5 billion USD which would therefore represent a discount of 7%. The article also claims that the order is for "well appointed cars rather than the typical base model" which suggests that it may include upper level M3s (LR or Performance) and/or cars with added options which would mean even greater discounts. These could be notable discounts especially by typical Tesla discount standards. Not enough information to know for sure at this point.

 

[Knightshade]

I only rent for road trips, we once did 2000 miles in one week when we went to Santa Fe. If I'm going to a city I prefer to use Uber or cabs, not rent a car, because you don't have to worry about parking. For something like a short business trip to Silicon Valley the SR+ would be fine but in years past when I'd spend a month out there at a time I would have needed a LR car, had they existed at the time, because on weekends I'd go to Napa or Pinacles and those trips are a long distance, but I'll concede because it's CA where there are Superchargers on every corner it might work. But not in the other 49 states

Yes in the other 49 states. Or most of em anyway.

There's almost no major highway in the US where you don't pass a supercharger in 100 miles or less. So 250 miles is PLENTY of range for nearly everyone.

You can find exceptions of course, but they're not nearly as common as you suggest and tend to be remote places I wouldn't be renting a sport sedan for anyway.


Bear in mind too, 100k cars is only a minority of their fleet.

it's not like they don't KNOW how many miles renters in each of their locations typically drives- and will almost certainly position these cars accordingly.

. The rate of Supercharger expansion has been glacial.

This is outright false.

From the investor call last week:

The network has doubled in the last 18 months, and we are planning to triple it over the next two years.

Bar Harbor Maine has been pending for four years, supposedly it's going to finally happen this year but so far nothing is happening.

Ok. But there's one in Bangor 45 miles away, not hundreds of miles away....or Augusta ~100 miles to the west, or Baileyville ~100 miles to the northeast.

Where are you going exactly in Maine where 250 miles of range isn't enough?

Rhode Island has a single Supercharger stop for the entire state

The entire state is 48 miles north to south. 30-something east to west. With a supercharger roughly in the middle of it and plenty of em in neighboring states.

Charging to 90%

These will be LFP SRs. They can charge to 100% just fine.

 

[bedoig]

@bjrosen Not really disagreeing, but when the supercharger bubbles make it where you can't even see the state (ie, Rhode Island) I'd say you're doing ok compared to middle USA (Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, etc., where I spend most of my time). Charging still hasn't been an issue for me.

 

[SAFOOL]

So how do you return your car on a full charge?

 

[Knightshade]

Not necessarily. If the $4.2 billion figure is accurate, 100k of even base/no option M3 SR+ sedans would have a current retail value of more than $4.5 billion USD which would therefore represent a discount of 7%. The article also claims that the order is for "well appointed cars rather than the typical base model" which suggests that it may include upper level M3s (LR or Performance) and/or cars with added options which would mean even greater discounts. These could be notable discounts especially by typical Tesla discount standards. Not enough information to know for sure at this point.

The SR+ was $39,990 as recently as October 5th.

I'd expect this deal with written then and just announced now- especially given they claim they'll have at least some of these cars DELIVERED as early as next month.

So 4.2 billion would cover all of em being SR+ with no discount.

I'd take the "well appointed" bit with a massive grain of salt- it doesn't appear in the press release from hertz, and from an end user perspective there's shockingly little actual difference in "appointments" from an SR to an LR.... most rentals I've ever had were essentially the most base model of the car.

 

[bedoig]

So how do you return your car on a full charge?

Ya, I'm guessing they'll need some charging infrastructure at the pickup/drop-off locations and a billing mechanism to support this (in addition to passing supercharger costs to the customer). Hopefully without the gas price gouging they like to do.

 

[Rice&Curry]

Not sure how this order from Hertzs will impact future Model 3 deliveries. Maybe the reason which prices have been raised lately. Tesla Shares trading at an all time high

 

[Akr]

Ya, I'm guessing they'll need some charging infrastructure at the pickup/drop-off locations and a billing mechanism to support this (in addition to passing supercharger costs to the customer). Hopefully without the gas price gouging they like to do.

I suspect the rental fee will include a full charge- meaning a charged vehicle plus tye cost of returning on empty. This exists currently but is a choice renters have. With an EV it’s likely the choice will not exist. Which is why Hertz is going to building their own fast chargers at their locations which will not be open to the public according to the press release.

 

[Akr]

The SR+ was $39,990 as recently as October 5th.

I'd expect this deal with written then and just announced now- especially given they claim they'll have at least some of these cars DELIVERED as early as next month.

So 4.2 billion would cover all of em being SR+ with no discount.

I'd take the "well appointed" bit with a massive grain of salt- it doesn't appear in the press release from hertz, and from an end user perspective there's shockingly little actual difference in "appointments" from an SR to an LR.... most rentals I've ever had were essentially the most base model of the car.

Agree

 

[CapeOne]

The SR+ was $39,990 as recently as October 5th.

I'd expect this deal with written then and just announced now- especially given they claim they'll have at least some of these cars DELIVERED as early as next month.

So 4.2 billion would cover all of em being SR+ with no discount.

I'd take the "well appointed" bit with a massive grain of salt- it doesn't appear in the press release from hertz, and from an end user perspective there's shockingly little actual difference in "appointments" from an SR to an LR.... most rentals I've ever had were essentially the most base model of the car.

As I posted, we don't yet know the mix of cars/options included but the article stated that this order was a departure from going with the typical base model which, if true, means past rental experiences aren't necessarily going to apply here. If the order includes LR, Performance M3s and/or cars with options, that discount could be even higher than the 7% (based on current U.S. retail for no option M3 SR+ sedans). I understand part of the order also includes cars for Europe where the M3 retails at higher prices which could make the overall Hertz discount even greater but again, there's just not enough information available at this point.

 

[Gasaraki]

"Like" this? Thumbs up?

Hmm....it's WAY too early in the EV game for rental car companies to go mainstream with EVs. In my opinion, of course. The perceived ICE vs. EV learning curve for the average driver is too steep.

I guess they'll be charging a premium for Tesla rental, which might mitigate the problem. They'll need to keep them in chill mode, as well...(YIKES!)

That's not really your problem, is it?

 

[Knightshade]

As I posted, we don't yet know the mix of cars/options included but the article stated that this order was a departure from going with the typical base model which, if true, means past rental experiences aren't necessarily going to apply here. If the order includes LR, Performance M3s and/or cars with options, that discount could be even higher than the 7% (based on current U.S. retail for no option M3 SR+ sedans). I understand part of the order also includes cars for Europe where the M3 retails at higher prices which could make the overall Hertz discount even greater but again, there's just not enough information available at this point.

yeah except we do know if we look at the actual info from Hertz instead of rando news stories.

Rent a Tesla Model 3 | Hertz Electric Vehicles

Rent a Tesla Model 3 with Hertz and you’ll be driving the best-selling EV in the world, as well as a compact 4-door sedan with a range of up to 278 miles.

www.hertz.com

Look at the specs.

It's a base model SR.

 

[bjrosen]

@bjrosen Not really disagreeing, but when the supercharger bubbles make it where you can't even see the state (ie, Rhode Island) I'd say you're doing ok compared to middle USA (Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, etc., where I spend most of my time). Charging still hasn't been an issue for me.

View attachment 725502

I'm not saying it couldn't be worse, it could be a lot worse. It's far better to have a Tesla in New England then in North Dakota or Montana. What I'm saying is that even here we aren't close to having the Supercharger density where you can just go anywhere without planning. We take long trips every weekend in good weather and as long as we stick to the plan there is no problem, before going anywhere I use ABRP and map the trip out and add the Superchargers to Google Maps so that they appear on the itinerary in the car. With the current Supercharger layout we sometimes have to stop at locations where we would rather not. To give an example, a few weeks ago we went to Camden Maine. To do that trip we have to stop in Freeport which has a cramped Supercharger location and inconvenient rest rooms, you have to walk several blocks to LL Bean. The round trip time is longer than it takes to charge so I was getting a notice of impending idle fees when we were walking back. They have a Supercharger planned for Camden which would fix this trip but who knows when it will actually be built. Saturday's trip was the first time I we were constrained in what we could do because we wanted to change our itinerary and couldn't. The original itinerary would have been fine, first stop was at the Tilton NH Supercharger which is a fantastic location because they have a great Thai restaurant plus a Duncan Donuts and a Pizza place. We ordered ahead for takeout at Vong's (which I highly recommend) and ate lunch in the car while I charged to 90% (i bumped it up slightly beyond that to give us more time to eat). Then headed to North Conway to see the steam engine (turns out it's broken at the moment). The plan was to head to Portsmouth with a stop at the Rochester Supercharger along the way. If we had done that there would have been no issues but we wanted to double back to a place we missed on the way up. We never found it because I couldn't spend time just wandering around, I had to go directly back to Tilton. This trip would have been much easier a month from now because they are finally building the North Conway Supercharger, it's been on the map for years, but the reports are that the fencing has gone up and some equipment has been delivered. Those two hole are being filled in but there are lots of places on the map which either have no dates for completion aside from "next year which is the same as two weeks in Tesla talk" or nothing planned at all.
When doing leisure travel you want to be able to wander anywhere. You can almost do that with the AWD but trying to do it in an SR+ would be much harder. Most of Hertz's business is business travel and for that the SR+ is fine but for leisure travelers it isn't. I'd like them to have a few AWDs in the mix to accommodate vacationers. I'm sure they think that their gas cars are available for those customers, and for the gas driving public that's OK, but I for one don't ever want to drive an ICEV again. The last time I drove a rental was two years ago, prepandemic, when I had a family function in Silicon Valley. That was before I bought my Tesla, my car was a Volt at the time. I rented some Japanese car and it was horrible, I couldn't believe how poorly it performed compared to my Volt (and remember I was comparing it to a Volt not a Tesla), so I can't imagine ever driving an ICEV again, it would be like going back to a brick phone.

The one concern for Hertz is that if they offer Tesla's across the country, not just in California or the East Coast, there are going to be problems and those problems are going to be worse with the SR+. People who aren't EV drivers won't understand the importance of planning and they are going to run out of juice because you can't drive an EV like a gas car where you can let the needle hit empty before you look for a gas station.

 

[CapeOne]

yeah except we do know if we look at the actual info from Hertz instead of rando news stories.

Rent a Tesla Model 3 | Hertz Electric Vehicles

Rent a Tesla Model 3 with Hertz and you’ll be driving the best-selling EV in the world, as well as a compact 4-door sedan with a range of up to 278 miles.

www.hertz.com

Look at the specs.

It's a base model SR.

That car reflects Hertz's limited currently available Tesla fleet but doesn't mean cars from the large 100k unit order being delivered by the end of 2022 won’t include vehicles with options and/or LR and Performance trim models. Some rental customers may want AWD, for example, which would require LR or Performance. Other customers may want/need cars with longer range than the SR+ provides. A mix of options/trim levels in a fleet order this size would not be surprising but again, there's not enough information available at this point.

 

[talkingevs]

Love this move by Hertz! Will help the mainstream move to EVs even more.

 

[Knightshade]

That car reflects Hertz's limited currently available Tesla fleet but doesn't mean cars from the large 100k unit order being delivered by the end of 2022 won’t include vehicles with options and/or LR and Performance trim models.

If you wanna keep speculating about stuff both totally unsupported by any known facts and directly contradicted by the Hertz website (or the basic math of the transaction) knock yourself out I guess.

You can also look at the overall rental fleet where they don't order multiple different trims of the same car for just about any model, that might help you.


But otherwise- the money math says they are SRs... the ease of safety concerns AND fleet management (esp with 100% LFP batteries) says it's SRs...and the literal specs at hertz.com says they're SRs.

 

[TexasTezla]

For me as a leisure traveler I wouldn't have any problems with the SR range. When I am on vacation I absolutely do not want to be driving hundreds of miles per day...I want to be relaxing! Personally I am NOT a 'gotta see everything in one trip' kind of guy. I also choose hotels that have chargers so I can charge up over night. I have driven my P all over the place and only once been inconvenienced in NM when I wanted to go from Santa Fe to White Sands AFB. It required an overnight to charge in a hotel and I didn't have the time. Apart from that I have always managed to see what I wanted to see. Yes, it takes some planning but I enjoy that aspect. Plan it out in advance and then not have to think about it when actually on vacation. Of course, each to their own. Obviously I would like to see LRs over SRs but it certainly would not stop me from renting one while on vacation or business out of state.

 

[iwannam3]

All will have Frunk hood dents in 3....2....1....

What's a frunk? They will never open it or the glovebox.

 

[iwannam3]

I only rent for road trips, we once did 2000 miles in one week when we went to Santa Fe. If I'm going to a city I prefer to use Uber or cabs, not rent a car, because you don't have to worry about parking. For something like a short business trip to Silicon Valley the SR+ would be fine but in years past when I'd spend a month out there at a time I would have needed a LR car, had they existed at the time, because on weekends I'd go to Napa or Pinacles and those trips are a long distance, but I'll concede because it's CA where there are Superchargers on every corner it might work. But not in the other 49 states. The rate of Supercharger expansion has been glacial. Bar Harbor Maine has been pending for four years, supposedly it's going to finally happen this year but so far nothing is happening. Rhode Island has a single Supercharger stop for the entire state, a second has been planned for the Newport area but it's been pending for several years and it still doesn't have a date. There is nothing planned in North Western Mass, the Tanglewood area to the South is fine but nothing on the Northern side of the state or in the nearby Bennington area of Vermont.

You have to take the real range of the car into account not the paper range that it has on day one. My 2019 AWD has a max range of 280 miles now, not sure if it was ever the 310 they promised but it's 280 now. Charging to 90% that's only 250 which realistically means 200 because you never want to cut it too close. Then there is temperature to take into account. I drive with a light foot so I normally exceed the EPA efficiency, I've averaged 228Wh/mile over the last 9000 miles, but on Saturday when we went to NH it was 55 degrees so my efficiency was terrible.

Rhode Is. is the size of Clark county in WA. And you have 2 senators, what a ripoff.

 

[Darren Donovan]

Hertz better have a trained staff knowledgeable about EVs in general, and Tesla in particular, because the average Joe/Jane will encounter problems with how the car works, and its quirks, and issues.