Would you rent an EV?
Poll: Would you rent an EV?
Total Members Polled: 90
Discussion
Just wondering what the PH consensus on this is….
Say you were going away in the UK for a week/weekend and planned to go exploring around the local area, say a hundred or so miles a day. For arguments sake, you’re planning to travel there and rent a car of some description.
Would you consider/pick a Tesla/EV/petrol?
Say the hire costs were the same between a Model 3/E-2008/Kia Sportage!
Say you were going away in the UK for a week/weekend and planned to go exploring around the local area, say a hundred or so miles a day. For arguments sake, you’re planning to travel there and rent a car of some description.
Would you consider/pick a Tesla/EV/petrol?
Say the hire costs were the same between a Model 3/E-2008/Kia Sportage!
Heading back to the UK in November. Even if we ignore the drive up North from Heathrow, how would I charge the car? I am staying at an AirBnB which does not have dedicated charging facilities. I could drive a mile to the nearest charging station hook up and walk back tot he AirBnB. But, the charging station is in a pub car park that charges £1/hour parking.
If I could charge at my accomodation then it would be the perfect car for the scenario given. If not then it depends on local public infrastructure as if I'm on holiday, I would rather charge at wherever I am parking anyway rather than dedicate specific time to it.
Not a Tesla though because I just don't like them much
Not a Tesla though because I just don't like them much
Maybe I should have ticked the Tesla box, but only if I can collect it with a full charge and return it on 1%.
Had this exact scenario last Christmas. Big family get together in Spain. My 2 brothers rented electric cars but due to needing 5 seats (and general scepticism) I ended up with a petrol MPvV.
One of the cars didn’t have the range to move more than a few miles from the villa as only granny charging was available (fiat 500) and the other one incurred a charge on return for being below 50% on return. No idea of cost, but we just put some petrol in, and at various times had the EV renters in our vehicle.
I completely get EV in terms of charging at home and always having a 100% tank (albeit a tank that is getting a bit smaller all the time) - that said I always look at the ‘saving’ and see how many miles that buys me in a car I actually want to drive.
The idea of an EV as a rental for a holiday doesn’t appeal.
Had this exact scenario last Christmas. Big family get together in Spain. My 2 brothers rented electric cars but due to needing 5 seats (and general scepticism) I ended up with a petrol MPvV.
One of the cars didn’t have the range to move more than a few miles from the villa as only granny charging was available (fiat 500) and the other one incurred a charge on return for being below 50% on return. No idea of cost, but we just put some petrol in, and at various times had the EV renters in our vehicle.
I completely get EV in terms of charging at home and always having a 100% tank (albeit a tank that is getting a bit smaller all the time) - that said I always look at the ‘saving’ and see how many miles that buys me in a car I actually want to drive.
The idea of an EV as a rental for a holiday doesn’t appeal.
I just spent a month in between long term EV leases, so we rented an EV for the gap.
I would like to rent EV's when I work abroad, they come fully charged and I always stay local-ish to my work, so range and charging isn't a factor. But price is.. rental EV's are all new but in the places I tend to work a banger Corsa etc is far cheaper.
Also when I'm romping around the dustier parts of Europe, I quite like driving a car that's already so old and damaged that anything I do to it is undetectable
I would like to rent EV's when I work abroad, they come fully charged and I always stay local-ish to my work, so range and charging isn't a factor. But price is.. rental EV's are all new but in the places I tend to work a banger Corsa etc is far cheaper.
Also when I'm romping around the dustier parts of Europe, I quite like driving a car that's already so old and damaged that anything I do to it is undetectable
I’ve rented EVs quite a few times. Stating the obvious but if you’re staying local-ish then all good of course. You get a full tank and just return it empty so no need to faff about trying to match fuel levels or finding a filling station when you’re running late to the airport. Or paying for fuel of course.
I did rent an EV for a longer road trip a couple of years back and I ran into pretty much every charging issue known to man. I wasn’t in any hurry so it wasn’t the end of the world but the whole trip was consumed by charging and a lot of the planning is around chargers. Where to stay, what route to take, etc. I’m not 100% sure I would do that again even if I don’t mind a challenge when I have the time to deal with it.
Your trip sounds easier as it sounds you’re staying at a base. Just make sure you can easily charge at night so you start the day with a full tank. If you can’t do that then you will have the scenario of it being about charging and planning around it.
I did rent an EV for a longer road trip a couple of years back and I ran into pretty much every charging issue known to man. I wasn’t in any hurry so it wasn’t the end of the world but the whole trip was consumed by charging and a lot of the planning is around chargers. Where to stay, what route to take, etc. I’m not 100% sure I would do that again even if I don’t mind a challenge when I have the time to deal with it.
Your trip sounds easier as it sounds you’re staying at a base. Just make sure you can easily charge at night so you start the day with a full tank. If you can’t do that then you will have the scenario of it being about charging and planning around it.
If I'm renting a car I usually go for the cheapest option. I was half tempted when I noticed a Model 3 being offered when I rented a car in Italy earlier in the year, but twice the price of a Panda which turned out to to be the idea car for tight city streets in Florence and La Spezia
arfur said:
In Malaga at the moment and not seen a single charging point .. so ..er no, I would not risk it
Speaking from [painful] experience on this, you will find chargers of course but just like in the UK you will need an app which, if you can even download it as they are often region locked, will be in Spanish. The same is often true in the UK except you don’t notice it, the charger apps are region locked. Not a problem with Teslas or the likes of Ionity of course but you will find times when you arrive at a lovely set of 200kW chargers and you can’t get access to them. The level of “thinking” that has gone into all of this is quite shocking.
tamore said:
if i had a rental property, it would definitely have an EV charging point with a way of billing for use. going to be an increasingly more important feature that will be filtered on property searches.
Just stick a 3 pin granny plug (waterproof) on the outside of the house. Most EV's will charge 70-100% over a slow 10-15 hour timeframe. Job done. We have always stumbled across a 3 pin charger at a rental property and just politely asked the owners if we can leave an extra £10 or so to charge overnight. All have been politely obliging. arfur said:
In Malaga at the moment and not seen a single charging point .. so ..er no, I would not risk it
It's interesting, I was offered a small EV hire car there a while back - except it wouldn't make it where I was staying and back.I suspect they are fine if you are staying in a villa and can run a cable out the window but I haven't seen any public chargers at all yet.
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