Why Hertz Is Selling Its Electric Cars So It Can Buy More Gas-Powered Cars

Hertz Ts
ADVERTISEMENT

Who saw this one coming? Hertz, the car rental firm known for calling the cops on its customers and the company that should totally merge with Dick’s Sporting Goods because the resulting double-barreled name would be hilarious, is selling 20,000 EVs in a switch back to combustion-powered cars. This announcement comes just a few short years after Hertz announced its grand EV ambitions.

Remember back in October of 2021 when Hertz made the big announcement that it was going to buy 100,000 Teslas and how that announcement led Tesla’s stock price to climb and its value to top $1 trillion? Best laid plans, and all of that…

Hertz told Bloomberg, “The company expects to reinvest a portion of the proceeds from the sale of EVs into the purchase of internal combustion engine vehicles to meet customer demand.” Huh, customers want something familiar, who knew?

If you’ve never lived with an electric car before, it has a certain learning curve, especially if you’re far from home without charging facilities at your place of stay. The last thing many people want to do on vacation is learn to operate an unfamiliar vehicle, so it makes sense if customer demand leans heavily on combustion-powered cars.

However, that’s not the only reason Hertz is chopping in its EVs for fossil fuel-burners. It turns out that an 11 percent EV fleet mix, with 80 percent of those being Tesla vehicles, has a negative impact on the bottom line. In the words of Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr:

Expenses related to collision and damage, primarily associated with EVs, remained high in the quarter, thereby supporting the company’s decision to initiate the material reduction in the EV fleet.

Gee, higher collision repair costs on a fleet heavily reliant on Tesla. Who would’ve thought? Collision repair costs and timelines have been a sore spot for Tesla owners over the past few years. In 2019, SFGate reported that one Tesla owner had waited six months for collision repair at a Tesla-approved body shop. As owner Craig Hedges told the publication, “This accident was not my fault. So even if someone else hits you, you’re without a car for a long time. And I think that’s crazy.” Yes Craig, it is crazy. As for costs, the B2B collision repair software company Mitchell put out a fascinating report last year that compared Tesla, general EV, and non-Tesla EV average repairable damage severity against the average repairable damage severity on gasoline-powered cars. The results show a years-long cost gap.

Mitchell Collision Repair Costs

The data shows that Teslas have historically cost more to repair than general EVs in every reported quarter save for Q3 of 2021. In addition, electric vehicles excluding Tesla models have cost more to repair that combustion-powered cars in every reported quarter. More expensive repair costs mean higher costs to rental car companies, and that’s before getting into loss of use. Every day a rental car is down is a day it isn’t making money for its owner, which hurts overall profits.

Tesla Model 3 Old

This whole situation feels like a case of “I hear that you and your band have sold your turntables and bought guitars.” It’s mildly amusing, but also proof that combustion-powered cars will be with us for years to come. Perhaps when electric cars are simply the new normal, Hertz will wholeheartedly embrace them, but until then, combustion is still king.

On the plus side, it means you can pick up a used Tesla for pretty cheap.

(Photo credits: Hertz, Mitchell, Tesla, Inc.)

Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.

Relatedbar

Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage.

About the Author

View All My Posts

90 thoughts on “Why Hertz Is Selling Its Electric Cars So It Can Buy More Gas-Powered Cars”

  2. Don’t worry – they’ll still flag them as stolen, so you can still enjoy the full “Hertz” experience of being arrested for stealing your own car!

  4. Next time someone posts something on how Tesla’s manufacturing is so much better, e.g., https://www.theautopian.com/manufacturing-experts-tear-down-electric-porsche-taycan-and-discover-yet-another-bowl-of-spaghetti/ , they need to look at the chart above that shows that other manufacturers’ EVs are now as cost-effective to repair as ICE vehicles, while Tesla remains a repair cost outlier.

    Fuck Hertz and hopefully its stock continues to sink. This sure looks like something that was done to become a meme stock and latch onto Tesla rather than something that was carefully considered.

    1. Yeah, a good way to offer EVs would have been to offer a selection of EVs (alongside the ICE vehicles people expect). Would’ve likely gotten them extra business from people who wanted to rent a few EVs to see if they’d like one of them. Offering mostly Teslas, especially to people who weren’t looking for one, was absolutely a stunt–and it got people talking about the Hertz/Tesla deal for a bit, so it might have worked exactly as intended.

      I’d also be curious how many board members and execs held Tesla stock before that was announced and whether any of them cashed in on some gains from that big supply deal. Not that I would accuse them of insider trading, of course.

      1. they do. it may depend on location. I’ve rented a Polestar2 to see if I wanted to buy one. They also have Kia EV6 and I’ve even rented a Genesis gv70

        1. They should have leaned into that as a feature, rather than advertising the fleet of Teslas so hard. And they should offer an easy way to select an exact model when reserving them to help that. At least around here, you just pick a class of vehicle when you reserve. Admittedly, Idaho is not where they’ve focused these efforts, so I don’t think we have many EVs available for rent, and they may have these options elsewhere.

  5. I think the cost of repair issue spans specifically from the high cost of body work on that brand starting with a T and ending in Esla, rather than any inherent issue pertaining to EVs as a whole.

    When the smallest ding immobilizes a vehicle (because Hertz can’t rent you a beaten up and dinged car which would otherwize drive fine) and parts take orders of magnitude more time to become available, it quickly adds up.

    Maybe Hertz overestimated their ability to make Tesla work with them to straighten such issues up, or simply underestimated Tesla’s ability to be Tesla.

    Speaking of which – a friend recently rented a Tesla for a long trip from Yellowstone to somewhere further South East, and was surprised of finding that the dealbreaker was not everything he was afraid of (charging availability, range – which turned out to be non-issues), but the persistent automatic emergency braking that he could not disable and that kept kicking in without warning on empty roads a few times per day.

    1. I noticed that when driving my Tesla through the Texas panhandle region. When there isn’t much more than flat lands, empty roads and maybe a fence 1/4 mile away from the road, the system gets lost and phantom brakes a lot. If there was a car anywhere ahead, it worked well. I wish Tesla had a “dumb” cruise setting.

  8. My company only allows renting from Hertz, and each time I do I go through the same sequence:
    1) Look at prices, notice that the EVs are often 3x the daily cost of their gas-burning counterparts, and then rent the cheapest vehicle available because that’s all I’m allowed to rent.
    2) Arrive at my destination, skip the counter because “Gold status” or some crap, walk past the EV lot overflowing with Teslas, only to find the lot where my rental car should be completely empty.
    3) Go back to the counter, ask where my car is, hear that they don’t have any cars but will give me an EV at only 2.5x the cost of what I reserved, decline their offer, and then wait around for an hour until a car shows up that they will give me.
    4) Get to my hotel and find out the EV charging stations they said they had online either don’t work or simply don’t exist.

    I wouldn’t mind renting an EV, but very seldom do I travel to somewhere that I know has good charging infrastructure nor have I ever had a client tell me “Please maximize your expenses with a $300 a day Model 3 instead of the $79 a day Sentra.”

    Hertz sucks as it is, but between EVs being a challenge for travelers who may not know the lay of the land or have travel plans that accommodate EV limitations AND the terrible way Hertz manages its EV rental fleet, nobody needed a crystal ball to foresee this outcome.

    1. The out of town parent company rep who comes to my work pretty regularly likes to rent a variety of cars just to know what’s out there, and charging at hotels is a big reason why she really doesn’t love getting EVs. Other than that she really likes the cars, they’re just not practical for travel.

    2. I never had these issues with pre-pandemic Hertz, I picked up cars at LAX, Logan, ATL, and Newark. It was just “pick out car, drive away” and they usually had a sweet Pacifica off in the corner. I wonder if they have crappened in the last couple years like the rest of society.

      1. That’s unfortunately hard for me to answer, as pre-pandemic my employers all used Enterprise, National, or Avis, so I’ve only used post-pandemic Hertz. National was always my favorite, and I still use them for personal travel and haven’t had noticed any substantial difference from pre-pandemic times. The only really noticable difference I’ve seen is true of all rental car companies and not just National, which is the cars tend to be in rougher shape than before the pandemic because the companies aren’t ditching them after 35,000 miles. I have had two recent rental cars with nearly 90,000 miles on them, which would have been unheard-of a few years ago.

        1. Fair enough, I fortunately haven’t had to travel for work since 2020. I was allowed to chose any of the big rental agencies and for some reason gravitated to Hertz.

        2. Last summer I rented a 2018 Subaru Forester with 68k miles. It was in surprisingly great shape. The only negative was that the start-stop sounded like the grinding starter would rather just ‘stop’ for good, but I hit the auto-start button every time I started it. They had a couple of other cars to choose from with nearing 90k miles, but they were Nissan Rouges and Chevy Equinox that looked like they had taken a licking for every mile.

    1. My family has owned a couple former rentals, but that was back when rental companies were selling the cars before they got much beyond 30k miles. Bought Toyota and Nissan (before Nissan really took a quality dive) and they were fine and served the purpose of a short term ride for a couple of years.

  11. I think them having EVs is great. The problems I saw at Hertz was the ones local to me almost exclusively had EVs. People renting for a business trip, we are not exactly a tourist destination, do not want to have to learn a new interface. For those of us that own EVs and want to rent EVs I think it’s great they offer it.

  12. I rented a Polestar from Hertz on 2 different vacations as I wanted to see what an EV was like and I was interested in the car to maybe buy in the near future.

    I now understand why if you don’t have home charging, EVs are not a good option. On vacation, EVs are a pain. I don’t want to search for a fast charger out of my way and wait 30+ min to charge up. There are not enough L2 chargers at hotels to charge overnight. While I found the experience educational, my family did not enjoy the added stress and it turned them off from owning an EV.

    Also, when renting an EV you don’t get all the benefits of the app.

      2. Last one I got (Polestar 2) was 50% charged. Luckily, the charger at my hotel worked and it was up to 100% by morning. I got the feeling from Hertz that they don’t even try to charge them – they told me I could check the other P2’s to see if any had more charge (they didn’t).

        1. From my observations at Hertz some people rent from locations with chargers and drop off at locations without chargers which seems to be the main culprit. It’s usually that or people at Hertz simply forget to plug in the vehicle after someone drops off but the vehicle still has a cabin safe mode on, so the car runs the HVAC 24/7 for about a week resulting in half charge.

  14. The old German lighting site ran an article about why you should buy one of the rental fleet EVs Hertz is selling off. You should NOT do that. The ones they’re selling are all about to be off warranty and if a battery replacement is necessary it’ll potentially cost more than the damn car did.

    I am once again reminding our EV focused comrades to lease a new one. That is the best move financially by a country mile. Most of the beta product issues will be covered under warranty and you won’t be on the hook in 2-4 years when they’re irrelevant because of how fast the technology has changed.

    1. Absolutely.

      I got unreasonably irritated when the local Kia dealer said they wanted to buy my Niro, offered me more than Carmax (who routinely offer more than anyone else for it), and tried to sell me a 23 EV6 GT-Line that showed as new, but they couldn’t offer a lease because they had used it as a loaner for 2000 miles. Because, yes, a lease is the way to go for an EV right now. Also, because of quirks with Kia’s leasing (regardless of discounts, they base the residual on the full MSRP), I think they’re going to take a bath on the depreciation. Better them than me.

      1. That’s my attitude. I totally understand the appeal of EVs but I do not want to be on the nook for the depreciation, ESPECIALLY when it’s combination EV/Korean Car depreciation because boy howdy is that going to add up. I’m already seeing Ioniq 5s listed in the mid 20s in my area….

    2. 100%. I bought my 500E because it was cheap and at the time was just a lark to dip my toe into EV ownership. But I’m leasing my Polestar 2 and wouldn’t consider buying any new EV for the next several years, at least, as the industry figures out things like charging standards, battery technology, etc.

        1. I luuuurve it. We road-trip it frequently and have never had an issue with charging, etc., but my wife and I are both chemists and pretty obsessive about thorough planning, etc. The integrated Android Automotive system makes navigation and trip planning (including charging stops) super easy (and you don’t need to pair a phone at all, but it does have Android Auto and Apple CarPlay). It’s very comfortable (Volvo seats!), handles wonderfully and has gobs of power. It’s also surprisingly small for a 4-door sedan – several inches shorter (but a bit wider) than a Tesla 3. The back seat is a little on the small side, but still comfortable and I wouldn’t hesitate to sit in the back for a long trip. The 2024 model is rear-wheel drive (and rear-wheel biased for the AWD version), which is a big deal for a lot of people, but not enough of a selling point for me to want to trade my 2023 model.

          1. Oh, and my grandkids (8, 6 and 4) can’t get enough of me smashing the accelerator and snapping their heads back into the seat. “Grandpa – do the super boost again!”

            1. We’ve had the Volvo version for a year or so and I cannot imagine putting the accelerator to the floor. Anything more than halfway scares the shit out of me.

            2. I’ll bet.
              What got me was that my sister’s P2 performance snapped my head back just as much when floored at 50 as from a stop.
              My bil & I always used a certain slightly uphill tunnel to test our cars, but when we tried it in the P2, he had to let off way before the exit as we have no need to be going triple digits in a 35 zone.
              freakin scary fast!

    3. I have to disagree that these are a bad purchase. I bought one of these yesterday. Before buying, I rented it for three days, which was enough to drive it 400 miles (during which time it made no noises or did anything to suggest any problems), check the battery health (89%, which is maybe 1 percent below average for cars with comparable miles), make sure everything works (everything does), and look for any minor damage to the interior or exterior (car has a ding on the driver’s door; it is otherwise in like-new condition and the interior is perfect [amazing for a rental car with 62,000 rental miles]). Mine still has 38,000 miles or 6 years left on the battery warranty. Batteries are expensive, but I have no reason to believe this car’s battery is going to fail any time soon.

      I disagree that leases are a better deal. It would cost me $18,000 to lease a new model 3 for three years, which would allow me to drive it a maximum of 30,000 miles. It cost me $24,000 to buy my Model 3 (that price includes tax, registration, and all other fees; that does not include any tax credits that might apply to used EVs). The car could have an expensive battery or drive unit failure, but again, that is not likely. It is hard to imagine my car will be worth less than $6,000 when it is 6 years old and has 90k miles (2017s with 100k+ miles are selling for $15k+ right now).

      There is a lot of paranoia around used EVs, and most of it is worrying about things that are very unlikely to happen. Fortunately, used EV paranoia means good deals for those who are willing to take a on a small risk that the car will have an expensive failure.

      1. I will add that comparing these used Teslas to a Tesla lease, these are absolutely a better deal, given that the Tesla lease doesn’t have a buyout option.

        If you want a Tesla, I do think these are a good option. The prices seem to be lower than equivalent used Teslas and are a significant discount from new. The pricing they’re offering on the (much more limited) Bolt and EV6 inventory makes a new lease much more attractive, given the pricing and the flexibility.

        1. I could see a lease making sense for other EVs. I was looking at non-Tesla EVs at first, but my biggest concern is that a lot of them depreciate like a rock, and fast charging a non-Tesla is still a terrible experience. I was originally look for a used second-generation Leaf, but the best deal I could find on a car in decent condition was $17,000, and that car would almost worthless in 5 years (like my 2016 Leaf).

          1. We bought a used 2018 bolt for about 17500 with a new battery pack in October and it has been fine since then. We also get the $4,000 tax credit. The changing speed doesn’t matter to us since it’s mostly city driving. We’ve only taken it from Tucson to Phoenix twice.

      2. When I rented one for a week long trip, the only way I had to charge it was to use the superchargers. Multiple times a day.
        I thought that degrades the battery lifespan if done frequently, is that not the case anymore?
        I think most renters don’t really have any other options to charge a rental Tesla.
        They did give me a 110V wall adapter, but there was nowhere to plug in to.

        1. Frequent fast charging doesn’t seem that big of a deal anymore. I have some seen data that suggests it not at all harmful to frequently fast charge newer Tesla vehicles (and presumably newer non-Tesla EVs as well, although I have only seen data from Teslas). A lot of concern about frequent fast charging is due to battery degradation in first generation Nissan Leafs. Fast charging those was a problem since the battery had only passive cooling, and a lot of heat is generated while fast charging (heat is bad for battery life). With modern EVs, this is not an issue since the vehicle can actively cool the battery to keep it from heating up.

          I don’t plan to fast charge my car often. I charged my Leaf using a 120 volt outlet and I intend to do the same with my Tesla. It will be interesting to see how this affects battery longevity.

  15. As someone who has gone 100% EV, I think Hertz’ move to buy a bunch of EVs was an incredibly stupid idea. They are NOT fine for someone who isn’t familiar with them. As polished as modern EVs are, they’re still in the realm of “leading edge” technology for most folks and the charging infrastructure and additional planning necessary for road trips are still troublesome even for some dedicated EV owners.

    What surprised me about the repair cost data is that the EV repair costs (minus Tesla) are not a lot more than for ICE vehicles. I would have though it would be at least 50% more on average, but that graph shows it to be less than 20% more.

    1. The employees were clueless about them as well. I had a rental Tesla while my Tesla was getting collision damage repair from someone hitting me when I was parked, and they could not answer the customers questions on their electric rental. They told one person they could use the Tesla Supercharger with a Polestar. I corrected them and then spent a few minutes passing knowledge to several people in line like I was leading a class for their electric car rental.

    2. I agree, the EV heavy approach left some customers angry or stranded. I’ve read several stories about people who reserved ICE vehicles, only to find out a Tesla was all that was available. {Insert Seinfeld car rental meme}. If someone isn’t prepared for renting an EV, it probably wont go well. Extra points deducted if the rental location doesn’t have the equipment to charge the cars.

      We have EV road tripped a few times into areas lacking DC fast charging. It takes planning to get enough time at level 2 chargers to get back to a DC fast charger. I highly doubt someone who expected an Altima but got a Model 3 instead will be able to manage an EV without hiccups. Especially in the midwest where DC fast charging is more aligned with road trip routes than urban usage. It’s even hard to find hotels with level 2 charging here!

  16. I like EVs just fine. I have one in the garage. If I was setting up a rental I would NOT get one. Renting for me is all about convenience. I’m somewhere foreign and there for a specific reason, and I’m focused on that reason for the most part. I need to not think about the things that come with an EV, especially a Tesla where nearly everything is different for whatever reason.

    So not surprised they need to replace with ICE because of demand.

  17. So Ma and Pa Kent arrive in Metropolis from Smallville. They climb into their rented Hertz Tesla. The blinkers are little buttons on the steering wheel. The climate controls and radio are nowhere to be found and a large iPad is glued to the center of the dash.

  18. From the link:
    “In a press statement, Hertz’s interim CEO Mark Fields said: “Electric vehicles are now mainstream, and we’ve only just begun to see rising global demand and interest. The new Hertz is going to lead the way as a mobility company, starting with the largest EV rental fleet in North America and a commitment to grow our EV fleet and provide the best rental and recharging experience for leisure and business customers around the world.”

    Ooopsies!

    It would be interesting to know what the cost per unit was for the purchase of the fleet. It may turn out that Hertz actually broke even/profited at the end of the day from their long shot decision.

    Also, who in the hell is gonna be loyal to Hertz just because they can rent a Tesla? Imagine a scenario when someone would actually be excited to rent from Hertz verses Enterprise for that thrilling journey to the downtown Indianapolis Ramada. “Yes!!! They have a Hertz counter at IAA. Best day ever!!!”

  19. Why would a difference in repair costs matter when the renter or their insurance is responsible for that cost? Said insurance also covers the loss of income related to longer repair times.

    1. Rental companies often offer insurance to people right? If you opt for that (at a cost) and Hertz own insurance arm is taking a beating for it, that might be why.

      1. I’ve been told many times to never opt for the extra coverage they offer because it’s a ripoff but I usually do and that is why. Plus, you know…don’t be gentle, it’s a rental. I flog the ever living piss out of my rental cars, as god intended.

        1. I was told the same thing, but you know what I don’t want? Making a claim to my regular insurance company over the Dodge Journey that rolled off a cliff on accident in Hawaii (didn’t happen, but you never know).

          I have a clean record but if there’s ever a time that you might get into an at-fault accident, it’s in a strange place you’ve never been before. I prefer the extra coverage.

          1. Been there, done that. Cost me $0. It turns out that under my car insurance, if you crash a rental car it’s covered under your comprehensive instead of collision (I don’t understand why, but I didn’t argue). The only downside was it used up my one freebie claim for my accident-free discount, so if I’d had another accident after that I’d have been sorry.

            My agent calling me back after I reported the accident and telling me it wasn’t going to cost me anything kind of saved that vacation, honestly. 🙂

        3. Several travel cards include rental car insurance coverage included when you book. I wonder now if there would be instances where certain vehicles that are becoming expensive to insure or dropped would get excluded after the fact, even if you don’t really get to pick the car in question.

          Another example, renting a Hyundai/Kia – what if that were to get stolen or broken into with that intent? I’d think that out of state plates and/or visible barcodes are quick indicators to would-be thieves to move on to the next one because a rental could have trackers or be easily spotted so it seems unlikely, but then, that’s not my field of work.

        4. Plus there’s no reason to pay for it. You’re most likely covered already – either through your regular car insurance or your credit card (for me it’s the former domestically and the latter internationally).

          Obviously you should confirm this with your specific insurance/credit card companies before renting, but that’s one of the big reasons you shouldn’t pay for extra coverage.

    2. I would guess they may self insure the policies that they sell. I think it’s much more about the loss of rental days than the actual cost of repairs. They will hit you with that in addition to the damages if you wreck a rental car and use your own insurance too. We had a rental car get hit and damaged in a parking lot while our car was in the shop for repairs from another not-at fault accident. Our insurance covered it, but they got hit with loss of use that was 3-4x the actual price of the repair.

      I typically buy the insurance just because I’ll use my work’s negotiated rates and they include insurance for usually much less than I can get walking in off the street. I feel better about that because I can drop the car and not worry about it. Anymore, it seems like you get a damaged car to begin with.

      Funny Story… My last rental, Enterprise gave me a tired Chrysler Voyager (fleet only version of the Pacifica) with damage to almost every body panel, a broken headrest in the 2nd row that kept flipping forward, and a suspension that shook violently above about 45 mph. It had almost 80,000 miles on it too. We took it back to the airport and told the person when dropping it off that we needed to exchange it and that it had major suspension issues in the front end and felt unsafe. After waiting for about 45 minutes for a replacement minivan… they brought us the same van as a replacement. So if you think they take these things out of service for repairs, think again. If it can move under its own power, they will keep putting it out there for rental.

  20. This never made sense. I suppose if you’re going to rent an EV, a Tesla is the only option as they have a functional charging network. But an awful lot of the people who frequently rent cars are olds on vacation. I couldn’t imagine my parents dealing with the quirks of Tesla operation whilst on a vacation. Nevermind all the downtime and repair costs that also made the Tesla choice a weird decision for Hertz.

  21. I can see some scenarios where an EV would make a great rental car, in part because a large number of hotels offer EV charging.

    For the business person who needs a ride from the airport to the hotel to the client site, and then back, the range is plenty. And I believe (with Hertz EV rentals) there was no need to “top off the tank” before returning the vehicle.

    Well, all that would make sense for the renter. But if Hertz wasn’t making money, that doesn’t matter.

    2. the hotels only have 1 or maybe a 3 chargers. then some asshat leaves their jeep PHEV plugged in all day so no one else can use the chargers. ask me how I know.

      Hertz’s policy is return it at the same charge level as you got it (or maybe a bit under) or pay $25 to return at any level.

    3. It might be a nice perk to offer in upscale hotels with valet service, that they’ll jockey the cars around a charger. Someone that would spend for such a hotel might be more likely to spend to rent one to begin with.

    4. Maybe it varies by region, but I’ve been continually surprised how few hotels offer charging. And some of the ones that do offer it have L2 chargers priced like DCFC.

  23. “ the company that should totally merge with Dick’s Sporting Goods because the resulting double-barreled name would be hilarious”
    And have a rental fleet of NSUs?

  24. If it gets rid of those annoying Tom Brady talk show commecials on youtube I’m all for it, something about them just gets under my skin, I’d rather watch 3 other vids about sham-wow or something.

    Also, are any of them yellow? Tesla doesn’t make a yellow so be curious if Hertz had some nice yellow wrapped ones.

    1. I did a quick search to see what they had, and it looks like it’s all just the normal colors. Was tempted to pick up a blue EV6, but the price just wasn’t low enough and the details weren’t all there.

      They do have a single BMW i3 available in Florida, too (black). And quite a few Bolt EUVs, all LT trim, all gray, silver, black, and white.

  25. With Tesla, you can probably blame their tightly controlled service & repair ecosystem and intentionally limited parts inventories – but the issue with EVs in general seems to be related more to the “disrupt all the things for the sake of disruption” mentality EV makers seem to have, where the cars are simply being designed to not be easily repairable in order to incorporate some eye catching features that look great on concept cars but should probably stay there. Rivian doing the entire side of the R1T, from bed to fender, as a single seamless stamping comes to mind, as does Lucid’s combination roof/windshield.

    1. The problem though is that the cars ARE incredibly easy to service. The one and only time we had the Model Y in for service was because the HVAC system would act up when we were Supercharging, but be fine any other time. They replaced the ENTIRE heat pump unit, under warranty, in less than 2-hours. The parts are all plug-n-play so they should be easy as hell to service. You look under that car and there isn’t anything overtly complex so I really don’t understand why they wouldn’t be able to crank through service issues in a fraction of the time compared to an ICE vehicle. Everything is modular.

      1. The problem is that Tesla so closely holds its service and parts. But their centers are few and far between and for some reason they don’t stock parts.

        SHOULD be easy is one thing… but executing on that has been a problem.

        My good friend had a cracked rim due to the porosity issues Tesla was having with their castings (nearly left him stranded on a trip back from vacation). Known issue with Tesla, and a rim is easily replaced with 5 bolts and tire mounting machine. Nearest repair center was in the next state over and they had the car for 2 weeks to do the repair.

        1. Oh, I agree with that. Thankfully in the 67k miles we’ve put on the car we only had that odd HVAC problem that they quickly fixed at the service station and no issues since (knock on wood). I’ve heard horror stories, but have not experienced a single one of them myself. The entire service experience was pretty simple and quick. Compared to what I’ve dealt with at other stealerships, it was almost nothing of note.

      2. Except for the most expensive part of the car, i.e. the HV battery pack. Hypothetically a single battery (out of 7700) could go bad and significantly degrade the entire string of batteries that cell was on.
        Model 3 and Y are not currently made (that I know of) to easily even get to let alone disable that hypithetical singularly bad battery cell.

        If Elon and the rest of Tesla mgmt. really want to ‘accelerate the transition to a renewable economy’ then they need to (amonst other things)…

        1. figure out how to lower the repair costs when a Tesla is crashed
        2. Design the hv battery backs to be serviceable and repaired
        3. Open up maintenence to indy ev mechanics

        This is something that is easier on the Model S bc it was designed with quick hv battery back replacements in mind. Gruber is the most well known independent shop that helps with refurbishing model S HV battery backs, look like the only other model they offer this service is with the original Tesla roadster

        https://grubermotors.com/services/

Leave a Reply