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Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by almost_usual on Monday January 16, 2023 @11:52AM (#34402553)
Not many details on what components failed or how maintenance is better.

I don’t doubt the claims but this feels like greenwashing PR.

Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by CydeWeys on Monday January 16, 2023 @11:54AM (#34402590)
It's widely known that maintenance costs way less on EVs than on gas-powered cars. There are plenty of data points everywhere to confirm this. EVs are much simpler with way fewer moving parts and fluids to worry about.
Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by wintogreen74 on Monday January 16, 2023 @12:31PM (#34403095)
It is NOT clear this is true for the first 10,20 or 50K miles though, and that's about as long as a rental company owns the car, so attributing financial gains from EV vs. ICE seems spurious at best.
Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by CydeWeys on Monday January 16, 2023 @01:36PM (#34403935)
If you own a large fleet of vehicles, and especially with the way people treat cars that aren't theirs, some non-trivial percentage of those cars are going to need service that goes beyond mere fluid replacement, even within the first few ten thousand miles. This may not apply to the modal rental car, but it will apply to some of them, enough to bring the average up non-trivially.
Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by RHSeeger on Monday January 16, 2023 @12:07PM (#34402754)
I'd be interested in seeing how this applies to consumers/owners. From what I've seen, the items that tend to cost more in maintenance for EVs are things like the battery; ones that last a long-ish time but are extremely expensive to fix/replace when they go. Given that rental companies (and people that lease) likely won't have the cars long enough to reach that point, the overall maintenance cost is lower for them. Does this hold true when you start to consider people that own/use the cars for 10+ years?
Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by jqpabc123 on Monday January 16, 2023 @12:31PM (#34403096)
Does this hold true when you start to consider people that own/use the cars for 10+ years?

According to Tesla, their battery packs typically exhibit less than 10% degradation after 150K miles.

Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by CydeWeys on Monday January 16, 2023 @12:18PM (#34402896)
Most EVs won't ever have their batteries replaced; it simply won't be necessary. This is a perennial concern about EVs that simply isn't a big deal in practice, and EVs have been around long enough to have data points here.

Most people don't own and use cars for nearly long enough to fully wear out a battery pack on an EV that they've bought new.

Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by bumby on Monday January 16, 2023 @05:12PM (#34406135)
>Most people don't own and use cars for nearly long enough to fully wear out a battery pack

The average car age in the US is over 12 years. I can see why it’s much less with the current EV owners as early adopters tend to…well, adopt the next technology newer. But wouldn’t this also imply the environmental impacts are lessened by continual churn in manufacturing?

Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by ChrisMarshallNY on Monday January 16, 2023 @11:58AM (#34402641)
> moving parts and fluids

That's where most of the problems come from.

A lot of mechanics are probably not ready to deal with the issues EVs face, though.

Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by dsfyu404ed on Monday January 16, 2023 @12:02PM (#34402693)
Most of the problems in any moving vehicle come from stuff close to the ground, tires, suspension, steering. This is true for everything from battery powered forklifts to semi trucks.

Leaks start showing up in old age and the involved parts don't typically wear out unless you ignore leaks and habitually run some subsystem low on its requisite fluid or run it dry. There are some exceptions for piss poor engineering but generally the prior sentence holds.

Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by ChrisMarshallNY on Monday January 16, 2023 @12:12PM (#34402809)
Good point.

I will say that a rental fleet is a great "brutality test" for EVs, though. Rental cars age quickly.

Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by bumby on Monday January 16, 2023 @04:11PM (#34405526)
>Most of the problems in any moving vehicle come from stuff close to the ground

Is this based on your intuition or is there more to it? The DoT tracks automobile issues and it looks like the top ones are engine, engine cooling, other power train, air bags, and brakes. [1]

[1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/data

Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by agumonkey on Monday January 16, 2023 @12:04PM (#34402716)
That said, a lot of EV have transmission and more fluids due to the need to improve temperature control. Until someone solves the battery chemistry problem again.
Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by jqpabc123 on Monday January 16, 2023 @12:09PM (#34402774)
That said, a lot of EV have transmission and more fluids due to the need to improve temperature control.

Most EV's don't even have a transmission. And any battery cooling fluids are often sealed up inside the battery pack.

Some EVs have air cooled battery packs, Nissan Leaf for example.

If anything, you must be thinking about hybrids.

Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by agumonkey on Monday January 16, 2023 @12:56PM (#34403442)
No, Porsche added gears for better efficiency. Other manufactures talked about similar ideas since.

Battery cooling I'm not sure though, it's still circulating right ? which would mean a pump of some sort.

Anyway things are not as vanilla as they used to be in the early days, I hope that trend doesn't keep up.

Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by jqpabc123 on Monday January 16, 2023 @01:14PM (#34403662)
No, Porsche added gears for better efficiency.

Only applicable at autobahn speeds --- which explains why Porsche is the only manufacturer thus far to see a need for this.

I seriously doubt this will become typical --- simply due to cost reasons.

Battery cooling I'm not sure though, it's still circulating right

No, natural thermal convention in most cases.

Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by agumonkey on Monday January 16, 2023 @02:08PM (#34404293)
Oh ok the liquid is passively cooled ? what the "heatsink" here ? the lower surface of the pack ?
Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by jqpabc123 on Monday January 16, 2023 @03:13PM (#34404961)
the lower surface of the pack ?

Yes. In some cases, the battery pack also serves as a structural component.

https://electrek.co/2021/01/19/tesla-structural-battery-pack...

Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by agumonkey on Monday January 16, 2023 @04:22PM (#34405668)
Yeah, I guess we all saw the structural battery annoucement.
Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by danuker on Monday January 16, 2023 @11:58AM (#34402628)
I think it remains to be seen, as batteries wear out. That could take years.
Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by elil17 on Monday January 16, 2023 @12:01PM (#34402673)
That may be true, but from the perspective of a company like Hertz they are covered by the standard 8 year warranties offered by most EV manufacturers because they do not keep cars that long anyway.
Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by eigen on Monday January 16, 2023 @12:01PM (#34402677)
do batteries wear out in the lifetime of a rental car? I would think the batteries have a lifetime of at least 10 years whereas a rental agency only keeps the car for <4 years.
Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by tdub311 on Monday January 16, 2023 @12:07PM (#34402762)
How long do rental places keep cars?
Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by astura on Monday January 16, 2023 @12:01PM (#34402680)
Idk how true this is, but I keep hearing that car batteries have gotten so good they are likely to outlive the car.

Anyways, these are rentals, which are usually sold after around 1 year/30,000-40,000 miles. So it's irrelevant for a rental car company if batteries last longer than that.

Re:Hertz increased its fleet of EV rental cars – then, profi... by PaulWaldman on Monday January 16, 2023 @12:06PM (#34402747)
There likely is greenwashing. The percentage of their fleet consisting of EVs is likely small. Most modern ICE vehicles only need service every 10K miles on their ICE components. This may amount to $1000 for the time rental companies are operating a particular vehicle, a fraction of the overall revenue.

Alternatively, how are rental companies charging returned EVs? The time spent sitting at a charger should be considered as lost revenue when an EV comes back empty.