One anecdote does not data make, and I didn't know at the time of reservation that my hotel would be adequately equipped.

I look forward to owning an EV someday but the rental experience right now and in my state was VERY stressful.

There are now also adapters for fast charging Tesla connectors to CCS1, but that is relatively recent.

So they just put the charging fee on your bill with the little bottles of gin from the minibar? I'm sure hotel power is reasonably priced...

Will my hotel have charging spots? Will I be able to charge at the client site I'm visiting? How do I plan this long leg of the trip that I need to drive?

As a Tesla owner, driver, and 3 times Hertz Tesla renter, let me attest:

    - Hertz staff are poorly trained for Tesla rentals
    - The "must use same credit card" thing is worst than an absolute nightmare
      if one doesn't have the exact same credit card, landing late at night on
      a holiday weekend. The experience is so extremely bad, it sounds fictional!

And if you ARE going into the wilderness, you can easily bring a few Jerry cans.

With an EV, I might have to go 10+ minutes out of my way (doubled for roundtrip), they might not work, and they might be full. And if I have to return with 80% charge or higher, it could easily take 30 mins or more of charging.

Also, it's really easy for the rental place to see exactly what percent you returned it with. In gas cars, as long as you're in the ballpark of "full" you're usually good to go, partly because there's not an easy way for the rental clerk to tell exactly how many gallons are in the tank.

I've been OFFERED electric rentals in:

* Tromsø Norway (on a roadtrip through the Lofoten)

* Nelson NZ

* Brisbane AU

The reality is, when I rent a car on vacation, I'm typically doing more miles per day than when I'm at home. That's because I'm not sitting at work 9 hours a day! Plus, I don't know their charging situation. Even if it WAS Tesla, no doubt these places have fewer Superchargers per capita than California (even though of course Norway has a TON of good EV charging). I have no idea if I can charge at my (multiple!) homes throughout the trip.

I'm already dealing with the cognitive load of a different country, a different currency, often a foreign language, different driving standards (maybe on the other side of the road). Finding places to stay and eat. I don't need one more chore!

To put it simply: An EV is more convenient as our primary car, full stop. An EV would be less convenient as a rental car while on vacation.

Norway has 503 Superchargers, 1 per 11,000 people.

California has 307, 1 per 130,000.

I haven't checked NZ or Oz, or looked at a map for Norway. There are also 10 times that many non-Tesla chargers, of which some will be the highest power.

All three countries have 230V domestic electricity, so in the worst case you can charge at about 2.5kW (more, e.g. 3kW, if you're more confident of the wiring).

The most challenging experience was an electric camper. It had a 100 mile max range. I drove it from LA to Seattle without major issue. The only pucker factor was around Silicon Valley where I struggled to find functional fast chargers. No shortage of chargers, just very few that work.

The state of chargers is atrocious. Many of them do not work and the apps are horrible. Signup flows that ask for too much information and don’t set form metadata for auto-completion. Just endless papercuts.

I used A Better Route Planner which does a good job of tracking what chargers actually work but still has an infuriating UI.

For a regular rental car situation I would not hesitate to get an EV. In fact that’s my preference now that I am over the learning curve.

uhhhhhhhh, you stopped to charge every ~2 hours (12 charging stops minimum)?

It was an older conversion, not intended for long range travel. This is a once a year thing to relocate from Joshua Tree to the Olympic Peninsula.

I made a snack or took a quick nap in the back when charging. Travel days were 1-2 charge stops.

One problem with such a small battery is how quickly it charged. I was often done charging before I could make food, eat, and do dishes.

Because overall, if you ignore old and new and just analyze both on their merits, I'd say we have rough parity already.

We're not there yet, we will be, but it's going to take some time. The people who say 'electric cars suck' are the same sorts of people who leave negative reviews of a beta product, missing the forest for the trees in my book.

Same goes for the people who ignore critique and offer only praise. Gas/Diesel cars have a hundred years of engineering behind them. Their capabilities exist with purpose, and ignoring that is folly.

So yes, it sounds like your definition of "parity" means it can do everything a gas car can and more.

If electric cars were first, would you demand that gas cars need to be able to power your house to reach "parity"?

I don't think you're using a good definition of parity. Two things with different strengths and weaknesses can be at parity if they mostly even out.

For the record, my hotel did not have charging spots, and the only ones I saw driving around were at the Broadway Commons Mall[0]. All of them looked full. I'm very skeptical of "charging infrastructure" being a prerequisite to suburban EV adoption - you have a house with a spare 220V circuit, right?[1] - but in this case my home is an eight story hotel building. Either it has chargers or I'm not renting an EV.

[0] Specifically, near the back next to the Round1 entrance.

Said mall also has an Avis/Budget office. No clue if the LIRR lets you carry luggage onboard, but if they do I probably should just take that instead of paying extra to rent at JFK...

[1] "My landlord won't let me plug in my car charger" is the usual response to this

protip: lots of rental agencies only charge the premium for airport/train station pickup, but not for dropping off at one. YMMV.

I would've considered the EV if I knew ahead of time, so I could've researched the charging situation before the trip.