Hertz's Bet on Teslas Went Horribly Sideways

Re:Hertz's Bet on Teslas Went Horribly Sideways by hansvm on Thursday April 04, 2024 @11:42AM (#39931845)

Fixing collision damaged vehicles is a profit center. They'll bill your insurance for every tangentially related maintenance item they'd been putting off (the belt is _obviously_ squeeky because the collision loosened the tensioner, the brakes are worn down because the emergency stop was too aggressive, the windshield fluid won't come out because the shock knocked a wire loose in the electric pump, ...). The car comes out in better shape than it went in.

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Re:Hertz's Bet on Teslas Went Horribly Sideways by dboreham on Thursday April 04, 2024 @12:41PM (#39932769)

Counter-point: I rent cars fairly frequently and over the past 30 years I've had three damaged. Case 1 windshield hit by rock and cracked. Case 2 creased driver door via grey pillar in gray colored underground parking lot. Case 3 semi truck with those pointy front wheel nuts max-maxed my passenger door with them. In all three cases the outcome was positive. No excess charges or shenanigans.

otoh Hertz have twice billed me for damage I definitely did not cause. In one case for a scratch on the front air dam that you had to lie down under the vehicle to see (which their agent in fact did when I returned the car). So now I use Avis.

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Re:Hertz's Bet on Teslas Went Horribly Sideways by KennyBlanken on Thursday April 04, 2024 @11:50AM (#39931949)

That pales in comparison to the charges for lost income they claim they would have received from the car while it was out of service.

90% of their fleet at that location might sit unused for a week or more, and most of their rentals are steeply discounted from the standard rate - but that car you backed into a pole? Why, that one would have been earning them the standard rate, every day.

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Re:Hertz's Bet on Teslas Went Horribly Sideways by dmoy on Thursday April 04, 2024 @11:47AM (#39931904)

Does that still apply in the case of rental car companies that self insure?

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Re:Hertz's Bet on Teslas Went Horribly Sideways by hansvm on Thursday April 04, 2024 @11:56AM (#39932063)

In the US, you (and transitively your insurance) are liable as a driver if you cause damage. You can separately have a contract assigning that liability (e.g., the $20/day or so a rental company will often offer to waive basically all physical damage to the car at a $0 deductible). I assume it's that latter sort of thing you're referring to?

I'm not sure how they handle cars damaged under those sorts of policies. I do know those policies are also wildly profitable (I've never come close to approaching eqv. $7300/yr for insurance, despite a horrible driving record when I was younger). Rental cars don't even crash 1.5x as often per mile, so a 5-20x multiple on your premium is noteworthy.

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Re:Hertz's Bet on Teslas Went Horribly Sideways by SoftTalker on Thursday April 04, 2024 @01:07PM (#39933121)

If you rent cars frequently, consider getting a credit card that includes free collision damage waiver and loss-of-use coverage for rental cars.

The coverage you buy from the rental company is a massive rip-off, that's why credit cards can offer it for free as a perquisite.

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