In the defence of people who don’t care right now, our culture is not conducive to caring whereas it seems it was more so in the past. There was more social and family cohesion. There were more readily available evidence and reasons to care on a day to day basis. Things appear objectively different for most people now.
On top of that there is increasing wealth disparity which people are confronted with on a hyper-frequent basis. Just take a peak at instagram and you’re reminded that you’re just a serf with every ad and every few posts.
In the 'good old days' a person could work their way up in a company from the sales floor into a leadership role. The company would encourage this to create a pipeline of experienced managers with first-hand knowledge of customer needs.
That era is long dead. Companies don't care about their customers, they care about maximizing shareholder value above all else. That means doing things like slashing staff to the point where 2 people have to run the entire store. How are they supposed to provide good customer service in a situation like that?
Jobs like that shouldn’t exist at all in my opinion. They’re the result of regulatory failure as far as I can tell.
Also so many businesses have sufficient barriers to entry that there is a considerable under supply of service providers.
So the solution is higher pay
Pay people well (aka enough to actually save and be able to afford property) and you might see something different.
But ShArEhOlDeR VaLuE!!!! means it’ll never happen.
You seem sheltered
I last rented in FL a good 10 years back, Coral Springs - I'm UK based so only have a couple of anecdotes to go on. I was treated courteously and upgraded because the car I ordered wasn't available.
Obviously back then EVs were largely off the menu.
However, how on earth do you mount a wheel backwards? What is a rotor in an EV? I own a Chinese "Morris Garage" marque car - it's not from 'round 'ere boy.
Your Polstar is from Norway. They do them.
Sure, quality has gone down, but, well, that's why it's not worth turning them anyway.
It probably strongly depends on driving styles. I also trust OEM metallurgy far more than anything you can purchase off Amazon.
Polestar is also a Swedish company, designed in Sweden but mostly manufactured in China. They're expanding production in the USA and Europe (Belgium).
Polestar is a Swedish company owned by Geely, the Chinese auto giant.
Put the side of the tire rim that has the car's company logo that normally faces out to the world so that it faces into the wheel well instead, with the tire itself sticking out far more then normal.
Assuming the wheel spokes doesn't grind off part of the brake calipers, it unfortunately can work. It'll drive badly mind you, and does significant cosmetic damage to the rim once you realize the mistake, but it does "drive".
Some wheels have a preferred direction and should be used only on left or right side.
The rubber is assymetric in those. But I don't think you would notice is any way if you get like 3% worse grip.
Maybe don't build a fleet of EVs if you're not equipped to at least charge them
The car was clean, well maintained, fully charged and already parked in my hotel’s parking lot. Charging was free at any Tesla charger over the three days I had the car…I just had to plug it in and tell the car how much charge I wanted. When I was done with the car, I just had to snap a few photos and leave it in the same lot. And because the pickup/drop off point was at my hotel, I avoided paying for the car for the day I flew in and out since the hotel provided a shuttle to/from the airport.
It’s amazing that some guy named Marco who bought 6 used Teslas can do a more competent job of renting EVs than a multibillion dollar rental agency with huge economies of scale.
These companies seem horribly managed dumpster fires. I’ve never had a good experience. Acceptable most of the time but often bad.
But then again, Turo is a small fragment of the market, and the hosts care about renting them out. They are also selected by the renter intentionally.
The rental companies went too far on purchases and way short on support, and often gave them out to people that didn't even want them.
Mandatory EVs will remove the access of freedom of movement that the lower and middle classes came to enjoy in a way that use to be impossible le
https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/airfare-infl...
If you think the imposition of Net Zero, Carbon Taxes, energy transition etc etc is going to make flights cheaper I'd be interested to see how you think this will be achieved [1]
Still, as the saying goes "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges". All the FAANG employees and VCs and other tech bros will be able to fly to the Caribbean and Europe. It will only really effect your average blue collar employee, and who cares about them, right?
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-21/flights-a...
This isn't done grand conspiracy against EVs.
https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/stories/2021/10/28/hertz-b...
https://boardstewardship.com/hertz-ceo-stephen-scherr-steps-...
When I complained upon return the Hertz employee was nice about it and gave me a voucher that covered the cost of the rental.
EVs could work as rentals but it would have to be a total end-to-end experience, thought out with the actual customer in mind. An app for a specialized car already paired to your phone and easy to charge on the Tesla network by just plugging in.
All brands of car can charge on all brands of charger as Nature intended. It's just better infrastructure.
Incompatible, brand exclusive charging stations are dumb infrastructure and no good for anyone.
An open version of the Tesla system is now standardized as NACS and hopefully will take over. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
No. No apps, no charging network accounts, no brand lock in or lock out.
Contactless payment is the minimum acceptable standard (also having the ability to pay by cash would be even better). You can still have your app if you want to but everyone must be able to pay without signing up for apps and accounts from multiple charging providers just to put electricity in a car battery.
I don't have an app to fuel my ICE vehicle, I shouldn't need one to charge my EV.
Europe has mandated contactless payments. Even Tesla is following the rules on their new V4 dispensers. Tesla will need to fix up its old dispensers:
I think the traditional rental places are just incompetent or under investing.
One of them had a service message that intermittently popped up related to the collision avoidance system (IIRC), and one had a slightly dodgy multi-way switch on the drivers seat that made it difficult (but not impossible) to adjust the seat position. Other than those they were all excellent: a really great car, with great software. One of the best I've ever rented from Hertz. I hope they don't sell all of them!
It's not so much that EVs require more maintenance/repairs (if anything, the opposite is true!), but the high costs of parts etc when repairs are needed. This is particularly a problem with Teslas, which also leads to higher insurance premiums.
It was in abysmal shape. Both tires on the left had been installed backwards, with the inside on the outside, and something was badly wrong with the front left wheel, I suspect the rotor was warped because it scraping, loudly, with every rotation.
I read about Hertz having problems with EV maintenance but experience leads me to believe that it's nothing to do with being EVs. They're simply not maintaining them. I told them about the problems on return, and the guy just shrugged.