The other trick I've found is hertz prestige collectio.n; you can reserve a cheap car, especially on weekends, then pay cash for an upgrade to something decent, which they incidentally also maintain better than fleet. I usually get a GL450 truck, which while it isn't very fuel efficient, is a great vehicle otherwise.

The other cool thing vs zipcar is they let you take the cars one way, so I do downtown Oakland to/from airport for $12, which is cheaper than anything but BART, and far faster. And easier with luggage. And since I seem to often need to be on a flight when BART is still closed, I either drive/park or drive now basically all the time.

The problem is the car isn't really very big, is heavy due to batteries and compromises, and if I drive it at all aggressively like my personal car, I can make it go sideways.

80 miles range and slow charging means it is basically SF-Oakland-Berkeley only, or maybe SF to Palo Alto and back. I burned 50% just driving downtown Oakland to ups depot in downtown SF to SFO, with 15 minutes of idling at UPS, somehow.

If someone did this with a better car, like a Tesla, I'd be all over it.

$12/trip still makes sense for one-ways, but $30/day was awesome. At $30/day it was almost worth it to go across the bridge in HOVland in the morning and keep it all day.

$900/month, better then lease + insurance + maintenance + gas + parking + bridge. By $500+ a month.

Bummer. Doesn't sound much like the Ultimate Driving Machine.

Another time I went to Avis at SFO without a reservation only to be told they had no economy cars at all available, only large, sporty or high-end cars with a price tag to match them. I declined, got to the back of the line and booked a Toyota Corolla on my iPad at half the price I was quoted for the other cars, and ten minutes later I was driving out of there with a car they supposedly did not have.

I booked the Corolla for five days, but called to extend it anther two days. They never charged me for those two extra days though, which makes me wonder what state their car administration is in.

I'm done with Avis.

(It's a form of price discrimination: business travelers insensitive to cost typically rent for 4-5 days at a time, while personal users can get a better deal on a weekly rental.)

BTW, tip for Hertz next time you're in SFO: if you're a gold member (which is free) you can bypass the counters, and just go straight to the car.

I'll go with Silvercar next time I'm in LA for a couple of days and need a car, just to avoid the obnoxiousness.

Of course, the expense can be somewhat (but not completely) offset by getting the gas for free!

Waited in line more than an hour just to get to an agent, and when I finally got up there, I discovered what was taking so long: they had no cars available. They had only one or two people working returns, so as fast as they could process cars back in, they were sending them back out. For every person who got up to the counter, it was taking 10-15 minutes just to get them a car.

I was traveling with my wife and nine month old daughter. I had requested a car seat when I made the reservation, but, no surprise, no car seat when we got out to the car. Not only that, but they didn't even have any car seats at all - the manager had to go to another car rental agency and get a seat from them.

The whole thing from start to finish took just short of 2 hours.

So yeah, next time I travel, I'll definitely see if Silvercar is available. Even if we had to bring a car seat with us, just shaving the hour in line would have been been very welcome.

Saying that, you're right, why on earth did they let the car go out of the lot, knowing that?

3k would be a waste, the oil is practically still new at that point.