Hertz EV Rental – Advice/Tips/Thoughts Welcome

[Supergers49]

Good Afternoon All,

I have just booked a Full-Size EV (e.g., Polestar 2) from MUC returning to Munich Elisenhof (close to Munich Hbf) for two weeks. The price is a staggeringly cheap £288 (excl. x-border fee €42 and one-way fee €14). This saved us over £170 on our previous booking (Standard-Premium. e.g., VW Passat).

I’ve checked with the Pension we are staying at in Austria and they are happy for us to use their EV charging station and their is a Shell Recharge Network points in the village (Hertz recommend using the Shell Recharge Network). The range should be more than enough for our daily requirements on the holiday.

The only drawback I can see is having to find a charging point near the Drop-Off at Munich Hbf. However, we are staying at the Aloft (opposite the Hbf entrance), so my plan is to dump the car nearby for charging while we check-in then pop back to drop it off an hour later.

Thanks to advice here I have Hertz President Circle status.

Having never driven an EV before (I guess a dodgem doesn’t count!!!), let alone rented one, I am looking for any practical hints or tips people are happy to share. Additionally, with President Circle we are “guaranteed” an upgrade… realistically what can they upgrade us to?

Anyway, I am kind of excited about driving an EV for the first time, very happy at the prize, but also nervous as to what niggles I might encounter (is there a reason its so cheap!!!).

So please share your advice, tips and thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

[JDB]

@Supergers49 – I’m sure you will get some more helpful advice (there was a thread about this before) but there is a reason these EV/Polestar rentals are “staggeringly cheap” – most people prefer not to rent them! Hire car firms are trying to reduce their EV fleets and Hertz in the US selling all its Polestars.

[The real Swiss Tony]

My one experience of (nearly) renting an EV was being told “that’s all there is – oh, and it’s got about 20 miles of range on it”. So I ended up not renting the car and taking an Uber instead – which cost about the same.

It did however bring home to me the fact that having never driven an EV, I had no idea how to go about charging it in terms of apps, registrations or whatever. Sounds like you’ve got your head around that but do make sure you’re properly across it.

Also interested to know why you have been charged a cross border fee for moving between two European states. Is it a cross border fee or is it the charge for using the motorways in Austria (in which case you’re being gouged as it’s only about EUR10 a week).

[Rui N.]

Cross border fees are quite common. You are charger per day outside the country where you picked up the car.

[The real Swiss Tony]

But surely not in the EU – all free movement and that…

(A quick google shows Hertz do indeed levy that. Don’t think I’ve ever rented from them at MUC but know Avis & Sixt let you go to Austria for no charge…)

[JDB]

The real Swiss Tony wrote:

But surely not in the EU – all free movement and that…

Not sure that hire cars are covered by free movement and in fact most firms including Hertz will restrict which EU countries you can take the car to from Germany, particularly the more expensive models not being allowed to go to Italy or Eastern Europe. The cross border fee is nominally for the additional insurance costs and provision of breakdown services etc. in another country (although the latter isn’t always offered). Jeeps are too popular with thieves to be allowed out of the country!

[JDB]

The real Swiss Tony wrote:

But surely not in the EU – all free movement and that…

(A quick google shows Hertz do indeed levy that. Don’t think I’ve ever rented from them at MUC but know Avis & Sixt let you go to Austria for no charge…)

Avis has a daily cross border fee in Germany capped at an almost identical sum to that of Hertz quoted above. Don’t know about Sixt.

[The real Swiss Tony]

JDB wrote:

Avis has a daily cross border fee in Germany capped at an almost identical sum to that of Hertz quoted above. Don’t know about Sixt.

This must be a new fee then (or included on some rates), as we have rented most frequently from Avis at MUC & they sorted the vignette out so knew we were heading to Austria.

[Aston100]

Supergers49 wrote:

Having never driven an EV before (I guess a dodgem doesn’t count!!!), let alone rented one, I am looking for any practical hints or tips people are happy to share. Additionally, with President Circle we are “guaranteed” an upgrade… realistically what can they upgrade us to?

I don’t think they’ll upgrade you to anything.
I didn’t find the Polestar too different from driving a regular car. Though there are various settings you can adjust which may change things – especially the one pedal driving thingy.

I thought it was a nice car with some good tech as standard.

[Aston100]

Hang on a minute, how long have we had a Car Rental forum?

[Supergers49]

The cross-border fee is normal for Hertz (they’ve been charging it for the near 10 years I’ve been picking up cars at MUC). It used to be €35 so a bit of inflation has crept in. As @JDB says, its to nominally to cover “additional insurance costs and provision of breakdown services” but one suspects they are thieving barstewards!

@TherealSwissTony – The vignette is always extra with Hertz. We tend to stop at the services near Bernhaupten as it has lovely views to pick ours up.

[dougzz99]

@Supergers49 Having driven a rental Tesla and some Hybrids I’d say the most obvious difference is if they have any sort of ‘energy recovery mode’ programmed they stop much quicker than you expect, you don’t really coast in them. It’s an easy learning experience but don’t be surprised to find yourself well short of where you intended and touching the throttle again.

[tiberius]

I rent the Polestar very regularly from Hertz, sometimes twice a month. Often hiring the Polestar for 24hrs is cheaper than a zipcar for 5 hours so it works out well for me.

It is a lovely car with a very premium feel and some great tech (like 360 cameras) and has Apple and Google Car Play software. It would probably be my favourite car to rent if it was not an electric.

There is no getting around how irritating the electric car element is. I am hiring the car for a four day trip to Bristol and I have spent around 3 hours just planning charging locations and car parks with car chargers due to range anxiety, completely wasted time but for £100 for four days over a weekend for a London hire in July I am putting up with it. If you are planning a long journey then use abetterouteplanner and zap maps which allows you to select the Polestar car and tailors the results for the chargers that work.

As an example of charging times: on my most recent hire I drove 160 miles and spent around an hour total sat in a petrol station charging the car at the ultra fast charger.

The biggest red flag is the ‘energy recovery mode’ dougzz99 mentions. The car will come to a very very rapid stop on the motorway if you ease off the accelerator for a short period of time. On my first rental Hertz explained this extensively as they had several cars damaged in crashes within the first 30 mins of peoples rentals as they didnt realise this. The car does has a “automatic creep” mode which is meant to mimic this but given it is software and not software I trust my life with not to go wrong on a motorway at 80mph I disable this.

I am presidents ciricle and have never been offered an upgrade, when I asked a family friend who was serving me at the Hertz counter if he could he said the best he could do was give me one with 80% charge… good luck !

[JDB]

@Supergers49 – from the comments, it sounds like the upgrade would be to a real car. I trust it doesn’t apply in Germany/Austria as nobody has mentioned it, but we noticed in Spain that a number of car parks didn’t allow EVs which might be quite a pain.

[Rui N.]

@tiberius if you rent EVs that often perhaps it’s time you learn how they work, no? Charging for one hour is quite silly. Also, download ABRP, those 3 hours planning will be 3 minutes. One would think you were travelling from London to Bangalore, not Bristol. You can do that trip nonstop… (To Bristol, not Bangalore)

[Aston100]

tiberius wrote:

The biggest red flag is the ‘energy recovery mode’ dougzz99 mentions. The car will come to a very very rapid stop on the motorway if you ease off the accelerator for a short period of time. On my first rental Hertz explained this extensively as they had several cars damaged in crashes within the first 30 mins of peoples rentals as they didnt realise this. The car does has a “automatic creep” mode which is meant to mimic this but given it is software and not software I trust my life with not to go wrong on a motorway at 80mph I disable this.

Surely you’d just turn off the one pedal driving (or whatever it’s called)?
Every time I rent a Polestar, I spend a few minutes adjusting settings before driving off. This includes turning ON creep mode (I’m sure theres a joke here somewhere) and turning OFF the one pedal drive.
Drives mostly like a regular car thereafter IMO.

[Aston100]

Rui N. wrote:

@tiberius if you rent EVs that often perhaps it’s time you learn how they work, no? Charging for one hour is quite silly. Also, download ABRP, those 3 hours planning will be 3 minutes. One would think you were travelling from London to Bangalore, not Bristol. You can do that trip nonstop… (To Bristol, not Bangalore)

Tesla superchargers are my go to place. Normally at least 100kwph, though never quite the maximum 150kwph the car is supposedly capable of.
Cheaper than anywhere else.
Install the app so you can still use the charger despite the vandalism that often takes place on the payment panel.

[tiberius]

Thanks for the advice all, yes the Bristol journey should be fine but if I get the car on a 40 percent charge rather than a 80 percent charge or if there is an accident on the motorway and I am stuck for 3 hours, or if a service station is closed for whatever reason and I can’t charge where I planned to before setting off *while I am driving on a motorway* I can’t easily pull up my phone and find the closest fast charger or fiddle with maps on the sat nav. So I have to spend time studying the route and memorising back up options for every planned charging pitstop. Yes, perhaps it’s just ‘range anxiety’ but it’s a risk that doesn’t exist when I drive other cars.

Thanks for the tip on Tesla chargers, I had been using BPs 150kw chargers to date which never seem to actually reach 150kw hence the longer charging time!

[e14]

I’ll add more when I get off roaming here in Costa Rica to the WiFi

Hertz staff can’t upgrade out of the EV bucket to a regular car and if you get assigned one it’s a real PITA for them to reassign you back to an ICE. For some reason it’s ‘green’ coded into their itinerary system.

[davefl]

Aston100 wrote:

Hang on a minute, how long have we had a Car Rental forum?

April/May IIRC

[MonkeymaN]

I really appreciate the advice here. I have a 2 day rental from Edinburgh at the beginning of next month and have booked a Polestar as it is a similar price to a Corsa and I quite fancy trying one.

[Rui N.]

tiberius wrote:

Thanks for the tip on Tesla chargers, I had been using BPs 150kw chargers to date which never seem to actually reach 150kw hence the longer charging time!

Congrats, you managed to pick the worst charging network of them all 🙂
On the way from London to Bristol there are fast chargers on every single services. If one is closed (the one time in 5 years that happens) drive to the next one.

[Supergers49]

Thank you to everyone. The driving tips especially.

[RonnieB]

Not to turn this into a Polestar thread, but i’ve had one for 3 years and it’s a fantastic car, as others have said Tesla have opened their network up fairly recently but beware only selected sites allow charging by non-Teslas – you can find out which in the Tesla app. Ionity also have a good network, and you can be confident of 200 miles real world range in the Summer, with 30-40 mins recharging.
On regenerative braking I use the middle setting, the high one is just too fierce and in the real world it doesn’t add much to your batteries anyway.
An upgrade might be to a more powerful model, eg a twin motor 4wd.

[TooPoorToBeHere]

OP doesn’t say when they’re going and others have covered stuff well. The only things I’ve to add is are:

* Winter range is diabolically worse than summer – in summer EVs will generally more-or-less do the quoted range if driven gently but in winter you can be looking at half the quoted figure particularly if you make small journeys heating up the car/battery from cold each time.

* Driving style makes a HUGE difference to range. If you hammer it around and cruise at high speed then you’ll see a fraction of the quoted range.