What a coincidence. We are also in vacation rental EV h*ll. DH wants his next car to be electric, so he wanted to use our vacation for an extended test drive. He had a bad EV rental experience last time, so he planned ahead and checked out where the charging stations were. I kid you not, the first THREE charging stations he visited had all been removed. Yes, we are visiting oil country, but WTH!?

In unrelated news, the Mustang EV is wildly annoying. Too many beeps that can’t be turned off. We’re really looking at ways to reduce our carbon footprint, but EV rental is a bridge too far. I can see how it would be great if you had a charger in your garage.

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coming back to update - thank you to the poster suggesting on finding a level 3.

The saga continues and is so bad it's funny. Level 3 charger #1 was replaced by Tesla chargers (not compatible), level 3 charger #2 wasn't working, level 3 charger #3 works! So this whole ordeal took at least, at least 60 minutes. The charge to 80% (from 50%) will take 25 minutes. The charger is 30 minutes from where we are staying.

I can't see how this system would work if California gets its way and we are all driving EVs with different adapters that aren't compatible. Every hotel has charger in every parking lot space? Just total chaos.

For everyone asking the rental car agency gave the car at 25% charged (80 miles) which was fine to where we needed to go but with me not knowing it could take 10 hours to get to 80%.

Starting next year, almost all new cars will be standardized on the Tesla-style connector. Tesla is in the process of opening its supercharger network to non-Tesla cars. Ford and Rivian already have access. GM is in process of getting access. Volvo, Polstar, and Mercedes-Benz will be next.

There are multiple efforts to expand DC fast charging (level 3) charging networks. In a couple of years, we will have fast chargers coming out of our ears.

As you have found, there is a bit of a learning curve. But once you get used to it, it's not a big deal.

I mean spending over 1.5 hours to charge a car isn't exactly how I want to spend my vacation. Way too inconvenient vs getting gas.

Your car didn't require 1.5 hours. This was a result of your not understanding EVs. An experienced EV driver would know what type of charger is required, would have an app telling not only the location of charging stations, but the availability of specific chargers at the station. Even a relatively long charging session would be less than 30 minutes. Most would be around 15 minutes. The rental agency was at fault for not preparing you better.

Anonymous wrote:We’re on our third Tesla. Chargers are everywhere. We go on road trips for travel sports weekly. I get 330 miles at a Tesla charger in 42 minutes. I either charge when we stop for food or a bathroom break or when we park at night.

How often do you get a new car?

Anonymous wrote:Big rental car companies are dumping EV cars left and right. Hertz is selling 20,000 EV cars.

Yeah my son showed me Teslas for 15K and I didn't get it...craziness.

But I agree with other posters that the rental car companies should have better education. I don't know that this would be such a horrible failure if they did.

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coming back to update - thank you to the poster suggesting on finding a level 3.

The saga continues and is so bad it's funny. Level 3 charger #1 was replaced by Tesla chargers (not compatible), level 3 charger #2 wasn't working, level 3 charger #3 works! So this whole ordeal took at least, at least 60 minutes. The charge to 80% (from 50%) will take 25 minutes. The charger is 30 minutes from where we are staying.

I can't see how this system would work if California gets its way and we are all driving EVs with different adapters that aren't compatible. Every hotel has charger in every parking lot space? Just total chaos.

For everyone asking the rental car agency gave the car at 25% charged (80 miles) which was fine to where we needed to go but with me not knowing it could take 10 hours to get to 80%.

Starting next year, almost all new cars will be standardized on the Tesla-style connector. Tesla is in the process of opening its supercharger network to non-Tesla cars. Ford and Rivian already have access. GM is in process of getting access. Volvo, Polstar, and Mercedes-Benz will be next.

There are multiple efforts to expand DC fast charging (level 3) charging networks. In a couple of years, we will have fast chargers coming out of our ears.

As you have found, there is a bit of a learning curve. But once you get used to it, it's not a big deal.

I mean spending over 1.5 hours to charge a car isn't exactly how I want to spend my vacation. Way too inconvenient vs getting gas.

Anonymous wrote:Coming back to update - thank you to the poster suggesting on finding a level 3.

The saga continues and is so bad it's funny. Level 3 charger #1 was replaced by Tesla chargers (not compatible), level 3 charger #2 wasn't working, level 3 charger #3 works! So this whole ordeal took at least, at least 60 minutes. The charge to 80% (from 50%) will take 25 minutes. The charger is 30 minutes from where we are staying.

I can't see how this system would work if California gets its way and we are all driving EVs with different adapters that aren't compatible. Every hotel has charger in every parking lot space? Just total chaos.

For everyone asking the rental car agency gave the car at 25% charged (80 miles) which was fine to where we needed to go but with me not knowing it could take 10 hours to get to 80%.

Starting next year, almost all new cars will be standardized on the Tesla-style connector. Tesla is in the process of opening its supercharger network to non-Tesla cars. Ford and Rivian already have access. GM is in process of getting access. Volvo, Polstar, and Mercedes-Benz will be next.

There are multiple efforts to expand DC fast charging (level 3) charging networks. In a couple of years, we will have fast chargers coming out of our ears.

As you have found, there is a bit of a learning curve. But once you get used to it, it's not a big deal.

Anonymous wrote:Big rental car companies are dumping EV cars left and right. Hertz is selling 20,000 EV cars.

They were by far the cheapest options when we were booking for a trip later this summer. Went for a more expensive gas one bc I didn't want to deal with the stress of trying to find charging stations.

Big rental car companies are dumping EV cars left and right. Hertz is selling 20,000 EV cars.

Coming back to update - thank you to the poster suggesting on finding a level 3.

The saga continues and is so bad it's funny. Level 3 charger #1 was replaced by Tesla chargers (not compatible), level 3 charger #2 wasn't working, level 3 charger #3 works! So this whole ordeal took at least, at least 60 minutes. The charge to 80% (from 50%) will take 25 minutes. The charger is 30 minutes from where we are staying.

I can't see how this system would work if California gets its way and we are all driving EVs with different adapters that aren't compatible. Every hotel has charger in every parking lot space? Just total chaos.

For everyone asking the rental car agency gave the car at 25% charged (80 miles) which was fine to where we needed to go but with me not knowing it could take 10 hours to get to 80%.

Anonymous wrote:So you know nothing about EVs, the rental car company says its not fully charged and you’re like, “OK, its fine”???

Why would you do that?

It probably shouldn't have been fully charged, the recommendation for most EVs is to charge to 80 percent unless you're likely to leave pretty immediately after charging to 100. So even though neither the company nor the driver appear to have realized it, "it's fine" was probably the right answer. You also don't really ever need a full charge; you just need enough charge to get to the next place to charge up.

Anonymous wrote:You need a Tesla, we don't have to charge more than 15 minutes on supercharger to get additional range if we go beyond 300 miles and by then you will be at your stop for the night and can fully charge overnight.

Yes, non-Teslas can do this too (fast-charge for 15 minutes to get additional range). The problem here is very clearly that it's hard to start driving ANY EV without advance knowledge if you've never done it before, and the car rental company failed to provide any information that would have made it easier. IT's true that Teslas have more options for fast-charging; it's not true that Teslas are the only option.

You need a Tesla, we don't have to charge more than 15 minutes on supercharger to get additional range if we go beyond 300 miles and by then you will be at your stop for the night and can fully charge overnight.

DP. I completely understand your frustration, OP. We got stuck with an EV from a rental car place this spring break when the rental agency ran out of other cars. It was EV or nothing, at 2 am. The car was not a Tesla and did not come with the adapter that would have allowed us to charge at the hotel we were staying at. Also, no instructions or helpful tips from the car agency. We spent so much time trying to figure this out on the fly, then trying to find nearby charging stations that didn’t take 8 to 13 hours — we wasted hours of vacation time on this. Because we were going to be traveling somewhere more remote in a few days and we couldn’t get it fully charged in a metro area, we traded it in a day later for a regular car. If it had been a Tesla or the car rental agency had included a charging adapter, it would have been great. Overall we probably lost half a day to this, plus had a lot of extra stress.

Anonymous wrote:So you know nothing about EVs, the rental car company says its not fully charged and you’re like, “OK, its fine”???

Why would you do that?

+100!!!

So you know nothing about EVs, the rental car company says its not fully charged and you’re like, “OK, its fine”???

Why would you do that?