The REAL reason for Thrifty's electric car disaster - my experience

if these car hire companies are too lazy to show you how to charge etc then they could run a video on loop so you can at least get up to speed prior to jumping in the vehicle. The scam about charging to 90% comes from their old habit of charging top dollar for fuel used. when you used to return an ICE car without a full tank !.

Scam by Thrifty.

The 10 to 80 or 90 per cent charging interests me. When you give figures for range when you promote EVs, is that the usable range IE 80 per cent or 100 percent. So if you say a vehicle has a 300 mile range is it practically just 240 miles. Same for charging times. Seems like a good opportunity to mislead people about the benefits of particular EVs.

When you picked the up what was the state of charge?

I have had the P2 rental experience from hertz and I own a P2 as well, polestar recommend charging to 90% and it says that on the touch screen when setting charge limit. Rental companies are robber barons , rental electric cars should be allowed to return at anything above 0 and just bake it in the price. You hit the nail on the head rental companies are only looking for ways to slap a charge on you for penalties or some other BS.

Mate Tesla DOES recommend charging 100 percent, ABC ALWAYS BE CHARGING IS WHAT TESLA SAYS

I would be contacting ACCC making a formal complaint, misleading and deceptive conduct.

Thrifty got 110 dollars!
Job done.

Shocking service and policy

I hope that maybe in 10 years, Thrifty won't know how to fill the tank of an ICE vehicle. They turn over staff so quickly that there is no institutional memory, so when EVs become prevalent, they will need help with the few legacy ICE vehicles they rent.

The problem IS the car. I will never hire a vehicle that requires more time charging than driving assuming I can find a charger

A lovely American couple who made a lovely video.

This entire story is a nice illustration of how immature the entire ev ecosystem is. Obscure driver controls for no good reason, incompatible chargers and charging network payment methods, and stupid rental company policies all making for a negative customer experience.
Airports, foreign cities, and jetlag make traveling hard enough as it is - honestly, I'd probably be visiting the rental company in the booth next door if one of them tried lumbering me with an ev, and paying whatever for a gas car - although I spent a couple of minutes trying to find and operate the obtuse ****ing electric park brake in the last one of those that I rented, that was bad enough 😂.

I had same experience at Hertz in US

Way to go blaming the rental company for the fact that EVs are useless because of the hassle and inconvenience of charging them (amongst many other reasons).

I have dealt with Thrifty all over the world & never has a problem.
They would have told you the charge level required when you return it.
You are eventually admitting the charging problems of EVs.
You, of all people, knew the problems of getting the required charge
so you should have rented an ICE car so you now kmow wny people don't want EVs.

I have rented a model Y from SIXT in Melbourne Australia twice for week long road trips, last one a month ago. Includes free charging from Tesla superchargers and Chargefox. Return at whatever charge, don't care, unlimited mileage and they show you the charging cables. Sad to hear other companies are rubbish at it.

All rental car companies suck. They just want you to give them as much of your money as they can scam out of you and then to go away, thanking them for the privilege of being treated like a steaming pile. They are another reason why I will drive over flying on any trip flying can be avoided.

Thrifty is shifty.

Most rental car companys are crap, here and overseas. It's like the old used car sellers.

There out of charge because they are a hassle

I noticed this issue a couple of weeks ago and avoided Thrifty because of it. Sixt and East Coast rentals both do not require evs to be returned with a high charge.

Yup you nailed it problem is with the company not the vehicles, on site charging is the key to eliminating the 90% full bullshit. Fossilised thinking on their behalf for sure. 👍

Three years ago, similar experience with Hertz. Overcharge $500 for a L1 charger & adapter that no one from Hertz even mentioned. It was Not in the car when I rented it (but how do I prove that). Two years ago, rented a Tesla from Hertz again (either loyal to Tesla or stupid-Your call) and they made it right. After months of calls to Hertz customer dis-service, where each time they said, we will call back in 2-weeks (and never did).

This was an issue as far back as 2013 when I rented a petrol car in Portugal. The car was returned 6 am to an unmanned car park with a hard-to-find key drop box.They are an unprofessional outfit but I think most of these car hire places are the same. Quick to find wear and tear scuffs on return but not willing to point them out at the start of the hire.

I had an interesting experience renting a Tesla Y from Hertz in Toronto, I had ordered the car 2 weeks in advance online but I had to wait 45 minutes for the car. They offered me a Polestar instead but it was at 45% charge, they also had a Tesla 3 at 42%. These vehicles were on a set of slow chargers in the garage and were hours away from a full charge. I wanted the Y so I waited and watched the two half charged cars get rented without any explanation or assistance to the the first time EV renters.

When Hertz started its 'big EV sell-off', I checked out the mileage of a dozen or so examples on Hertz's used EV sales site and compared the mileages to the same age (some quite often considerably older than the EVs) and the mileage on the EVs was much higher, often 3 or more times higher. Curiously, no-one has raised this as being in any way relevant to why Hertz was disposing of the EVs they bought!

Adios Thrifty.....

Hertz figured out real quick EVs are not the future.

Polestar recommends a max of 90 not 80 percent.

Great video AND so very true We own a TESLA and have owned one since 2014 so no problem driving an EV for us. 2 years ago we rented a TESLA MODEL Y from SIXT at Frankfurt airport and the staff were clueless and even sold us the extra care package when we specifically requested just the basic NO EXTRA Charge rental. The Frankfurt airport office had no clue about EVs and when we went to another office to complain about the rental charges the next day after we started our rental they said we would have to return to the airport to correct the error. Fortunately an email to the USA head office got this corrected. They gave us a SHELL RECHARGE card to charge the car when they should have just said use the TESLA Superchargers.

Last year we discovered that SIXT no longer rents TESLA. We rented a Polestar 2 from HERTZ at Frankfurt airport this year and as TESLA owners we just used the TESLA superchargers in Europe 21 times using the TESLA app on our phones. Shell Recharge was 79 euro cents while TESLA Superchargers were only 57 euro cents. HETRZ wanted us to bring the car back with over 80% charge which we were able to do without issue.

Later this year we needed to rent a TESLA MODEL Y from Enterprise for a month & it was comical how poorly the Enterprise head office does NOT support their front line staff. The car arrived with 68% charge and we were told to return it with over 68% BUT the message on the TESLA screen stated that we COULD NOT USE TESLA superchargers because their was an unpaid balance on the account. The local manager was asked to resolve this but when we returned the TESLA after 30 days of rental this was not resolved. A TESLA MODEL Y owner can activate their mobile phone as a key BUT this was not possible during our rental. Fortunately we had a place to charge the TESLA so it went back with 72% charge. The management at ENTERPRISE Head Office really needs to train front line staff and remove these problems so they can rent out these TESLA MODEL Y cars more often. However the local manager stated that they do not have these problems renting out other EVs so HEAD OFFICE Support needs correction to assist the front line staff by paying off the charging costs so renters can just use tesla superchargers.

I hired a byd from sixt in brizzy. They said just return it no need to charge. Plus free chargers was really happy.

This sounds very similar to the problems Hertz US had, incompetence, and lazy/untrained staff; although for Hertz, having no minimum state of charge for returns, and no chargers at their locations made things infinitely worse.

Both Thrifty and Hertz could be given vehicles that run on air and still f@ck it up!

Hi Sam, I think with these kind of moments, I think it's not about the money, it's about the principal

Used SIXT in Tassy this time Last year, absolutely brilliant

Completely agree 90%. It’s just a poor target. They should make it more like 75% especially on rental fleets. It would make the battery less longer as well.

As for the 1 st couple - I had this experience in Boston last October. And same thing: never driven an electric car, wasn't expecting to have one, and they were no help. We got a Tesla, and charging at SuperCharging stations we never faced any charging fees.

When I hired a Tesla from Hertz they had the car in Valet mode and I couldn’t work out why my phone would not connect to it. Literally I spent 30min before I drove off trying to work out why I was being so stupid I couldn’t even pair my phone! Then when I realised no one there knew how to take it out of valet mode so they gave me a different car and because they hadn’t prepped it I found someone else’s luggage in the frunk!!!!!!!! Car was great but service a disaster.

Hi Sam, next time you need to try Sixt. They are owned by NRMA and if you search up NRMA Sixt discount you will find a cheap price on renting an EV. NRMA own Chargefox and when you rent through.Sixt you are given a Chargefox card so you can charge your vehicle for free.
Sixt do not have any charge requirement when you return the vehicle. I now only rent through these guys and always get an EV

This wouldn't be a problem if EVs didn't suck so bad.

Enjoy your videos Sam - but theres alot of repeating points..Saying something..then repeating the exact same thing to hammer the point. Most of your audience are prob smart enough to get it the first time. The $22 charge for returning less than 90% (should be 75% really) isnt great - but its also not a total rip off.. they do have a small cost overhead in buying fast chargers and electrisity bills. You can always get the bus from the airport also - renting a Polestar is living the high life a bit which usually involves getting your wallet out.

Yes, keep making alibis and excuses for these dumpster fires. I guess Hirtz was to blame for their train wreck. Why should anyone have to go to school to learn how to operate one of these things?

Yeah, very poor. I hired a Tesla model 3 from Sixt in March in Adelaide and it was great. Returned the car with 61% because I drove from Barossa and it is fine. It came with a chargefox card so I could charge using fast chargers for free

Anything you say.Oh yeah.

Thank you for the info .... you've just made my mind up never to rent an EV from an airport

I've had excellent experience with rental evs from sixt (Australia).
I've had ZS EV, Model Y, Model 3 twice, EV6 twice.
Free charging with chargefox or NRMA chargers, can return with whatever state of charge you like. Really streamlines the return process.
Only negative I've had was I had booked a Y and it they didn't have any charged so gave me a 3 and a discount..

How much money does Thrifty make overcharging for fuel top ups?