Yes, the Bolt is a great car. We bought ours in the second month of production, Jan 2017, before the first Tesla 3 rolled off the assembly line. We might have bought a Tesla 3 if it was available then. The 2011 Prius was totaled and needed immediate replacement.A Chevy Bolt might be a much better example of what a rental-suitable EV would look like. One that's just like a regular car but just uses electricity.
The biggest problem with the Bolt, other than the unfortunate battery recall, is the charging speed for DCFC. It's only 55 kW. And that is the peak rate, not average. A full charge, from 0 to 100%, will take about 2.5 hours on a DCFC. It is something we have never done. This compares with about 10 hours on L2, which happens at home nearly every weekend. Chevy did not fix this in any subsequent year model. This puts the Bolt at a serious disadvantage as a rental car, vs a Tesla. We have not taken the Bolt on road trips for that reason. Charging would likely double the travel time, vs using the ICE on the PHEV.
GM has a new Ultium platform that's supposed to solve the charging speed problem. Hopefully, the 2026 Bolt will have faster DCFC charging.
They definitely need to plan for recharging the cars. And not just billing the customers who return it empty. Installing DCFCs is expensive and probably not affordable for rental companies. Locations such as airports are in great need of DCFC, not just for rental cars, but all EVs. The funding cannot solely come from rental companies. They were not usually setting up their own gas stations, or hiring full time staff to refuel gas cars. This is an additional cost that wasn't well planned for. Part of it should have been built into the price of EV rentals.Also having to return the car with 70% charge can be problematic for people. I imagine a significant number of renters' final destination is the airport in which the very last thing they want to do is stop to charge on their way. Rental car companies will need to either set up banks of superchargers to top off while being cleaned (actually this would be an ideal setup) and returned to service or build out L2 chargers and have enough cars to allow returns to refuel in a couple hours. This sounds like a hassle but at major airports the big lots have tons of cars just sitting so it cant' be that tough to just let them L2 charge over a couple hours. Even if it's a small charge (similar to prepaid fuel) I think a lot of people would happily pay to just drop the car off with a spent battery.
Statistics: Posted by madbrain — Wed Apr 17, 2024 3:32 am — Replies 149 — Views 9884
