Levenson, who manages half a dozen EVs on the car-sharing application Turo, said Hertz is making a bigger bet on the electric market than many of the more timid players in the industry. Levenson’s rentals are a mix of Tesla Model 3s and Model Ys, plus a recently added Ford Mustang Mach-E.
“I expected Hertz to make incremental announcements, almost like legacy automakers dipping their toes into EVs,” he said. “So the sinking feeling in my stomach came from thinking my Model 3s and Model Ys might be priced in a way that isn’t competitive with Hertz. That part sucks.”
The Tesla deal was the first of several Hertz announcements last week. It was followed by a partnership to rent Teslas to Uber drivers and a deal with Carvana to sell rental cars through its used-car platform. Fields also told CNN that Hertz could acquire an additional 100,000 vehicles for Uber.
Despite suddenly facing a rental giant in his EV niche, Levenson said he embraces the move as being good for EV adoption.
“I’m an investor in Tesla, I’m a multi-vehicle rental owner, I’m a car reviewer and I want people to have access to EVs,” he said. His YouTube channel The Kilowatts has featured multiple EV brands.
With his West Coast rental startup, Levenson and his partners in Seattle and Portland hope to get a jump on market interest in the Cybertruck that Tesla plans to build next year. With multiple Cybertruck reservations, the partners are hoping to stock up on the wildly styled pickup before Hertz shows interest.
In the meantime, Model 3s and Ys are the perfect rental EVs, he said, because they are desirable, easier to operate than people might think and have a dedicated charging network for hassle-free fueling. That cannot be said of some would-be competitors.
Levenson has 500 rentals under his belt. About half of his renters have driven Teslas before and some are owners. The other half are new to the brand. While a minority of renters are using the vehicles for an extended test drive, most are visitors or locals who need to get around the Bay Area or beyond.
Levenson has a two-minute YouTube video as a quick-start guide or he’ll walk customers through the basic functions if he is present for the vehicle handoff. Maybe 1 in 10 customers have a question after that. “It’s really amazing how they’ve designed these cars to be rental cars,” he said.
Take the 15-inch touch screen that operates nearly every vehicle function — that’s not something you’ll find on a current Hertz lot. Even the glove box on Teslas requires the touch of a virtual button. Some might assume an uninitiated renter could be intimidated.
“That is a total misconception,” said Levenson. “People pick it up so easily and intuitively.” Some Hertz renters who end up in a Tesla might struggle if they were expecting a more conventional vehicle, Levenson said. But visual guides such as the one he’s created should make initial confusion a nonissue, he said.
Charging up during the rental period is another potential pain point. But unlike other EV makers, Tesla has its own Supercharger network with plug-and-charge capability that bills directly to a Tesla account.
Levenson said that renters rarely have questions about Tesla charging while on the road. It’s more common with renters of his Mach-E, who have to deal with multiple charging networks and different forms of payment. It’s getting better, with Electrify America offering plug-and-charge capability for the Ford.
