Correct. This is the $100 gamble I’d be making.
I certainly do not want to wait at the counter. I’m going to proceed with skip the line on the SUV rental and keep my fingers crossed. I’ll report back on how it goes.
3 Likes
Got it, I think I understand now. Hope it pans out for you!
1 Like
I tend to overcomplicate things just to save a buck. Thanks for bearing with me.
2 Likes
Pretty sure that half the fun of it!
2 Likes
Reporting back with the outcome. When I arrived at MCO Alamo, they had one single SUV in my category: an electric Jeep Grand Cherokee. I told man at the little booth that I didn’t want to deal with an EV on vacation. He said he wouldn’t want that either and asked what I wanted instead. I pointed out that they had a full row of minivans. He didn’t bat an eye and told me to take whatever I wanted. I’ve got a brand new Kia Carnival with 200 miles when I took it out of the lot.
I did Skip the Line for my SUV reservation but did not enter Skip the Line info for the sedan rental. I was able to cancel the sedan reservation through Costco Travel with no trouble.
8 Likes
Sweet! Glad it worked out!
2 Likes
Glad it worked out!
1 Like
Just for future reference….. as a former EV owner, there are plenty of locations around WDW to easily charge the vehicle. Personally, we will never own another gas engine again (car). We even have an electric outboard for our tender.
4 Likes
As a current EV owner I have to disagree with this! There are, let’s say, “many” locations, but I don’t think there are plenty of them or many in convenient locations. Only a few hotels have them and they are mostly measly Charge Point Level 2 chargers. I am not sure we saw a single hyper charger. There are some Charge Points at the TTC but who wants to park at the TTC that much? We rented a hybrid and charged it only a couple of times because I also didn’t really want to deal with charging on vacation when time=$$.
3 Likes
There are several things still blocking me from being interested in an EV. But technology advancements have been moving quickly, and I think we are just a few (5ish?) years away from from commercial battery technologies which could make EVs more attractive (to me at least).
- Switch from lithium ion to sodium ion batteries. Laying aside my concerns about the human implications of lithium mining, the abundance of sodium for sodium ion batteries will drop the prices of battery production considerably.
- Rapid charging. I know this has been improving, but still I can spend 3 minutes to fill my gas tank, versus 20+ minutes for a full charge. You have to change your lifestyle habits in order to accommodate this, but there have been advances which are nearly to the point of commercial feasibility which will drop the rapid charging down below 5 minutes.
- Range issues, as long as there is adequate charging infrastructure. With number 2, I think we can start to see gas stations switch over to being “energy stations”, which supply gasoline as well as electric power. This effectively eliminates the range issue concern. Today, having long(ish) charging times means that current gas stations are not an optimal infrastructure to support the increasing number of EVs on the road. But if rapid charging becomes a thing, EVs would not hold up the limited space which gas stations currently have.
- Energy production. I believe nuclear energy is the only viable long-term ability to provide enough power without relying on fossil fuels/natural gas, etc. Solar and Wind are improving, but will never be able to produce as much as we need. But there is a lot of forward momentum being made in safe, reliable, and financially sound nuclear energy, replacing the old-school nuclear power plants of old. This one will be a game changer, honestly, more than anything else!
Regardless of all this, since the range of most EVs is quite adequate these days, if you rent an EV for a vacation in Orlando, will you really ever even need to “refill” it? It seems like the amount of driving for MOST trips will be accommodated by a single charge. I just think that car rental places shouldn’t overcharge customers for returning an EV which is depleted, because if they are offering the EVs, they should also have EV charging as part of their rental practices. I don’t think it is the same as having guests renting gasoline vehicles return the vehicles full, because in the case of gasoline, it is something that they would have to manage transport and storage of, or rely on local gas stations themselves, etc. But electric charging, once installed, is “free” to transport for car rental places.
5 Likes
It definitely depends on the car but our car could go from airport, around WDW and then back to the airport on a single charge. But you’d be delivering it back probably in the 20% range.
But this isn’t reality right now. I dug into an agreement a while back and I think the cars have to be returned at 70%. (100% is not realistic.)
2 Likes
Not wanting to get into a debate over the merits of EVs, but as a person who’s never driven one, an EV rental while on vacation to central and SW Florida is not the least bit appealing to me. As @melcort10 said, time is money while on vacation. Here on the second leg of our vacation on Sanibel Island, I have not seen a single EV charger (though I’ve not looked for one either).
4 Likes
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that for people who are familiar with using/recharging EVs, doing so on vacation is no big deal. But for people who have not had that experience, it seems daunting and they do not want the potential hassle to complicate their vacation - that would be me also. I really like @ryan1 ‘s idea of companies not expecting EVs to be returned charged - if that were the case I might be willing to give it a try!
I’m really glad the OP was given an upgrade in lieu of having to take an unwanted EV. That was the right way for the rental company to handle it.
4 Likes
There is definitely a learning curve, and while traveling is not the time I want to be learning how to do something I’m not familiar with. I had a trip back in March where my flight was delayed because of bad weather in the Orlando area, and when I got in around 1:00 am, I found that the rental company (I think it was Hertz) was completely out of cars! They said that a lot of people who had been scheduled to return cars that day ended up driving them home instead because of mass flight cancellations. At the rental counter, they told me the only vehicle they had available was a Tesla. I had booked the cheapest economy class car, but I offered to pay for the upgrade to an SUV or minivan, or anything that wasn’t EV, but they insisted it was the Tesla or nothing, and when I expressed my apprehension, they reassured me that it was just like driving any other vehicle. So I reluctantly accepted since it was very late and I just wanted to get to where I was going. However, when I got in the vehicle, it definitely was not the same as driving any other vehicle! I literally had to search up and watch youtube videos just to figure out how to start the car and how to put it in reverse/drive. Luckily, when I got to the gate agent, she asked me if I was comfortable with the Tesla and when I explained that I wasn’t, she said “you’re President’s Circle so we have to take care of you”. She then took it upon herself to go find me something more suitable. She left and came back 5 minutes later with a brand new Genesis that had 16 miles on it! Not sure why the counter agents didn’t have the same outlook! I was amused when swapping the two vehicles, she told me to leave the Tesla and she would bring it back, but even she couldn’t figure out how to start it up so I had to show her what I had learned from the youtube video!
6 Likes
I charged next to downtown disney all the time w/o issue
1 Like
Hertz did that to us as well. I’ll never rent from them again. There’s a Seinfeld episode about rental car companies. Jerry told the company “So you know how to TAKE a reservation, but not how to KEEP a reservation” or something similar.
4 Likes
That exact phrase is exactly what I was thinking in my head the whole time!!!
2 Likes