I realize I'm responding to a roughly 3 month old post, but I just did rent a Tesla through Budget at SFO this past week. I ended up with a Model 3 LR that had ~18,000 miles and Tesla's premium connectivity still meaning the car was in all likelihood less than a year old. Overall I had a great experience.
Originally Posted by Jerome10
Must return it with 70%+ charge.
Yeah, which especially in this case isn't a big deal. There are 28 supercharger stalls at The Shops at Tanforan mall 2 miles away and less than10 minutes from the rental car center.
Originally Posted by Jerome10
My few questions (renting thru Costco Travel):
1) Avis is $30 more than Budget, but Avis shows "Tesla Model 3 Short Range or similar" while Budget shows "Chevy Bolt or similar". I'd like a Tesla. Should I pay the extra $30 at Avis or does it not matter? Meaning using Costco Travel, does Avis just see "electric car" and will give me whatever they have on the lot (Bolt or Tesla)? Or am I much more likely or guaranteed a Tesla with Avis? What about the opposite? If I choose Budget and save $30 will I most likely get a Bolt or am I just as likely to get a Tesla from them? I'll be honest, I don't really want a Bolt and would rather have a gas car at that point so I'd hate to reserve an electric for a bit of extra $ and then ask for a gas car.
Budget and Avis have multiple classes of electric cars that Costco is lumping into one. The intermediate class on budget's website for SFO is the bolt or equivalent and the midsize is Model 3 or equivalent. Additionally the budget website has a standard elite electric which is a Mach E or equivalent. Avis also shows luxury elite ev which is a Genesis G80 or equivalent. With that in mind if you are seeing bolt or equivalent on the costco website I'm pretty sure your reservation would end up in the intermediate class and be getting a bolt and not a Tesla i.e. the $30 difference between the two reservations in your example would be much more likely to get you the Tesla through Avis. With my reservation, I monitored it for price changes and noticed quite frequently that depending on the time I looked through Costco's booking portal it would vary as to which class it wanted to book into. I was delayed into SFO and running behind schedule on where I wanted to be timing wise getting back so I really didn't look around to see what was actually in the garage for AVIS/Budget EV wise.
Originally Posted by Jerome10
2) Am I setting myself up for an epic PITA here?
Potentially, maybe? For me, I've owned a model 3 for a year and a half now. It was 2 minutes in the car to adjust the seat and change a couple of settings in the computer to where I wanted them so it would drive like the one I own. I also am comfortable with regenerative breaking, one pedal driving, and the hold mode for the car at a complete stop. I know how to access the list of superchargers from the car, know to let the car know what I'm doing i.e. where I'm going to get the battery percentage on arrival, tell it I'm headed to a supercharger so the battery preconditions, etc. For someone that has never driven one there is going to be a bit of learning curve.
Originally Posted by Jerome10
I saw the "fine" for letting the car charge too long ($1/minute or something).
It is $1 per minute if a supercharger is fully occupied or $0.50 per minute if a site is above 50% capacity. While slightly less convenient renting and not having access to the car via Tesla's app, the car will still tell you how long it estimates it is going to take to charger to the percentage you tell it to charge to when you plug into a supercharger i.e. you know when it will be done. Idle fees shouldn't come a surprise. Tell the car to charge to 90% and do whatever you want to do at the stop and you aren't likely to get an idle fee. For example, Tuesday in San Bruno, I needed to get the car up to 70% to return it to SFO. I arrived at the supercharger with ~50 some percent. By the time I walked across the mall parking lot, found a bathroom, and returned to the car i was at 76% and ready to head to the airport. That took about 10 minutes at the most, and the car was ready before I was.
Originally Posted by Jerome10
The areas I will be near have a few superchargers around them but most of them seem to be 72kW chargers. I think only 1 location had 250kW (I know about cars and a bit about electrics but haven't spent the time calculating recharge times with these numbers). I'm not sure yet if my hotel might have destination charging.
On the later, something like plugshare is a good resource for what if any charging options a spot may have. On the former, it depends on how much driving you wanted to do out there, but the trip down to the South-end of the bay in-and-of-itself and a bit of driving around Oakland and SF probably wouldn't require charging a Tesla until getting returned to the airport.
Originally Posted by Jerome10
I hear horror stories of electric car owners needing to wait hours just to get onto a charger. I need to be sure it is over 70% when dropping off... am I looking at stoppping at a Supercharger on the way to the airport and again, what if I cannot get a spot?
Those are largely b.s. Yes you would likely want to stop on the way to airport. There are 60 V3 250 kW supercharger stalls within about 5 miles of SFO. The odds of all 3 of those locations being simultaneously full is slim. As of the time of this post, between the 3 there are 32/60 available and none of the 3 sites is completely full. If one of the sites was completely full 1) the car would let you know (and there is a recent software update that is improving advanced warning on this and then 2) your choice is either to wait or go a different supercharger. Again in the case of SFO there are multiple options in fairly close proximity to the rental center. In my 18 months of ownership with most of my driving in the Midwest, and then this trip to California, I've never had to wait for a supercharger yet.
Originally Posted by Jerome10
Suppose I like the idea of trying them and I'm willing to experiment a bit a learn and all that but I don't want to find that the electric car is now dictating my trip to me. Oh, yeah, lets go do X... but first we need to stop for 40 minutes to charge...oh and there is an hour wait on top of it!
If you feel like you have to stop and charge a Tesla for 40 minutes, especially at a supercharger, you are likely doing something wrong... And again if you are waiting an hour for a supercharger, especially in California, where they are fairly prevalent, you are also doing something wrong.
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Like I said I had a very good experience this past week. I just wanted to respond to the OP, because I had some of the same concerns over what car I might get and have now had direct experience renting one from the company in question at the airport in question as well.
