Most major car rental companies have electric vehicles as part of their fleet and offer these vehicles as an alternative to their typical gasoline powers vehicles. As legislation in some parts of the world is moving to phase out gasoline powers vehicles in favor of electric vehicles, it is expected that electric vehicles will become more common as a rental car option. In this post, we share tips and considerations to help you decide if you should rent an electric vehicle based on our experience in Maui.

• Location: Maui Airport (OGG)
• Rental Company: Hertz
• Car Received: 2022 Chevrolet Bolt

Is it cost effective?

We have noticed that electric vehicles are now often either the same price as a gasoline powered vehicle or even less expensive. For this rental, an EV offered the lowest price rental for our dates in Maui. Overall, charging rates vary by destination, station and speed but are generally much less than the price of gas. However, there are still some other considerations…

Is it easy to charge?

We were under the impression that it would be much easier to charge the electrical vehicle than it was. How much more difficult would it be than plugging the car into a charging unit and relaxing in the vehicle or going for a walk? Spoiler: it is much more complicated and difficult than that!

In advance of our trip, we researched where the fast and regular chargers were and looked at the range of the vehicle to plan roughly when and where to charge. All this research was in vain, as nothing went according to plan. Unless you have access to a dedicated charger at your accommodation, we do not recommend renting an electric vehicle!  Even though we only rented the vehicle for a few days, by the time we’d returned our rental; we had…

• Needed to download 4 different charging apps and create accounts
• Tried 6 difference charging locations
• Encountered 3 chargers that were not functioning at all
• Had a functioning charger stop functioning while we went for lunch
• Opened 2 service tickets (which were never addressed) with station operators
• Put in 2 chargeback claim for purchasing credits that we were unable to use.

Returning the vehicle:

Much like gas-powered vehicles, the expectation is that you will return the vehicle fully charged (which sounds simple enough – but it really depends on a number of factors. In the case of our rental, Hertz offered leeway up to 75%. If the charge was below 75% you will be charged a fee.  However, reviewing our rental contract we noticed that the exact amount of this fee was not disclosed.

Is it fun to drive the EV?

Aside from the charging issues, we enjoyed driving the electric vehicle rented. We ended up driving a Chevy Bolt, which had a range of 417KM and the vehicle really impressed us (we cannot recall ever being impressed with a Chevy as a rental car!). If you don’t feel like going to a dealership for a sales pitch and test drive, renting an EV might be a good way to experience one.

Overall:

Here is a list of considerations prior to choosing to rent an electric vehicle:

• Does your hotel / rental offer a charging station? Will it be available when you need to charge?
• Are there chargers nearby or in areas you plan to go? What is require to use the? Are they functioning?
• Are they fast-chargers? If not, will regular charging be sufficient for you with the time available?
• Are you conformable installing apps & setting up accounts (as needed to use various chargers)
• Does your credit card have an American billing address?

It was fun to drive the vehicle, but the experience made us realize renting an electrical vehicle might not be the best idea in many circumstances. We hope us sharing this experience helps others to assess the pros and cons of renting an electrical vehicle while visiting Maui and other places in the world. We also invite others to share their positive and negative experiences in the comments of this blog post to facilitate discussion and information sharing!