• I rented a Bolt EV from Hertz once. The car was fine, but the charging stations in the area were mostly broken, or they required downloading an app and giving personal information to charge.

    I got the feeling the charging networks are all about collecting government incentives and the sale of private information from subscribers, and not at all about service.

    My new preferred rental car is no rental car at all.

    • charging stations in the area were mostly broken, or they required downloading an app and giving personal information to charge.

      My experience with this is that some places have chargers figured out and some don’t.

      I live in the NL, I rent cars from SIXT Share on occasion, and the charging network is seamless. I can just roll into anywhere and there is bound to be a charger on every street corner, and each only need the RFID tag on the car keys to start charging. BTW, I’ve never seen a Tesla charger in the country.

      OTOH, I’ve been over in Hungary, and it’s a complete shitshow. My host drove us around in his Tesla, and chargers were few and far between, with Tesla ones being somewhat reliable, others worked as often as they didn’t, and they all had their shitty apps that didn’t work either.