Car Renters Not Plugging Into Electric Vehicles

Rental car drivers are steering clear of electric vehicles largely due to "range anxiety" — renters' fear that the battery will die before they can return the car or reach a charging station.

Slow demand is the main reason Enterprise, the biggest U.S. auto renter, has just 300 electric vehicles (EVs) in its fleet. That is 40 percent below a target it set in 2010 when it ordered 500 of Nissan's electric Leafs, Lee Broughton, head of sustainability at Enterprise, told Bloomberg.

"Range anxiety makes [renters] think they can't get to a charging station," he said.

Hertz said in 2010 that it would have from 500 to 1,000 EVs in its fleet by 2011, including the Leaf and GM's Chevrolet Volt. It has fallen short of that due to lower than expected customer demand, said spokeswoman Paula Rivera.

Most EVs run out of battery power in less than 100 miles. The Leaf models in Enterprise's fleet are expected to go about 75 miles before needing a charge.

Tesla's Model S has a maximum range of about 300 miles, but it rents at Enterprise for $300 to $500 a day — about 10 times the cost of renting a Leaf.

"It's fairly clear that we are going to need a bigger range battery at an affordable price at some point for EVs to take off," said Broughton.

Sales of EVs have also been sluggish. About 140,000 plug-in EVs are on American roads, well short of President Barack Obama's original goal of 1 million by 2015.

GM sold approximately 23,000 Volts last year, a small fraction of the millions of vehicles sold, despite a $7,500 federal tax credit. Nissan reportedly sold less than 10,000 of its electric Leaf models.

The Washington Times called the Volt "the Obamacar" and observed: "The Chevy Volt is a classic tale of top-down thinking, the story of subsidy, crony engineering and rejection by the market. The Volt is the president's economic policy on four wheels."