Tesla was the only EV choice for Hertz

Hertz goes with Tesla

The news that Hertz is purchasing 100,000 Tesla's has pushed the stock above $1000 its market cap over $1 trillion.

This deal was an excellent move by Hertz and about the best one to get into the EV game that they could have made.

#1. The Tesla Brand

Tesla is a household brand, yet it has no advertizing budget. Tesla is also struggling to keep up with vehicle sales, achieving a 73% increase in vehicles shipped between 2020 Q3 and 2021 Q3.

Hertz has gained a unique association with the Tesla brand. Interested in renting an EV or a Tesla? Hertz is that company now.

#2. Worry free trips due to Tesla's charging network

Charging on trips is one of the most stressful parts about having an EV, although this is getting better each year. No one worries about driving someplace and not finding a gas station but finding a charging station is a real concern with an EV, even in 2021.

When I got a Tesla Model S in 2016 there were far fewer charging stations. On a ~180 mile trip from MA to CT to visit my parents there have been several new charging stations installed since 2016. These include Charlton MA, Framingham MA, West Hartford CT, etc. Back in 2016 there was only Auburn MA and Hartford CT.

Tesla recognized that charging was a key part of EV adoption and has spent billions on their network of fast charging stations called Superchargers (https://www.tesla.com/supercharger), some 25,000 worldwide. Hertz customers can rent a Tesla and travel relatively worry free throughout a number of countries, finding places to quickly recharge.

These are Tesla specific charging stations however, with Tesla specific connectors, voltages, and communication protocols. For other EV owners the situation is a bit more nerve racking. While EV manufacturers are building this infrastructure out it's not yet at the coverage provided by Tesla. Ford is building its Blue Oval charting network and has an online planner for its Mach-E. GM partnered with EVGO.

Comments

UTM (qemu on OSX) only boots into uefi shell after installing Ubuntu 22.10 (solved!)

I've been meaning to try out running Linux and Windows virtual machines on my x86 MacBook Pro using qemu . I've been using Parallels for several years. Parallels is a nice application and works well but I'm always getting bugged to purchase upgrades. Parallels provides free updates on minor version upgrades only, say 13.0 to 13.1. With so many prompts to purchase upgrades it feels like Parallels could release a bit more minor versions and a bit fewer major versions. Rather than just purchase an upgrade to Parallels I figured I'd try out qemu via the UTM application . UTM wraps qemu with a helpful gui and comes as a packages Mac application. And UTM supports both x86 and M1 systems (as qemu also supports these systems). Creating an Ubuntu VM with UTM didn't go as smoothly as with VirtualBox or Parallels but it was the settings I chose that messed me up. Here are two things I ran into when installing Ubuntu on UTM. #1. Configure the qemu instance to use a 'Display...

Debugging an imprecise bus access fault on a Cortex-M3

This information may apply to other cortex series processors but is written from practical experience with the Cortex-M3. Imprecise bus access faults are ambiguous, as noted by the term "imprecise". Compared to precise bus errors, imprecise errors are much trickier to debug and especially so without a deep understanding of arm processors and assembly language. Imprecise and precise flags are found in the BusFault status register, a byte in the CFSR (Configurable Fault Status Register). BusFault status register bits The definition for imprecise and precise bits is: [2] IMPRECISERR Imprecise data bus error: 0 = no imprecise data bus error 1 = a data bus error has occurred, but the return address in the stack frame is not related to the instruction that caused the error. When the processor sets this bit to 1, it does not write a fault address to the BFAR. This is an asynchronous fault. Therefore, if it is detected when the priority of the current pr...

Graco Swing By Me - Battery to AC wall adapter modification

If you have one of these Graco battery powered swings you are probably familiar with the cost of C batteries! The swing takes four of them and they only last a handful of days. I'm not sure if the newer models support being plugged into the wall but ours didn't. If you are a little familiar with electronics and soldering, here is a rough guide on how you can modify yours to plug in! I wasn't sure how exactly to disassemble the swing side where the batteries were. I was able to open up the clamshell a bit but throughout this mod I was unable to determine how to fully separate the pieces. I suspect that there is some kind of a slip plate on the moving arm portion. The two parts of the plastic are assembled and the moving arm portion with the slip plate is slid onto the shaft. Because of the tension in that slip plate it doesn't want to back away, and because of the mechanicals that portion of the assembly doesn't appear accessible in order to free it. I was...

Chris M.

Search This Blog