Hertz charges Tesla renters for returning their electric vehicles "without filling up"

Earlier this month, Hertz charged a customer nearly $300 for not filling the tank when returning the car. This has always been the standard practice of vehicle rental and moving truck companies. However, it is interesting that this time they rented a Tesla electric car.

Although Tesla Electric clearly does not use gasoline, it is difficult for the customer to persuade the Hertz customer service representative to withdraw the charge. The company eventually apologized for the incident and returned the customer's money, blaming the problem on a system error. However, this happened after the car enthusiast magazine The Drive reported the tragedy. The spokesman said that the company had repaired the fault.

Most people may think that this is just an abnormal situation, but since the publication of this report, Transmission magazine has received several complaints about similar billing problems.

A customer who rented Model 3 received a surcharge of 341 dollars for not fully charged. Although he admitted that his battery was low when returning the car, Hertz should have charged him only 25 to 35 dollars for charging. He tried to cancel the fee, but like another car renter, the customer service staff did not cooperate until he began to publicly announce his troubles.

In another incident, a customer received a bill of $690.32 in addition to the weekly rent of $329.83 for Tesla Model 3. The additional bill of nearly $700 is broken down into several outrageous expenses -- $475.19 for gasoline (the car is not used), $25 for electric vehicle charging, and $125.01 for additional expenses (using the super charger network during the lease period). As a reference, charging Tesla Motors to 75% of its power with a super charger generally costs only about $15.

Although it took a lot of effort, the renter finally asked Hertz to refund the stupidly $475 fuel charge, but the 10 times super charger charge is still valid. These stories make people wonder how many customers have been trapped and how many people have given up trying to get money back when facing Hertz's stubborn customer service representatives.

This also raises the question: is this even a "system fault"? Given Hertz's recent troubles with electric vehicles, is it trying to recover losses at the expense of customers? Hertz is one of the companies that are fully committed to electric car rental, but it found that people do not want to rent electric cars. Stephen Scherr, CEO of Hertz, lost his job because of this wrong gamble. With the sharp decline in resale value, the company is liquidating its electric vehicle fleet.