I mostly agree with this, and the little magic wand column shifter in my Mercedes wagon is pretty much the ideal. But I am ok with the center console fake stickshift automatic shifter too in sportier cars.

Only if you are set on buying a Ford or a GM. <shrug> There are going to be an endless variety of boring jacked up two-box blobs in shades of gray in every size too. And GM and Ford make a ton of those too. But they make the real money on pickups and the giant station wagon versions of those pickups.

The thought of my sainted mother trying to do anything in a Tesla is equal parts amusing and terrifying. I am an honest to Dog computer engineer, and it took me five minutes to figure out how to adjust the mirrors the last time I rented one. She would be completely and utterly baffled and flustered. She hasn’t figured…

No different here in the states. Mid-size and small airports usually have you walk to the car pickup areas, but the cars will often be serviced elsewhere.  Some airports like DFW and Cleveland have a central “Rental Car Center” far away where you take a single shuttle to ALL the rentals and JUST pickup cars, and they…

The fact that they are choosing to not compete in those segments says you are wrong. <shrug>

You can bet that in the US they have their own pumps at the location where they clean and prep the cars between rentals. That is often NOT where you pick up the car. A couple of examples, PHL does have the cleaning and gas facility right there in the back of the rental lots, DFW does not - it’s around the corner. The…

Sometimes you place a bet and lose. Maybe it would have been the next big thing and they would have been praised as heroes. Hindsight is always 20:20. Plenty on here thought it was the best idea ever when it was reported what Hertz planned to do. 

Yes, most major airport rental agencies have their *own* gas pumps. Sticking a big tank in the ground and a couple of pumps is a much simpler task than installing a bunch of high-voltage chargers. And given the time difference between an EV charger and topping off a gas tank, you need a hell of a lot more chargers…

That was a big problem across the country.

My mother needs an insurance rental next month. Hertz has Polestars for $29/day and a full charge would be about twice the distance she is likely to drive for the week she needs a rental. Then I thought about what an utterly terrible driver she is, and what would happen if she put her foot in it even with the slowest…

Exactly on the rentals. I am a VERY frequent renter for work. I rented EVs a couple of times before Hertz instituted the charge. Originally, you could just bring it back without worrying about it. So for a couple of overnight trips where I was unlikely to drive more than 75-100 miles, why not? But the very last thing…

They really aren’t. They are making more profits from less production. That is a win, not a loss. Losing money to keep market share is a long slow road to bankruptcy. They were able to use the financial crisis of 15 years ago to shed a lot of the dead weight that made it necessary to overproduce to stay in business.

Of course - as I said, it was very much by design. Marketing caused everyone to want what they can sell profitably (that is marketing’s job), and they removed the main regulatory hurdle to making nothing but those vehicles they can sell profitably. If you want/need a cheaper car, buy a used better one. There are…

Not for desirable specs with low miles they haven’t. I am not interested in one on the verge of a mid-life crisis. 3-series convertibles have been a lot cheaper of a while - that top scares people away, and they are a bit of fat pigs to drive.

They really are tragically unloved cars. I don’t need anything that big, but I have really liked the rentals I have had.

No doubt about that. My work life, aka my life, has been turned upside-down this year. The only constant is change. Luckily I am with a company that is patient and will just ride out the fact that it looks like I am going to have a total of about 4hrs of billable work this month. And next month isn’t looking good…

Sure there is always a market for anything if it’s cheap enough. People bought Yugos...

I will give them that - they were MUCH better than the original 200. But still not very good. I’d take one over an Impala, but I think I would take VD over having to drive an Impala - it would be less annoying.

I had a decent number as rentals, from the base to the full zoot V6 AWD. You are not missing a thing never having driven one.

Are they reliable? I can’t tell you the last time I actually saw one on the road. I know they didn’t sell very many, but it sure seems like an awful lot of them have gone to Valhalla already.