Environment

Avis has new T&Cs for renting its EVs, and they’re a little weird

Published

2 years ago

February 4, 2023

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Tesla Model 3 Source: Tesla

Car rental giant Avis just sent an email out today to its customers to let that it has new rental terms and conditions for its fleet EVs. Some of the company’s EV rules are a bit of a head scratcher.

Here’s what the email said:

As we introduce Electric Vehicles to our fleet, our rental terms have been amended. To accommodate our expanding vehicle inventory, this amends the agreement signed by you with respect to the rental of a vehicle powered by an electric motor (an “EV”). Our updated terms can be found here.

Note that these were sent out by Avis Canada, but the rental terms and conditions are for both the United States and Canada.

I’ve pasted the seven-plus points terms included in the EV section below, and my comments are after each point, in bolded italics:

39. ELECTRIC VEHICLE (EV) TERMS. This EV Amendment amends the rental agreement signed by you with respect to the rental of a vehicle powered by an electric motor (an “EV”) from Avis Rent A Car System, LLC, Aviscar, Inc., or any Avis Rent A Car System, LLC, affiliate, or the independent Avis Rent A Car System, LLC, licensee identified on the rental agreement (collectively referred to herein as “Avis”).

Boilerplate text. All good. Next.

1) AMENDMENT TO RENTAL AGREEMENT: This EV Amendment simultaneously amends the terms of your rental from Avis with respect to the terms herein only. All other terms of your rental remain in full force and effect. In the event of any conflict between the terms of this EV Amendment and your other rental terms, the terms of this EV Amendment shall govern.

More boilerplate. Nothing to see here.

2) ONE WAY RENTALS ARE NOT PERMITTED: Due to unique infrastructure needs associated with EV’s, your EV must be returned to your rental location on the date/time specified in your rental terms. If your EV is not returned to the renting location, all costs incurred in transporting your EV back to the renting location will be assessed to you. In addition, you will be assessed a fee for Avis’ loss of use of the EV between the time that you should have returned the EV to the renting location and the time that it is returned to the renting location up to a maximum of thirty (30) days. The loss of use fee will be your daily rental rate.

“Unique infrastructure needs.” LOL.

At the end of January, a couple of us at Electrek received a PR announcement announcing that Avis was launching a “significant number of EV charging stations at the George Bush International Airport in Houston” with EverCharge. The EV charging stations will “only be used by the Avis and Budget fleets of EVs and PHEVs available for rent” at Houston airport.

I asked, “How many EVs does Avis have for rent across the US, and which makes and models?” And got the reply: “Avis is not commenting on the specifics of its fleet at this time.”

Bummer, because Hertz sure is commenting, and with Tom Brady to boot.

I asked the spokesperson how many EV charging stations Avis is installing at Houston airport, and they wouldn’t tell me – they only said that both DC and Level 2 are being put in.

I asked what the rollout plan is for other North American airports, and got the reply:

Following the launch at the Houston airport, Avis and EverCharge plan to extend the partnership to additional airport locations this year.

So, based on the above information, it would appear that the reason why a car rental customer has to return the EV to the original rental location – in this case, airports – is because Avis doesn’t have enough EV charging infrastructure yet.

I get that this is a growing pains issue, but simply, it isn’t very practical. Not everyone returns to the place where they rented a car.

Maybe Avis should have installed more EV charging infrastructure before it rolled out its unknown quantity of EVs.

One can currently rent a Tesla Model 3 from Avis in seven US states – all in the West. It’s kind of silly that one can’t drive between those locations without having to return to home base.

3) BATTERY CHARGING LEVELS AT VEHICLE CHECK OUT: Avis will rent the EV with at least a 70% charge on the battery. The range of your EV will vary based on a number of factors including vehicle load, driver’s actions such as speed and acceleration, climate and terrain factors such as inclines. Avis does not warrant or guarantee the range of an EV.

Why 70%? The ideal topped-up charge level is 80%. If Avis has EV chargers at its rental locations, then it should charge them to 80%.

And Avis ought to print up a helpful document, or give renters a QR code, so they can read about why and how vehicle load, speed, and acceleration affect charge. Let’s not say there are factors without explaining them.

4) BATTERY CHARGING LEVELS AT VEHICLE RETURN: Your EV must be returned to Avis with a battery charge level of at least 70%. If returned at less than 70% but more than 10% battery charge level, a charging fee of $35 will be assessed to you. If returned with less than a 10% battery charge level, you will be assessed an additional low charge fee of $35 (a total of $70 charging fees if returned with a battery charge of less than 10%). The charging fee is based on the kilowatt hours, overhead, loss of use of the EV and administrative costs Avis incurs in charging the vehicle. Note: fees assessed in the United States refer to U.S. dollars and fees assessed in Canada refer to Canadian dollars.

A $35 car charging fee is a bit steep. Let’s say a driver returns the car with 50% charge – the amount of money to bring it to 70% would be around US $5 at the most.

An 80kwh Tesla battery x 20c/kwh (high estimate) = $16 assuming 0-100% charge.

But I guess this is like when you bring a gas car back empty without prior arrangements, and car rental companies charge you a really high fill-up fee. And if Avis has DC chargers, then they won’t have to wait long to charge up a car that has a battery charge level of less than 70%.

5) ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE: Roadside assistance is available for your EV but fuel cannot be delivered to EV’s. If you require roadside service because you depleted your EV’s batteries, your EV will be towed to your renting location and the towing expense will be assessed to you. If you require another vehicle due to a breakdown, you may be provided a gasoline powered vehicle in which case, all fuel provisions of your rental terms shall apply with respect to your replacement vehicle.

“Fuel cannot be delivered to EVs” – heehee. Love it. It would be cool if Avis invested in some mobile EV charging trucks to make up for the fact that they don’t actually have enough EV charging infrastructure yet to service their EV fleets.

Why can’t the EV be towed to the nearest Tesla Supercharger or Electrify America or similar? Why does it have to go all the way back to the renting location? What if the driver is on a road trip? This one definitely qualifies as weird. This may scare some people off who wanted to try an EV for the first time.

6) SPECIAL EV EQUIPMENT: All EV equipment including, but not limited to, charging equipment, keys, key cards, fobs and/or remote (“EV Equipment”) provided with your EV must be returned. The full replacement cost of any EV Equipment not returned with your EV will be charged to you. LDW, even if elected, does not cover EV Equipment.

Maybe this is a legal thing, but surely it would be common sense that keys, key cards, and fobs would have to be returned, much like any gas rental car? Perhaps Avis has experienced some customers throwing away key cards because they think they’re like hotel key cards? At any rate, I’d be pretty annoyed if I was an Avis employee and customers kept throwing away the key cards, so fair enough. Fobs is a bit of an overstretch. I guess they just had to mention them to cover backs.

7) UNIQUE TESLA TERMS: If you rented a Tesla EV, you will be able to access Tesla Superchargers, subject to availability, to recharge Tesla vehicles provided, however: 1) any fees, charges and/or costs to access and utilize the Tesla Superchargers shall be your responsibility; 2) any Tesla “idle fees”, as defined and charged by Tesla, shall be your responsibility (see Tesla’s website for details https://www.tesla.com/support/supercharger-idle-fee); and 3) the provisions of “Battery Charging Levels at Vehicle Return” shall continue to apply to you.

These are fair terms, because they’re essentially Tesla terms 101.

TESLA VEHICLES MAY NOT BE WASHED AT AN AUTOMATIC CAR WASH. ANY DAMAGE CAUSED BY AN AUTOMATIC CAR WASH SHALL BE ASSESSED TO YOU PURSUANT TO THE “DAMAGE/LOSS TO THE CAR” PROVISIONS OF YOUR RENTAL TERMS AND WILL NOT BE COVERED BY LDW.

I love the bold capital letters for the CAR WASH RULES. One can take Teslas through car washes, but only in touchless car washes. Teslas have Car Wash Mode.

Maybe Avis decided that putting its Teslas into Car Wash Mode is too complicated for its customers and too much like hard work for its reps to explain how to use the feature to every EV renter? It’s never occurred to me to take a rental car to a car wash, but I’m not fastidious with my cars. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this car wash thing in the comments below.

Photo: Tesla

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Environment

Venmo gaining ground in payments as Cash App struggles

Published

4 hours ago

May 2, 2025

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Venmo gaining ground in payments as Cash App struggles

Block shares plunge on revenue miss, slashed guidance

In the increasingly crowded market for peer-to-peer payments, Venmo is showing momentum while Cash App has hit a rough patch.

The parents of both businesses reported quarterly results this week. PayPal, which owns Venmo, reported an earnings beat and kept its forecast for the year. Block, meanwhile, plummeted in extended trading on Thursday after the Cash App parent missed on revenue and issued disappointing guidance.

Venmo and Cash App are simultaneously competing to gobble up more consumers for their peer-to-peer offerings while also adding services like debit, credit and transfer services so they can actually make money from those users.

For PayPal CEO Alex Chriss, who took over the struggling payments company in 2023, monetizing Venmo is a key piece to his turnaround plan.

Venmo revenue jumped 20% in the first quarter from a year earlier, though PayPal didn’t provide a dollar figure. PayPal pointed to growing adoption of features like the Venmo debit card, instant transfers, and integration into online checkout. The company said monetization per user is improving and that Venmo continues to play a role in its broader e-commerce push.

Revenue at Venmo increased at twice the rate of total payment volume, which rose 10%, reflecting progress in turning engagement into profit.

Tesla (TSLA) reveals web of transactions between Elon Musk’s companies

Published

4 hours ago

May 2, 2025

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Tesla (TSLA) reveals web of transactions between Elon Musk's companies

Tesla (TSLA) has revealed the latest web of transactions between itself, Elon Musk, his multiple companies, and board members.

As a public company, Tesla has to report to its shareholders transactions between the company and its executives, board members, and other companies linked to them.

With a new SEC filing, the company has disclosed those latest transactions for 2024 and up to February 2025.

Here’s a list with my comments:

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SpaceX is party to certain commercial, licensing and support agreements with Tesla. Under these agreements, SpaceX incurred expenses of approximately $2.4 million in 2024 and approximately $0.1 million through February 2025.

Tesla didn’t specifically disclosed what are those “certain commercial, licensing and support agreements”.

However, we do know that Tesla and SpaceX share a material science team and they have shared ERP systems in the past.

Tesla also pays SpaceX for the use of Elon Musk’s jet:

Since April 2016, SpaceX has invoiced Tesla for our use of an aircraft owned and operated by SpaceX at rates determined by Tesla and SpaceX, subject to rules of the Federal Aviation Administration governing such arrangements. Tesla incurred expenses of approximately $0.8 million in 2024 and approximately $0.04 million through February 2025.

These transactions have been reported every year between Tesla and SpaceX.

X is a newer addition to Musk enterprises and the CEO has pushed Tesla to spend on advertising on his privately owned platform.

It only amounted to about $400,000 in Tesla spending on X last year aboud only $10,000 this year:

X is party to certain commercial, consulting and support agreements with Tesla. Under these agreements, Tesla incurred expenses of approximately $0.1 million in 2024. As part of a multi-platform advertising campaign, Tesla also directly or indirectly purchased advertising on X, which totaled approximately $0.4 million in 2024 and approximately $0.01 million through February 2025.

Tesla only started to advertise in 2023, shortly after Musk bought Twitter, a platform that relies on advertising, but it has yet to really ramp up its advertising effort.

Instead, it relies on marketing.

xAI is the latest private Musk company that Tesla’s CEO is pushing to work with Tesla.

Based on Tesla’s new disclosure, xAI paid Tesla almost $200 million in 2024 and almost $37 million in the first two months of 2025:

xAI is party to certain commercial (including those for the purchase of Megapacks), consulting and support agreements with Tesla. Under these agreements, xAI incurred expenses of approximately $198.3 million in 2024 and approximately $36.9 million through February 2025. Approximately $191.0 million during 2024 and $36.8 million through February 2025 was incurred by xAI for its purchase of our Megapack products.

The vast majority of that was xAI buying Tesla Megapacks to power its data centers.

However, there are also a few millions not accounted for.

Musk has admitted to redirecting NVIDIA computers that were supposed to be used for Tesla’s super cluster in Texas to xAI.

Tesla also disclosed paying The Boring Company (TBC), a company privately owned by Musk, over $3 million in 2024 and $800,000 in the first two months of 2025:

TBC is party to commercial agreements with Tesla. Under these agreements, Tesla incurred expenses of approximately $3.6 million in 2024 and approximately $0.8 million through February 2025.

This is likely related to TBC building a tunnel to link the Cybertruck’s end-of-line at Gigafactory Texas to a loading lot.

Tesla also pays a security company owned by Musk to provide security services to the CEO:

We are party to a service agreement with a security company, owned by Elon Musk and organized to provide security services concerning him, including in connection with his duties to and work for Tesla. Tesla incurred expenses of approximately $2.8 million for such security services in 2024 and approximately $0.5 million through February 2025, representing a portion of the total cost of security services concerning Elon Musk.

These costs have greatly increased. In 2023, Tesla paid $2.4 million. It increased to $2.8 million in 2024 and based on Tesla having spent $500,000 in the first two months of the year, it looks like it could increase to $3 million in 2025.

Tesla also disclosed that it sold about $30 million worth of scrap materials for JB Straubel’s Redwood Mateirals to recycle:

JB Straubel is the Chief Executive Officer of Redwood. Tesla is party to an agreement with Redwood to supply certain scrap materials. Under this agreement, Redwood incurred expenses of approximately $30.3 million in 2024 and approximately $0.6 million through February 2025.

Straubel is a Tesla co-founder and long-time CTO. He left in 2019 to build a battery recycling and battery material firm, but he also more recently rejoined Tesla’s board – hence why transactions between his company and Tesla need to be reported.

Finally, Tesla disclosed that it paid $300,000 to Kimbal Musk’s company, Nova Sky Stories, for a drone show:

Kimbal Musk is the Chief Executive Officer of Nova Sky Stories. In 2024, we entered into a commercial agreement with Nova Sky Stories in relation to the production of an aerial show. Under this agreement, Tesla incurred expenses of approximately $0.3 million in 2024.

Kimbal Musk is on Tesla’s board and he is Elon Musk’s brother.

Electrek’s Take

I can admit that there can be interesting synergy between companies. When Musk was just leading Tesla and SpaceX, I had some reservations, but I thought it was feasible and some collaboration, like the material science team, made sense.

However, now that Musk is leading Tesla, SpaceX, X, xAI, The Boring Company, Neuralink, and DOGE, it makes no sense whatsoever. It’s too much.

And the synergy between them is often looking like a stretch. For example, the $3 million tunnel is ridiculous. Tesla should have simply better designed its EOL. The Boring Company had a ton of projects that never amounted to anything and it looks like Musk is keeping them busy with Tesla money.

Tesla sending its NVIDIA computers to xAI is also ridiculous. Musk’s excuse was that Tesla’s data center was not ready to receive them, but then he boasted about xAI being to deploy its own data center in a record time of just 3 weeks.

Why was xAI able to do it in 3 weeks but Tesla couldn’t?

Finally, Tesla giving Elon’s brother $300,000 for a drone show is also highly questionable.

Like Leo KoGuan said, “Tesla is a family business masquerading as a public company.”

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Environment

ACT Expo 2025 – one step forward, two steps back for clean trucking [part 1]

Published

5 hours ago

May 1, 2025

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ACT Expo 2025 – one step forward, two steps back for clean trucking [part 1]

ACT Expo is North America’s premier clean truck and transport trade show – and for 2025 it was bigger than ever, with more exhibitors and more, more capable battery electric vehicles than ever. The downsides? NACFE have scored with their “messy middle” messaging, and the return of “clean diesel” talking points.

The re-election of Donald Trump to the Presidency of the United States has thrown the steady pace of electric fleet adoption – along with just about every thing else – into a state of confusion and disarray. Into that chaos, NACFE (the North American Council for Freight Efficiency) has thrown a positively progress-shattering bromide that may as well have been designed to distract attention from the proliferation of practical medium- and heavy-duty EVs, the rapid expansion of a comprehensive DC fast charging network, and the rapidly decreasing delta between the up-front costs of conventional diesel and battery electric offerings.

I’m talking about the phrase, “the messy middle,” which posits that, while we can all agree that electric vehicles and battery technology are the future, “we’re not quite there, yet.” The result is a series of observations that, while very timely in 2019, seem to disingenuously portray EVs as new technology today, while claiming that there are unanswered questions regarding battery costs and component longevity.

Never mind that next year will mark the (checks notes) twenty-ninth year of Toyota Prius production, and the thirtieth anniversary of the production launch of GM’s EV1, or that Volvo is on its third generation of battery electric semi, or that dozens of EV fleets have logged hundreds of millions of all-electric miles on their vehicles – never mind, in other words, that BEVs are in production now, ready now, in customer hands now, delivering on the promise of reduced TCO now … an EV may not be suitable for some fleets – and NACFE’s “messy middle” messaging is going to give a lot of fleets an excuse to buy one more round diesel-engined semi trucks to fill up with more diesel from ~~Shell~~ their favorite truck stops.

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All that said, it’s catchy. Outside of NACFE’s booth or Shell’s panels I’ve heard the phrase “messy middle” repeated sincerely at least a dozen times over the last three days, and I have to admit that the alliterative lure of that particular little ear worm that, regardless of the sincerity of NACFE’s intent, is going to set the pace of EV adoption back at least the length of one Presidential term (give or take 100 days).

Moving on …

There was plenty of good stuff

Despite my ranting and raving against the whole “messy middle” messaging, there was an incredible amount of awesome, zero-emission, battery-powered goodness at this year’s ACT Expo. Too much, in fact, to jam into a single article (unless y’all like 5,000 word articles).

As such, I won’t even try.

Instead, I’ll use this post to give you a sneak peek at some of the stories I’ll be posting in the coming days, bringing you fully up to speed with all the latest and greatest new EVs, EREVs, and HFCEVs that commercial fleet buyers can place an order for today, and start putting the messy middle (and their backwards-looking competitors) behind them. So, check out the short list, below, then watch this space to see the links go live.

ACT 2025 News

Zenobe arrives in North America
Honda wants to sell you a fuel cell
Hyundai opens up about its hydrogen semi
ABB has figured out this whole charging deal
Windrose gets real, and Wen Han signs my truck
Volvo has the best deal going for commercial EVs
New Mack electric trucks are coming, and one is already here
The new autonomous terminal tractor from Kalmar is a next-level EV

Original content from Electrek; special thanks to ACT Expo.

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