Hiring EV in Barcelona

Hodders

Hodders

Hodders

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Joined
18 Oct 2002
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We're flying out to see my brother who lives about 80 miles from Barcelona.

Was thinking of hiring a Tesla or Polestar for the trip as I'd really like to drive one.

Anybody got any idea of how hire companies manage battery levels on drop off? Normally with ICE it take no time to fill the tank before dropping the car off. But with an EV, I'm not sure that spending time on charging the car back up the way to catch a return flight would be as easy - especially if you have to get it top - say - 90% plus.

Anyone with experience?
 
In the UK the hire car company wanted my courtesy car back to the 90% they left it with. I just left it charging overnight at my property...

Id have no issue hiring one in Spain, the Tesla would give you more options with access to the supercharger network on top of other public chargers.

I've returned rental cars with less fuel before, it makes them a little extra money but I've never found the charges too extreme.

Also I often leave the Tesla at airports etc, in the UK and France (my areas of experience), this is a non issue. Hardly ever see the superchargers more than half full. I've queued for 5 minutes once in 2 years and that's when I ignored the advice of the car routing.
 
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I'm in a Nio in Auckland at the mo that I'm renting from Europcar. They said no bother on charge level when returning. I imagine it varies a bit though.
 
Hodders said:
I guess if they have chargers at the return stations it's no issue. I might try to contact the Barcelona Airport office.
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Yeah Europcar here have a separate depot for cleaning, prep and I assume charging, before dropping em at the pickup office. Other companies sharing the same pickup area had umbilical chargers hanging from rails I think.

Maybe airports are simpler places to throw in multiple fast charging things than satellite offices. But then maybe I'm putting too much thought into this now :D.
 
It is unusual that they don't mind if you bring it back not charged and I would be very surprised if this is the case in many other places. Even if they have the charging facilities, charging an electric car from full immediately at commercial electric rates can in some cases cost more than you paid for the rental, why would they do that any more than they'd pay for your tank of fuel?

More common is a requirement to return it 80% charged or a flat fee for charging if you don't.

For example, I just checked a random supplier at Barcelona Airport - Avis - who say the car must be returned 70% charged. It doesn't tell you how much they'll charge you if you don't, but does explain that the cost of doing so takes into account the electricity cost, the time it takes the staff to move the car and the time the car is unavailable for rental as it is charging.

Other suppliers will have slightly different policies but I doubt they will be much different and nobody is going to effectively give you 70Kwh of electricity for nothing by letting you walk off free of charge if you arrive in a Tesla with 1% charge :D
 
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