Blog post
Demystifying the EV Rental Experience with Avis
24/05/2024
Marketing
Electric vehicles (EVs) represent a positive step towards sustainable transport, offering reduced emissions and helping both organisations and households reach their sustainability goals.
For the past two years, Avis have been offering customers a comprehensive range of EV rental options when booking from their Auckland, Wellington, or Christchurch branches. Avis found offering EVs to these three major cities was beneficial due to the large number of corporate and government businesses operating in them.
While there has been a noticeable increase in the number of electric vehicles on New Zealand roads, rental car companies are still seeing some customer apprehension when booking these cars. To understand where this hesitation was coming from, Avis sent out a survey to their customers to see where they could help combat this hesitation.
Nigel Bell-Booth, New Zealand Sales Manager of Avis has provided some insight into the top reasons customers are hesitant to hire an EV and why they shouldn’t stop you.
Range Anxiety – Will the battery run out too fast?
Avis found that the most commonly cited reason for customers not renting an electric vehicle is the anxiety around the battery range. As older generations of electric vehicles suffered from shorter battery life, customers shared their fears of the battery running out of power mid-way through their journey. Avis assures customers that modern EV’s do not have this issue, as their batteries can handle drives of over 400km on a single charge, which is much more comparable to most petrol or diesel vehicles.
Charging stress – Where can I find a charger?
The stress of finding an electric vehicle charging spot has also been cause for hesitation with rental car bookers, along with the unfamiliarity of the charging process.
When renting an electric vehicle, all cars come fully charged, providing the driver with a 400km+ range on the battery. To help you locate a charging station, Avis promotes a range of apps to help find a charging station near you. This range can be found on their website.
If you are still hesitant to book an electric vehicle as a rental car, Avis also has a range of Hybrid vehicles in their fleet.
What if I don’t know how to operate an electric vehicle?
One of the biggest unspoken roadblocks to renting an electric vehicle is the lack of familiarity with the car and the lack of confidence in navigating the new technology. Avis understands that electric vehicles come with brand-new technology, and while the system is exciting and innovative, some customers may feel intimidated by the prospect of driving something they are unfamiliar with.
To help combat these fears, Avis has released a range of online tutorials and instruction manuals for travellers to familiarize themselves with before picking up the vehicle. On the Avis website, you can select which vehicle you’re renting and you will be taken to an instruction page on how to start, drive and charge the car, along with some handy tips for your travels.
With the help of these online tutorials, along with the Avis counter staff, your transition to an electric vehicle will be seamless.
Our Orbit team members gave it a try!
3 Orbit team members took the opportunity to experience using 3 EV's themselves for a work trip. This is what they said:
"Loved driving the Hyundai Ioniq! Very comfortable, easy to use and loved the features it had. Battery lasted so well, didn't need to worry about charging it. Only downside was giving it back and going back to my regular car... considering purchasing an EV now!" - Jade
"This car was so much fun to drive, especially once I got familiar with it! I thoroughly enjoyed my experience with the Tesla, and think these would be perfect for corporates for 1-2 days that won't be doing a huge amount of kms" - Roxy
"Thanks for the opportunity to experience an EV hire. The pick-up & drop-off was seamless. Josh gave me a briefing on the car (having not driven an EV before) & was very knowledgeable about the other EV's in the fleet also. I loved driving the Hyundai Kona, it wasn't too big, very easy to drive & had all the mod cons" - Susan
When booking your next rental car, make sure to explore the electric vehicle options through Orbit Online, or contact your Orbit Account Manager to find out more.