This is a satirical, yet mostly accurate review of having to rent a gas-fueled vehicle for a week after years of mostly EV only driving…
I recently was on travel and the car rental place didn't have any normal cars, so I had to rent a gas vehicle. I figured it couldn't be that hard; lots of people do it.
When we picked it up, the first thing I noticed right away is that it doesn't have a frunk. Under the front compartment lid is just a big mess of dirty, greasy wires, tubes, aluminum, and other stuff. I would not enjoy working on something so complicated. Fortunately it's not mine. Just a rental.
And no frunk! What modern vehicle doesn't have a frunk!? I know, there are several. But, still. Where am I supposed to put my luggage? My sandy clothes? I packed stuff into the back compartment.
I got in and pressed the start button. The whole vehicle shuddered for a couple of seconds. I worried it was going to fall apart like in the old silent moving pictures. After a couple of seconds, the shuddering stopped and the vehicle started humming. Not only could you hear it, you could feel it. A gauge on the dash spun up, then settled down to a low number, but not zero. Great, it works. That full vehicle hum won't be too bad. I turned on the AC (physical control! Yay!) and the vents started blowing cold-ish air.
It took us a couple of seconds to figure out how to connect our phone and to program the navigation to take us where we were going. Fortunately the truck has Android Auto, so it wasn't too difficult.
I then spent several minutes trying to figure out where the seat back adjustment is. Turns out it's a strap! How retro! I had to get out of the truck to find that strap on the side of the seat. I got back in the truck, adjusted the mirrors, and checked that we were ready to go. Passengers ready.
I looked at the vehicle’s indicators. The little gauge indicated it was at 0 rpm, which seemed weird. I thought it was running. Press the start button again. It was not happy about that! I found out later, after being surprised by it several times, that the truck shuts off its power plant when it idles for too long. Great! That makes sense. I guess if I’d researched the vehicle a bit before we got here, I might have known.
I put it in drive, and started to pull out of the parking spot. Oh, goodness, this handles weird. The background hum becomes more of a roar. There’s a weird clunk every so often when the vehicle is accelerating and the roar becomes a hum again. Then it builds up to a roar. Weird. Not sure I’m going to like that.
As we were pulling onto the main road, I looked down at the dash and noticed that the energy indicator was at only 25%, which, fine, I guess—we’ll return it with a similar amount. The range estimator said 80 miles range, so I started looking for a refueling station. There was a sketchy one across and down the street from the rental place. I wasn’t excited about using it, but I wasn't sure where the next one would be, so I stopped there.
It took a few tries to figure out how to get the truck refueled. Apparently there are two major different kinds of fuel for gas vehicles. One with a green handle and one with a black handle. And you have to get the right one for your vehicle or you can destroy the vehicle. But they’re both offered at the same fueling station and even on the same fueling post. There was nothing obvious on the dash or at the plug that said which one I was supposed up use. One plug (the green one) didn't fit, so it was obviously not that one. The other plug fit. But it had another three options. I just went with the cheapest---hey, it's a rental. It’s very weird that you have to know and memorize what kind of energy is compatible with your vehicle, though.
Anyway, I plugged it in and nothing happened. I realized I had to choose the right type, so I did that (the cheapest). But still it didn't start fueling. I found a lever on the plug that goes into the vehicle and pulled it... And still nothing happened. The screen was asking me for my loyalty card. Skipped that. Then it asked me for my credit card. It's not just Plug and Charge! I swiped my credit card. It took a minute to approve it, but finally it told me I could dispense the fuel. There's a lever on the refueling plug that you have to hold down tocharge refuel and you can't just start it and go to the restroom. Fortunately I had gone at the airport. But I still couldn’t just leave it. I had to stand there and breathe in the awful-smelling fuel instead of going to the restroom. What a pain.
Anyway, about ten minutes after stopping, we had 100% fuel. It cost $55!!! That's 10x what it costs to charge our battery from 0% to 100%.
I disconnected the refuel plug, hung it back up, and the machine printed a paper receipt. Weird. Got in the truck and pressed the start button. It roared and then hummed. I looked down at the instrument cluster and noticed that it was back up to 100% and it was claiming 320 miles of range. That’s the same range as my truck.
I put it into drive and headed onto the highway.
This thing handles like…well, not well. It weaves all over the place. Its power plant noise grows to a roar, then the vehicle shudders and a weird clunk happens and the roar dies back down to a hum and starts climbing again.
There’s no one-pedal drive. Not only that, there’s no regeneration. You have to use the friction brakes. Which squeal when they get wet.
There’s no regeneration! Can you believe that?! Not only is the fuel for this thing super expensive, you can’t even recover any when slowing down. Whenever it’s on, it’s burning the fuel (except when it shuts itself off at a stop light and you don’t know if it’s just quit or is saving fuel). Seems very wasteful.
Anyway, we drove the 10 miles to the hotel, all the while marveling at the weird design decisions: No 1-pd; no regeneration; very, very noisy; clunky-jerky behavior when the roar dies down to a hum; squealing friction brakes. Oh, and taking your foot off the accelerator doesn’t turn on your brake lights either. I found that out when the person behind me got super close. I guess that’s okay because it doesn’t use 1-pd and so the truck just kind of keeps rolling along when it should slow down significantly.
Got to the hotel and looked for the place to refuel. We didn’t need a lot, but I always try to refuel overnight. The hotel doesn’t have a Level 2 refueling option.
I looked it up later. Apparently the fuel is so toxic and dangerous that it’s heavily regulated and can only be dispensed at specific locations. Hotels are typically not certified to dispense the fuel. In fact, it’s also generally not possible to have a home refueling station. You always have to go refuel at one of these special, but sketchy stations. I don’t know how anyone can stand that. Can you imagine using an energy source that’s so dangerous that it’s regulated so heavily that you cannot generate your own at home? But this stuff really is dangerous and I understand why it has to be regulated.
I’m happy I have a roof that uses sunlight to create my vehicle’s energy.
Anyway, we drove around the next several days. Still trying to get used to the noise and bad handling of the vehicle. One night, we had to rush to the other side of the island we were on to catch a short-lived geological event. There was some major concern among my passengers that we wouldn’t be able to make it if we didn’t find a place to refuel. I briefly tried to figure out where the refueling stations are. Google has many of them in their database. And there are a lot more than I expected. But then I looked at the range estimate and if it was accurate, we wouldn’t need to refuel. So we went for it. I wasn’t interested in going to one of those stations at night, so was grateful we had enough to make it.
On the other side of the island, our hotel again didn’t have an overnight refueling station. I can’t believe how inconvenient this is! The next morning, we had to make a special trip just to find a refueling station. Unlike on PlugShare, you can’t generally see the prices on an app, so we had to drive past several before we were able to find one that was almost affordable. It cost another $50 to refuel! I still can’t believe how expensive it is. We drove about 500 miles over the course of the week. The cost was a little over $200 to drive those 500 miles. With the lightning, I can drive 500 miles for about $7.00 when charging at home and about $70-$90 when on road trips if I charge at expensive fast chargers.
Anyway, I was happy to return the vehicle and get back to my truck. I know this is likely not representative of every gas vehicle, but after driving this Jeep, I’m certain I don’t want a gas vehicle. They're smelly, loud, expensive to drive, handle like crap, use toxic fuels. And they’re noisy. Did I mention how noisy they are? There’s no regenerative braking—which just seems so wasteful, especially considering the cost of fuel. The infotainment tech was from the mid 2010s. I did not enjoy driving it at all.
I don’t really know what the benefits are. I guess if you got a much larger tank you could go a longer distance, but the cost of the fuel is so high it doesn’t make sense to me. There are a lot more refueling stations, but so many of the ones we saw were super sketchy, weren’t associated with places to eat—they were just kind of islands unto themselves. They really didn’t have much to recommend them. And the one where I used the restroom was so very gross.
Overall: Two thumbs down. Would not recommend.
I recently was on travel and the car rental place didn't have any normal cars, so I had to rent a gas vehicle. I figured it couldn't be that hard; lots of people do it.
When we picked it up, the first thing I noticed right away is that it doesn't have a frunk. Under the front compartment lid is just a big mess of dirty, greasy wires, tubes, aluminum, and other stuff. I would not enjoy working on something so complicated. Fortunately it's not mine. Just a rental.
And no frunk! What modern vehicle doesn't have a frunk!? I know, there are several. But, still. Where am I supposed to put my luggage? My sandy clothes? I packed stuff into the back compartment.
I got in and pressed the start button. The whole vehicle shuddered for a couple of seconds. I worried it was going to fall apart like in the old silent moving pictures. After a couple of seconds, the shuddering stopped and the vehicle started humming. Not only could you hear it, you could feel it. A gauge on the dash spun up, then settled down to a low number, but not zero. Great, it works. That full vehicle hum won't be too bad. I turned on the AC (physical control! Yay!) and the vents started blowing cold-ish air.
It took us a couple of seconds to figure out how to connect our phone and to program the navigation to take us where we were going. Fortunately the truck has Android Auto, so it wasn't too difficult.
I then spent several minutes trying to figure out where the seat back adjustment is. Turns out it's a strap! How retro! I had to get out of the truck to find that strap on the side of the seat. I got back in the truck, adjusted the mirrors, and checked that we were ready to go. Passengers ready.
I looked at the vehicle’s indicators. The little gauge indicated it was at 0 rpm, which seemed weird. I thought it was running. Press the start button again. It was not happy about that! I found out later, after being surprised by it several times, that the truck shuts off its power plant when it idles for too long. Great! That makes sense. I guess if I’d researched the vehicle a bit before we got here, I might have known.
I put it in drive, and started to pull out of the parking spot. Oh, goodness, this handles weird. The background hum becomes more of a roar. There’s a weird clunk every so often when the vehicle is accelerating and the roar becomes a hum again. Then it builds up to a roar. Weird. Not sure I’m going to like that.
As we were pulling onto the main road, I looked down at the dash and noticed that the energy indicator was at only 25%, which, fine, I guess—we’ll return it with a similar amount. The range estimator said 80 miles range, so I started looking for a refueling station. There was a sketchy one across and down the street from the rental place. I wasn’t excited about using it, but I wasn't sure where the next one would be, so I stopped there.
It took a few tries to figure out how to get the truck refueled. Apparently there are two major different kinds of fuel for gas vehicles. One with a green handle and one with a black handle. And you have to get the right one for your vehicle or you can destroy the vehicle. But they’re both offered at the same fueling station and even on the same fueling post. There was nothing obvious on the dash or at the plug that said which one I was supposed up use. One plug (the green one) didn't fit, so it was obviously not that one. The other plug fit. But it had another three options. I just went with the cheapest---hey, it's a rental. It’s very weird that you have to know and memorize what kind of energy is compatible with your vehicle, though.
Anyway, I plugged it in and nothing happened. I realized I had to choose the right type, so I did that (the cheapest). But still it didn't start fueling. I found a lever on the plug that goes into the vehicle and pulled it... And still nothing happened. The screen was asking me for my loyalty card. Skipped that. Then it asked me for my credit card. It's not just Plug and Charge! I swiped my credit card. It took a minute to approve it, but finally it told me I could dispense the fuel. There's a lever on the refueling plug that you have to hold down to
Anyway, about ten minutes after stopping, we had 100% fuel. It cost $55!!! That's 10x what it costs to charge our battery from 0% to 100%.
I disconnected the refuel plug, hung it back up, and the machine printed a paper receipt. Weird. Got in the truck and pressed the start button. It roared and then hummed. I looked down at the instrument cluster and noticed that it was back up to 100% and it was claiming 320 miles of range. That’s the same range as my truck.
I put it into drive and headed onto the highway.
This thing handles like…well, not well. It weaves all over the place. Its power plant noise grows to a roar, then the vehicle shudders and a weird clunk happens and the roar dies back down to a hum and starts climbing again.
There’s no one-pedal drive. Not only that, there’s no regeneration. You have to use the friction brakes. Which squeal when they get wet.
There’s no regeneration! Can you believe that?! Not only is the fuel for this thing super expensive, you can’t even recover any when slowing down. Whenever it’s on, it’s burning the fuel (except when it shuts itself off at a stop light and you don’t know if it’s just quit or is saving fuel). Seems very wasteful.
Anyway, we drove the 10 miles to the hotel, all the while marveling at the weird design decisions: No 1-pd; no regeneration; very, very noisy; clunky-jerky behavior when the roar dies down to a hum; squealing friction brakes. Oh, and taking your foot off the accelerator doesn’t turn on your brake lights either. I found that out when the person behind me got super close. I guess that’s okay because it doesn’t use 1-pd and so the truck just kind of keeps rolling along when it should slow down significantly.
Got to the hotel and looked for the place to refuel. We didn’t need a lot, but I always try to refuel overnight. The hotel doesn’t have a Level 2 refueling option.
I looked it up later. Apparently the fuel is so toxic and dangerous that it’s heavily regulated and can only be dispensed at specific locations. Hotels are typically not certified to dispense the fuel. In fact, it’s also generally not possible to have a home refueling station. You always have to go refuel at one of these special, but sketchy stations. I don’t know how anyone can stand that. Can you imagine using an energy source that’s so dangerous that it’s regulated so heavily that you cannot generate your own at home? But this stuff really is dangerous and I understand why it has to be regulated.
I’m happy I have a roof that uses sunlight to create my vehicle’s energy.
Anyway, we drove around the next several days. Still trying to get used to the noise and bad handling of the vehicle. One night, we had to rush to the other side of the island we were on to catch a short-lived geological event. There was some major concern among my passengers that we wouldn’t be able to make it if we didn’t find a place to refuel. I briefly tried to figure out where the refueling stations are. Google has many of them in their database. And there are a lot more than I expected. But then I looked at the range estimate and if it was accurate, we wouldn’t need to refuel. So we went for it. I wasn’t interested in going to one of those stations at night, so was grateful we had enough to make it.
On the other side of the island, our hotel again didn’t have an overnight refueling station. I can’t believe how inconvenient this is! The next morning, we had to make a special trip just to find a refueling station. Unlike on PlugShare, you can’t generally see the prices on an app, so we had to drive past several before we were able to find one that was almost affordable. It cost another $50 to refuel! I still can’t believe how expensive it is. We drove about 500 miles over the course of the week. The cost was a little over $200 to drive those 500 miles. With the lightning, I can drive 500 miles for about $7.00 when charging at home and about $70-$90 when on road trips if I charge at expensive fast chargers.
Anyway, I was happy to return the vehicle and get back to my truck. I know this is likely not representative of every gas vehicle, but after driving this Jeep, I’m certain I don’t want a gas vehicle. They're smelly, loud, expensive to drive, handle like crap, use toxic fuels. And they’re noisy. Did I mention how noisy they are? There’s no regenerative braking—which just seems so wasteful, especially considering the cost of fuel. The infotainment tech was from the mid 2010s. I did not enjoy driving it at all.
I don’t really know what the benefits are. I guess if you got a much larger tank you could go a longer distance, but the cost of the fuel is so high it doesn’t make sense to me. There are a lot more refueling stations, but so many of the ones we saw were super sketchy, weren’t associated with places to eat—they were just kind of islands unto themselves. They really didn’t have much to recommend them. And the one where I used the restroom was so very gross.
Overall: Two thumbs down. Would not recommend.
