Hi All
Traveling for business, the hotel we will be at has Tesla superchargers. We are looking at renting an EV for the experience.
Can an EV6 use the Tesla chargers? It will be a rental car. Other option is to rent a model 3.
Any info appreciated. Will we have to download an app to use the tesla charging network?
Thanks in advance
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The EV6 is a great car but go for the Tesla IMO, if you’re traveling on business you won’t have time to fuck around with chargers.
Chargers 101: in USA they are referred to as Level 1, 2 , or 3. Level 1 is any 110v plug and you can expect 1 to 2 kWh rate or about 3-5 miles of charge per hour. A full charge could take 40 hours.
Level 2 is what most businesses and hotels have and what most people setup at home. It’s a 240V plug and runs in the 35-45Amp range and typically will do a full charge in 7-8 hours.
Level 3 is 480V? These are fast chargers typically 50,100,150,350 KWh capable and will fully charge in 30 min to an hour.
Sorry, I don’t mean to be rah-rah Tesla, but this is reality in 2023, being worked on…
If you rent a Tesla, your on-board nav will make sure you stop in the right places, and you just plug into literally any Supercharger and the electricity charge shows up on the credit card you gave the rental car firm.
If you rent a non-Tesla, you’ll need Plugshare.com to look at performance ratings of stations, ABetterRoutePlanner.com to plot routes based on available EV charging, and a different phone app for every brand of station you stop at. Expect 20 minutes of “screwing around with your phone” the first time. And at the most popular chains, you’ll be queued up behind locals collecting free charging, because someone thought that would be a good idea.
If you get the impression that a team of people worked their ass off to make the Tesla rental experience smooth and seamless, and precisely no one worked at all to make the CCS car rental experience seamless, that is exactly what happened.
There’s still not nothing to do with Tesla, you still need to be on PlugShare to scope out each Supercharger for what’s near it to kill time. E.g. you have gone through your last drive-thru. Now, you select restaurants because they are an easy walk from DC chargers: plug in, walk into the restaurant and order at the counter. The “sitting in line at the drive thru” and “pumping gas” time-burns are deleted, and in its place is a pleasant meal. This broadens your options, because there’s no line at the inside counter at places infamous for monster drive-thru lines, like Culvers, Raising Cain or In-n-Out. And you have access to nicer places with no drive thru at all, like Chipotle, Panera, Mod Pizza etc.
Thanks for the info. I guess I should have made it clear that the hotel we will be staying at has the superchargers. I can’t imagine I will be charging on the road at all.
I will do my very best to try not to be a jackass.
“… the hotel we will be at has Tesla superchargers.”
To be clear, Tesla Superchargers are “near” the hotel, they are not part of the hotel services. I’ve stayed in places where the Superchargers are right in the hotel parking lot, I’ve also been to a hotel that claimed Superchargers but they were two miles away. FYI
“… Can an EV6 use the Tesla chargers?”
No! Okay there are a small handful of magicdock capable Superchargers but they are rare and unlikely in the extreme.
" - Will we have to download an app to use the tesla charging network?"
No! With Tesla it’s very simple, just plugin. No fuss, no muss, no apps. The rental agency will be billed for the charge and they will pass it on to your bill.
Not asked, “How do you find the chargers?”
The Tesla will tell you where the chargers are located and recommend one based upon your charge status. Selecting it from screen will offer to auto route you to it and automatically begin preconditioning the battery for fast charging.
Based upon your unfamiliarity with EVs, I strongly recommend you go Tesla and only Tesla.
Part of Tesla’s normal purchase procedure is a series of brief training videos. These videos are available via Tesla and Youtube. I suggest watching them before your first drive. If you have time, schedule a test drive with your nearest Tesla showroom. It’s fun and there’s no obligation or cost.
If you go non-Tesla:
You cannot use the Tesla Superchargers.
You will need to download apps for charging and possibly apps to even find the chargers, depending upon the car. You may have to know to manually pre-condition the battery or be completely unable to do so, depending upon the car. I’m not familiar with the EV6 amenities.
Caution!
Rental agencies have a long tradition of not having the car you reserved and offering an “equivalent”.
Often rental agencies require you to charge up the car before returning it. Look carefully at the penalty and decide when the time comes what the effort is worth to you. Depending upon location support and contract details, it might be worthwhile to just pay the small penalty.
Thanks. Good info.
I have stayed in this hotel before so I know that the chargers are right there at the edge of the parking lot.
I am not to concerned about who owns the chargers, as long as I can use them. If there is a fee I am not too concerned about it.
Hertz says the car type is guaranteed for the Model 3 - but if they don’t have one I will just get an ICE car - no worries.
I am curious about the whole “return with a full tank” issue, but if they want some extra money for not doing it that’s ok too.
Appreciate the input.
It will be extra money to not return full. It seems to depend on locations and other factors. It’s not unreasonable in general. Hertz will tell you.
The night before you return charge to 90%, then just return the car and pay whatever.
How far are you actually going to be driving on your business trip? It might not matter because you might not need to charge at all.
I recently received an unexpected Chevy Bolt EUV as an Avis rental, which concerned me some because it is notoriously slow to charge. But in my whole 5 day trip I only drove about 150 miles, so there was no point in charging—and unlike an ICE car, they didn’t ask you to recharge before returning
It’s about 180 miles from airport to the hotel roundtrip. Then 10 days of around town stuff while we are there. I figure we will need to charge maybe once or twice.
Seems like this will be a low stress way to try out an EV.
With 90 miles of highway driving each way, you probably are going to want to charge once, and possibly twice if you drive around town a lot.
If there’s an L2 charger you can leave the car on for a while (ideally, overnight at the hotel), then you don’t need to think about fast charging at all.
Hotels don’t have Superchargers. They have destination chargers. EV6s are pretty easy to use, they drive a lot like a regular ICE Hyundai. I recently rented one for a week. Need an adapter for Tesla chargers, lots of hotels have both types though. I carry my TeslaTap on business trips and try to get Polestar 2s. Controls are a lot like my Volvo C40 and just feels familiar. Maybe get a Model Y for your first EV rental. They’re fun to drive but I hated having everything on the central screen. Door handles on the cheap Teslas and the EV6 I’m not fond of.
This hotel has superchargers. Thanks though.