Scant driver’s ed
In general, big rental car companies, with huge fleets to manage and lots of customers to put into cars, don’t have time to give individual instruction to rookie EV drivers.
And it’s not a seamless transition from a gas-powered vehicle to an EV. As experienced as I am, I was still taken by surprise as I approached a stop light in the Polestar, and the car slowed abruptly as soon as I lifted off the accelerator. Oh, right. It’s called “automatic regenerative braking.”
The Polestar was using its electric motor to slow the car while sending power back to the battery. That’s a good thing, but, again, I could just imagine a new renter panicking and thinking, “Is something wrong?”
Hertz said in an email that it provides a QR code that links to a website with information about how to charge and even how to drive individual models like the Polestar 2.
If that link was provided during my rental, then I must have missed it. I went to the website and watched the videos and, yes, the instructions would have been helpful. But, let’s face it, how many people who rent cars take the time to read the paperwork, let alone go to a website to review instructions?
