iahphx

Does anyone have any experience with this? On an upcoming trip, my cheapest automatic transmission option is an electric vehicle from Sixt. I've never driven an electric vehicle, and am an American, but I figure the learning curve is short. I'm most concerned by how I would refuel, and how Sixt handles these transactions. Do I go out "full" and return "full," or is that not necessary? And is it a relatively straightforward deal to find charging stations around France that I'd be able to use?

Sixt's US website doesn't seem to have any details. Does anyone know how their electric vehicle program works? Intuitively, I would be happy to trade the inconvenience of charging for what I assume is buying cheaper electricity vs. expensive petrol. Does it actually work out that way?

bakersdozen

Didn’t see a whole lot of charging stations a few months ago when we had a plug in hybrid. I tried once in our hotels parking garage but it wanted money to charge and needed some app or card or something… there was also only like 3 in the garage and a couple of the spots were always full. We didn’t want to deal with it so we never actually charged our plug in once. Just filled up with petrol. You may want to make sure your hotels have a station and ensure you can use it…

Were far away from a smooth electric charging experience for rentals when you don’t know the area…in my view.

iahphx

Thanks. This is why I'm a bit cautious about an all electric vehicle. It SOUNDS like a good idea -- especially in Europe, where petrol is super expensive -- but it actually has to work! Any more experiences?

kxc262

I don't know where you will be in France, but I would use Plugshare to see where you can find chargers. Plugshare is crowded sourced info.
Standard chargers are J1772. CCS will be for level 3 / quick charging. Nissan uses CHADeMO for quick charging. Tesla has their own proprietary plugs.
In the US, you can pay for charging at most stations via app or a credit card. Common brands for US public chargers include EVGO, Chargepoint, Electrify America, and Blink. Each has their own app where you can add a credit card. These apps will also display charger locations too.

If your rental is a Tesla, the company should provide a charge card. There is no way to access a Tesla Supercharger without owning a Tesla. National does not charge any fees for recharging on the Supercharger ("free electricity").

At least with National, you do not need to return the EV fully charged. I am not sure about other brands like Sixt, but I assume they would follow the same policy.

CosmicGirl

https://www.sixt.fr/location-voiture-electrique/#/

https://www.sixt.fr/magazine/flotte/...ca-fonctionne/

etgohomeok

Hi, did you end up renting the electric car from Sixt? Considering a Fiat 500 electric from them for a trip to France coming up next week. Wondering how your experience was if you did it!

jbcarioca

I have owned three teslas myself and have rented in both Italy and France as well as numerous places in NA. Thus far I haven't rented a Tesla from Sixct, although I am quite experienced with Sixt with ICE and have never had any problems at all with them.

Every EU Tesla you'll find with Sixt has the standard EU CCS standard plus, so you can use it at any Supercharger, destination charger of any other charger. Charging stations of one type or other are ubiquitous all over. Several years ago I drove from Milan to Dubrovnik, then to Vienna and back to Milan, Superchargers everywhere. The easy way for Tesla is to use their 'find us' feature on Tesla.com and select your geography, then eliminate Store and Service. You'll then sell you can pretty much go anywhere in Europe. Southeastern Europe is a bit sparse but otherwise there is zero issue.

The charging procedure for Superchargers may have changed with Sixt. I have made a corporate inquiry and will pst it when I receive it.
Otherwise I find this to be the easiest way to charge non-Tesla in the EU https://chargemap.com there are also numerous country-specific networks too. Nearly all, EU wide, allow credit card use for first time use, but usually it's simpler with a login. Plugshare is useful almost everywhere in Europe, including even Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. I typically use Plugsahe to find out what network dominates in thea area I need and, if not Tesla, find out if Chargmap has coverage, if not I usually sign up for the locally dominant option.

This may sound complicated but once you learn a bit it becomes second nature. By far the easiest thing is to use Tesla everywhere. Major hint: When traveling check to find hotels and/or restaurants that have charging. Most are free. I have managed to not even use a charge on most days, but recharging free overnight. Nobody talks about that but the magic of trip in a Tesla or other longer range EV is that you rarely use charging during the day, but charge overnight. I usually check on the Tesla site for Destination Chargers, and stay in hotels that have them. Plugshare can find non-Tesla options too but with those you need to check the connection type because electrical outlets are NOT standard across Europe and a rental car will not have a wide variety of adapters.

miles_navigator

Bumping this thread. I am thinking of renting a Telsa w/ Sixt in Germany. Question on finding super charger station seems okay especially with the map.

How do I pay for super charger at Tesla Supercharge on rental car? At home, in the US, the it is tied back to my credit card, does same thing happen during the rental period where they tie all charging back to me?

Also, does the car need to be returned fully charged (like full tank of gas) or else they charge you? How do you pull this off returning to the airport?

lovefly88

Stumbled upon this thread. Is supercharging free for sixt Tesla’s in France? Rental cost is definitely more expensive but that may sway us if confirmed to be free.

Thanks.

6r1nch

I'll bump this with two contributions:

I have platinum with sixt I booked a BMW iX in Milan, i got there and they gave me an Audi Etron sportback. First of all, yahtzee-- that car has an incredibly high rate of charge north of 150kw IIRC, secondly its a big car and its quick. So that's nice. Problem came when I needed to charge it, long story short they provide a charging cable in the front trunk of the car. I could not find that for the life of me, and they did not inform me that's where it was kept. That's the biggest thing about charging in EU versus US. In the US the charging stations have their own cables--for better or for worse, sometimes people destroy them, sometimes they enable 350kwh charging-- but in the EU you bring your own cable and plug into the wall just like you would charge an iPhone. The custom is to provide the infrastructure/outlets, you pull up pull out your cord, plug into the outlet plug into your car once you're authorized to charge and then it flows. It's pretty easy, but be aware of the charging tariffs. 75+Kwh batteries at 0.85/kwh means your fill-up is gonna be like 60+ euro. Look for stations that charge less, or better yet park at a hotel that lets you charge for free. Moreover, if you're having a hard time finding a place to charge, look for Lidl or Carrefour, et. al. Grocery stores have made commitments to EV charging, and the charge rates aren't that expensive. ~0.25kwh, albeit at slower rates, but go in there and get a water, a snack, etc. Beyond that, pure EVs (non hybrid) avoid a lot of tolls and tariffs in city centers. There are also great places to park in cities that have charging infrastructure. In a way, you kind of have your own handicapped parking pass. So, park somewhere, plug in and enjoy the sights.I charged my car up before i returned it, but i returned on a weekend when they were closed, and didn't get any kind of notice that it was under charge or lacking fuel, so idk. I think it's a franchise discretion kind of thing.

Second thing: I'm getting another EV in France soon, they list the ID.4 as a sedan--on what planet is a 4 seater SUV a sedan when they also have the id.3 and the tesla model 3 available? I'm hoping to get the ID.4 but I'm curious what else is in their EV fleet. Does anyone have experience with renting from them in france?

Hayesh

Looking at renting an electric car (Peugeot) from Sixt while in Paris for two days in mid September. Will only drive locally and will do far less than 100 miles. Online info says a fully charged car will go over 200 miles. They offer an option to top it off upon return for a $5.94 service charge plus the “standard going rate” of the power charge rate. This would seem to be the easiest way out. $6 is well worth not having to mess with it myself. But does anyone have any experience that what Sixt charges per kw is really a fair market rate, versus the common example in the US that car rental companies often gouge you on the price per gallon if you have them top it off on return. I’d just as soon not have to mess with it.

i was planning on just ubering around but have been advised the Uber service there, particularly outside of Paris (I’ll be just north) is unreliable.

Thanks for any thoughts/advice.

Hayesh

Did you just return it and let them charge it? Was the rate charged for recharging it reasonable, or gouging? Their site says they’ll recharge it at market rates (however that’s defined) for just a $5.94 service charge, which is certainly worth it to me not to hassle with recharging.

thanks

saywhatagain

Hello, I found this thread when looking for others who have had delayed Tesla supercharging when renting from Sixt in Germany. I can share my experiences here to help several of the questions below:
I rented a Tesla 3 times in 2023, in May, June and September and drove approximately 4800 km, 4200 km and 3900 km respectively.
The first and last times were Model Y (long range first and then performance) and the second time was a Model 3.
P.S. - There was a huge difference between Long Range and Performance when I could get to max speeds on the Autobahn, the long range shook at speeds above 190 kph, but the performance was very smooth.

There is zero problem with finding places to charge when driving long distances and most of the time the hotel you stay at has one or two level 2 chargers that can get you topped up for the next days travels (though they can be occupied and the owner may not move it after theirs is charged).
A lot of businesses also have level 2 chargers, so if you are visiting a company they may have an option for you to charge while you are there for meetings, etc.
The lack of issue is due to the vast network of Superchargers that the car will navigate you to as long as you enter in your destinations for the day or multi-day travels on the screen.
And there is no need to interface with the supercharger for connection/payment/etc. the chargers just work and you just take the connector from the supercharger and plug it into the car and it charges.

The only issue I experienced with Supercharging was that on my second rental in the Model 3, Sixt neglected to set up the car to tie it to my rental and I couldn't supercharge on Tesla's network for the first day. They were late in delivering me the car after I landed in STR and probably forgot to set this up in their rush to get it to me. After it was resolved there was no issue for the rest of the rental. I had to stop at the nearest Sixt location on my several hundred km route and it prevented me from getting to a meeting for about 3 hours until it was fixed.
So, make sure to check that there are no errors which might indicate that there is no payment method tied to supercharging before you leave the rental lot. If there is no warning symbol on the top right, at least try to navigate to somewhere very far away (example: if you are picking it up in STR try to navigate to CDG and it should give a warning that you will need to supercharge and there is no payment method set up to do this and should display in big red letters).

However, I would not have rented any other electric car than a Tesla because the high speed charger network is not nearly as widespread and reliable nor the tight integration with the navigation to them along your programmed route.
This has likely improved since then and Tesla, I believe, has opened up their chargers for other brands and since the connector plug is the same in Europe for all EVs this isn't as much of an issue as it is in the USA.
I also think the fee per kWh is more if you charge a non-Tesla on their network.

As far as return amount of charge, as others have said, there was a 5-7 euro fee I paid to be able to return it with any amount of charge over 10%, I think it was.
As I mentioned at the beginning, though, Sixt is only just now billing me for the first of these supercharger uses and still only for the ones in Germany, though I drove into Italy and Austria. So, I'm trying to fight them about it, but I've heard that they can continue invoicing for up to 3 years from the date of service, which seems excessive. Thus, the supercharging is not free, just very delayed.

Oh, one more tip, use Waze when driving so you see the speed cameras and potentially the pop up ones. It saved me many euros many times. You don't need to use it for navigating, just keep it open and set so you can hear the warnings. Sometimes you only have about 10 seconds of warning before a speed camera alert comes up. Works in all countries I drove through in Europe (Germany, Italy and Austria).