“I arrived at a destination and EVs was all that Hertz had in inventory, I’d make a beeline over to the Avis counter.”
My daughter went to Houston on a business trip and Hertz did not have the rental she reserved. They only had full-size vans or a huge selection of EVs.
She was not as wise as you and tried out an EV. Her trip was a disaster as she spent her off work hours searching for chargers that were available and working.
It seems that most of the available chargers were not working. There will not be an EV of any kind in her future.
I had a similar experience on a recent trip back to my home office. Despite having a reservation, my rental company was out of cars aside from EVs. I knew my home office had chargers on-site, so I figured I'd be OK. The rental company told me I had to bring it back with at least 70% charge, and the range on the car should be 250-300 miles. I get the car, and it only has 73% charge, so I know I'll have to put a lot into it before return. It's roughly 10 miles from the rental lot to my hotel, and 2 miles from my hotel to work. By the time I get to the hotel, get dinner nearby, and go to work the next morning, I'm down to 59%. I plug in the car at the work charger at lunch just to see how long it takes to recharge. After 45 minutes, I was up to 63% (!). I drive the car to a charger closer to my office and decide to leave it in for the afternoon. After another four hours (and ~$8 in charges, as we get charged for using the chargers at work) I'm back up to ~97%. By the time I turn the car in the next day I'm down to 92%.
If it wasn't for the ability to plug the car in for five hours while I was at work, I would have been hosed. Not to mention I only saved a few bucks over my typical gas charge (typically $10-15).