AI is Here to Make Car Rentals More Expensive

Hertz has rolled out an AI-powered system that can scan rental cars before and after they're rented, and automatically bill customers for damage.

We don't need to tell you that cars are becoming more expensive. Every aspect of them, really: inflation is part of it sure, but so are tariffs, the ballooning destination and delivery fees, the cost of electric models, and even the price to fix the increasingly complex systems in modern cars. On that last point, car rentals aren't immune to increased costs, and under the pretense of increasing "transparency, precision, and speed," Hertz is introducing an AI-powered scanning system to detect damage. According to a report from The Drive, however, the system can also introduce more costs should damage occur—and make it harder to determine exactly what they're for.

According to The Drive, a reader returned a rental Volkswagen to a Thrifty location at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which is where parent company Hertz first rolled out the new system from Isreal-based company UVeye. The system reported a roughly one-inch blemish on the left-rear wheel within "minutes" of the return, relaying the information to the reader via a mobile app. So far, so good.

Where it gets more complicated is the cost: a total bill of $440. According to The Drive, it's broken down as $250 to fix the wheel, $125 for a processing fee, and $65 for a further administrative fee. The reader was offered a $52 discount if he paid the amount in full within 48 hours of the notice, or $32.50 within a week. Unfortunately, when the reader tried to ask questions about the costs, he found Hertz' chatbot system unable to connect him to a live agent. The system can flag his issue for a human review at a later time, but the reader told The Drive this was not clear at the time. The alternative? Hertz' contact form, which can take up to 10 days to receive a response.

That $125 processing fee is, in Hertz' own words, "the cost to detect and estimate the damage that occurred during your rental." When The Drive inquired about whether that cost is higher at locations using the UVeye system, it received no direct response.

A Hertz spokesperson provided the following statement: "The vast majority of rentals are incident-free. When damage does occur, our goal is to enhance the rental experience by bringing greater transparency, precision, and speed to the process. Digital vehicle inspections help deliver on that with clear, detailed documentation that is delivered more quickly, as well as a more technology-enabled resolution process."

While the digital scanner system does have speed and accuracy on its side—as anybody who has had to photograph a rental from multiple angles, before and after, will tell you—it sounds like the automation process has removed some barriers while adding new ones.

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