Electric and Hybrid Vehicles

Electric cars were traditionally treated as something special and priced at the higher end of the market so rental of electric and to a lesser extent hybrid vehicles whilst still small is growing rapidly and a trend that will only increase as most countries set challenging targets to tackle global warmings and reduce CO2 emissions and pollution from traditional combustion cars. As they become more commonplace, the way we code these cars needs to meet this new demand and provide enough information and support to enable the customer to book with confidence.

The 4th letter of the ACRISS Car Classification Matrix is currently used for Fuel/Air and to denote and book electric and hybrid vehicles using codes “E” or “C” for electric vehicles  and “H” or “I” for hybrid and hybrid plug-in vehicles allowing booking engines and systems to filter specifically by fuel type and the all-important trend in electric and hybrid electric vehicles.

ACRISS wanted to avoid creating new codes but looked instead to redefine the existing ones to accommodate some of the variances in both the hybrid electric and electric vehicles.

These existing codes (see below) in our ACRISS Car Classification Matrix will continue to be used in conjunction with category and type but we have changed the description in the last few years to remove the ”non-air” option not available in electric and hybrid vehicles and replaced this with the Plug-In option for Hybrid and 2 Electric Vehicle options.

Please note all Electric and Hybrid vehicles come with Air Conditioning as standard so the option of "with Air" and "Non air" has been removed to enable us to support the range of Electric and Hybrid vehicles available today.

In 2019 for electric vehicles (BEV) we introduced a battery distance range to help the customer and end user in choosing the right vehicle to rent Electric (Distance < 250mi/400km) and Electric Plus (Distance ≥ 250mi/400km) unfortunately this was not future proofed as many EV were ending up in the higher range as we discovered it will not meet our requirements going forward.  We are therefore changing the description and usage once again in 2022/23 but this time ensuring we are future proofing it to meet current and future requirements and trends in electric vehicles. It will also be an initial step towards introducing a features option in the future which will allow car rental companies and users to search cars by additional features such as distance/range and EV equipment.  The hybrid and plug in hybrid coding will remain the same as below.   

The aim of the new description and usage of the “E” and “C” EV coding is for car rental companies and users to use both types “E” and “C” to allow greater flexibility and help differentiate between their various EV models.  It will also be up to the car rental company if they wish to support/use both or just one code for their electric vehicles.   It is however important that any system and/or search option/filter in a booking engine accommodate both.

For more more information please refer to ACRISS Changes to EV codes and for further definitions of different fuel types and their codes including the various hybrid and electric cars available click on ACRISS Fuel Type Guide

For more information on Electric cars and related questions/topics:  www.motoringelectric.com

New Electric Vehicle and Hybrid Electric Vehicles descriptions and usage (2023)

E & C: All Battery Electric Vehicles but not Electric Vehicles combined with other energy sources (Hybrid, Hydrogen, etc).  This will also include commercial vehicles/vans.

Further enhancements were introduced to our car code lists to accommodate the new Electric and Hybrid trend by adding fuel type codes to each model.

Fuel Type Codes

Updated ACRISS Car Classification Matrix with new EV definitions:

_{Charging Speeds - Slow, Fast and Rapid}

Electric cars require a direct current (DC). If you charge using a domestic socket, the alternating current (AC) is converted to DC by the vehicle. Fast chargers do this conversion before the electricity reaches the car, speeding up the charging time. Rapid chargers (with one exception) also supply DC current straight to the car. Essentially, they all do the same but the speed varies according to the connector type.

Slow Charging: 3-6 kW charging in 8-12 hours

Fast Charging: 7-22 kW charging in 1- 6 hours

Rapid Charging: 43-50 kW delivering 80% charge in 30mins

Ultra-Rapid charging: 100,150 & 350 kW delivering up to 80% charge in 10mins

Special Equipment and Ancilaries available for Electric Vehicle and Plug-In Electric Vehicles