Hertz Is So Desperate To Unload Tesla Inventory It's Asking Customers If They Just Want To Keep Their Rentals

Jalopnik ^ | Bradley Brownell

[nickcarraway]

"Enjoying your rental? Take it home with Hertz Car Sales."

Hertz bought a bunch of Tesla Model 3s for its rental fleet and quickly realized that Tesla depreciation would be extra bad at scale. In an aggressive effort to sell off its remaining Tesla inventory, the rental company is sending extra cheap buyout options to rental customers. If you like your rental, Hertz will sell it to you for an extra cheap good deal. One Hertz customer took to Reddit to show off a screenshot of the deal he got directly from Hertz, a 2023 Tesla Model 3 with 30,000 miles on the odometer for $17,913.

I wouldn’t normally consider buying a used rental car from Hertz unless I was extra desperate, but the low miles and bargain basement pricing might be worth a rethink. A new Model 3, for example, will cost at least double that price. Heck, maybe it’s worth grabbing. For under $18,000 I can look past a lot of ills, including driving a Tesla. Maybe this is the $25,000 Tesla that Elon was promising?

Tesla has an 8-year, 100,000 mile warranty on its battery packs, and there’s still a good bit of that battery warranty remaining on this particular car, assuming Tesla will honor it on a used rental car. That might go a long way toward easing my anxiety over buying a rental Tesla. These batteries don’t seem to fail often, but people who aren’t familiar with EVs are renting them and doing god knows what to charge them up. Preconditioning? Limiting max charge to 80 percent? I doubt these are common rental car practices.

For what it’s worth, there are a ton of used Teslas on the Hertz Car Sales site, but anything priced this cheaply shows well over six digits on the odometer, and isn’t nearly as appealing. It’s unclear if this Redditor just got a particularly good deal, or if Hertz is just trying to sell everything not nailed down before the end of the calendar year.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Consumer reports for one. It’s what happens at 5 years and beyond. Look at the resale value.

https://insideevs.com/news/731559/tesla-least-reliable-used-car-brands/

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

I had a neighbor with a Tesla. He drove around a couple of years all was well. After that it stayed parked all the time.

One day I saw a Ford Van over there and a guy working on the Tesla. He was a Tesla service man driving a Ford Van. He had to go into Arkansas to do some work so he needed something reliable. I watched him replace a 12v battery in the Frunk. He had to take 7 or 8 panels out to access the 12v battery and that was a $500 battery dead on a 2 year old car.

[Myrddin]

My dad had a Olds Toronado with the diesel engine. A bit more effort to keep fueled and deal with "stuff" in the fuel. That was when diesel was cheaper than regular gas. At current prices, I don't see the advantage in diesel over regular gas. Dad died in Dec 2003. His Toronado sold quickly. Mom kept her Olds 98 for a couple more years, then sold it as age related macular degeneration destroyed her vision and made driving unsafe.

My 1999 F150 SuperCab returned from San Diego in Sept 2014 with 63000 miles on the odometer. It had 22500 when I purchased it used in 2003. Current odometer is just over 64000 miles. Lots of life left in the old truck. The 5.4L V8 is a good engine.

[Gay State Conservative]

Those GM diesels were notoriously bad. In fact I recall diesel Benzes and Volvos in the 70s and 80s that always belched out black smoke just like trucks and buses of the same era. But the Germans have perfected diesels for passenger cars in recent years.Until the last few years about half of the passenger cars sold in Europe were diesels.It's much less now thanks to the VW scandal.

In New England diesel is usually just a few pennies per gallon more than Regular in summer but it goes up in winter (thanks to demand for heating oil). But the gas version of my car *requires* Premium which is always more than diesel.

On the highway my car easily gets 45-50mpg.

[Myrddin]

I've lived in Pocatello, ID since Dec 2000. The weather here really demands a 4WD truck. My 1999 F150 had the fuel pump destroyed in an overnight -21F weather incident (in the driveway). I spent $800 to have the fuel pump replaced and a block heater installed. Aside from the fuel gauge giving unreliable readings after the repair, the truck is running fine. I would entertain a diesel replacement 4x4 if my 1999 fails in an uneconomical to repair way. The number of subzero days here is usually small and I'm due to retire soon, so my driving demands will be even less than they are now.

[Gay State Conservative]

I've been driving diesel sedans since 2009. About 10 years ago I experienced -40F in a small town in Quebec...well north of Montreal.I arrived in town about 6pm and my dashboard read -21F. I went to a local station to get some locally blended diesel (I was almost empty). The first station was closed because their pumps froze up. The second station was OK. Next morning,at about 7am I checked out and the TV in the lobby said -40C (which,I discovered,is also -40F).

Expecting the car to be dead I was shocked when it started. The car sat outside all night yet it started. Of course for the first 50 miles or so heading to Montreal the car felt more like a truck with flat tires.

And a few years later I had a -30F experience...same town,different diesel. Car started perfectly.

[SunkenCiv]

https://www.hertzcarsales.com/rent2buy-inventory/index.htm

[StAnDeliver]

Another Tesla thread literally causes another FReeptard to post something so vile that it has to be removed by management.

What is wrong with some of you?

The Prius Prime EV doesn't attract one single goddamn article about Akio Toyoda, and yet we have FReeptards raging about "Musk fanboys", the same Elon Musk who bought a social media outlet that, just two years prior, had been directly co-opted by the FBI to help stage the first direct presidential coup in American history.

After capturing the Twitter cannon, Musk turned it around and atomized The White Hospice, then Karamela, and is now head of President Trump's Department of Government Efficiency.

So much barely hidden TDS rage from so many goddamn butthurt RINOs on this forum. Your posting histories reek with RINO onanism; simple-minded fealty to Shrub and Mittens; and since Trump's first victory in 2016, bitter retiree daydrinking.

FOUR YEARS OF TRUMPII with MUSK DRIVING THE DOGE EV! Suck it up, buttercups!

[Trump_Triumphant]

Amen!