Posted on 12/05/2023 1:45:10 PM PST by chuckee
Hertz is slowing down plans to include more electric cars in its fleet. The firm said EVs have higher repair costs and have depreciated significantly. Hertz said it would buy 100,000 Teslas in 2021.
Embracing electric cars is proving much more complicated than Hertz anticipated.
The car-rental giant is hitting the brakes on a wide-ranging plan to integrate more electric vehicles into its fleet as it runs into challenges, such as high repair costs and depreciation. Hertz isn't giving up on EVs entirely, but it's starting to take a more measured approach.
"Our in-fleeting of EVs will be slower than our prior expectations," Stephen Scherr, the CEO of Hertz, said during the company's third-quarter earnings call on Thursday. "We know the challenges at hand and are working to remedy that, which we can."
Hertz had initially aimed to make 25% of its fleet electric by the end of 2024. Now it's dropping that goal. Today, about 11% of Hertz's cars are electric, and about 80% of those are Tesla models.
In 2021, Hertz started going all in on EVs, announcing a plan to buy 100,000 Teslas as part of an effort to give customers electric options. It has also inked deals with General Motors to buy 175,000 vehicles, with the EV brand Polestar to buy 65,000 vehicles, and with Uber to make EVs available to drivers. But things haven't been easy...
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Do rental car companies require you to return an EV fully charged?
The ad pamphlet in the Hertz office says if you break down or lose power, or there is an unfortunate sudden blazing car fire, you will be given a voucher good for an equivalent or upgraded gas powered car at no cost to you.😃
Probably would have been a good idea for Hertz to first supply EVs to their decision makers, rather than dump them on their poor renters.
“”Do rental car companies require you to return an EV fully charged?””
For gasoline car rentals, almost EVERY rental staff have stated that the cost to have the rental company fill up the gas tank is much, much higher than the gas station. Some rental clerks have even told us where the most convenient gas station near the airport is located.
Imagine returning your Tesla rental only half charged. If the rental company installed their own charging station, they would still charge you an arm and a leg.
The time it takes to ‘charge’ the gasoline rental is 5-6 minutes? If you can find an EV charging station near the airport, I believe it would be a little longer than 5-6 minutes. AND, using the fast charging damages the life of the battery. Another reason resale of EV car rentals is, well, crap.
Uh, nope. Tom Brady can keep all the charging to himself. Whoever he spokesmodels for.
🙏🇺🇸🇮🇱👍
That’s what I figured.
Great question.
On a business trip where timing is tight anyway, the last thing I would have wanted would have been to have to grouse around for an EV charging station.
I guess the key to this problem is money.
Supply exceeds customer demand.
Will Hertz call for more legislation to force people to rent EVs?
Good old climate change virtue signaling. These guys are divorced from reality but do not know it.
Hertz is finding out the hard way that the part of their business model involved in selling off used rental cars suffers when they try to sell their used electric cars.
The good news is Tesla Humper can pick up a cheap car from Hertz
The real problem is nobody is renting them.
For a recent rental they almost begged us to take an EV.
With a free upgrade from a compact.
We were going to be traveling 150 miles from the city. No way we were going to risk getting stuck in the mountains looking for a charger.
And we weren’t going to get up hours early to top off batteries somewhere near the airport for turning it in fully charged.
Another example of corporate virtue signaling by CEOs who even with their Harvard MBAs lack common sense.
Somebody at Hertz needs their head examined for renting EVs. There’s no telling what problems may crop up as they rent these things. Owning one of them would likely be much worse than renting one. Although, I will admit I’d like to drive one around a test track just once to see what it felt like. That would be plenty enough of an EV experience for me.
Pretty stupid. They’re Effen/w their customers.
The big surprise was how much Hertz wanted per day.
Last time I checked even w corp discount was 130/day.
Ride-hailing and ride-share drivers have been damaging Hertz’s EVs at a higher rate than the company anticipated, prompting it to shift more EVs into its regular rental fleet. Scherr said that led to an oversupply that dragged down the vehicles’ revenue per day over the quarter.
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