For Sale – small dead animals

Going cheap.

Telegraph- The EV fiasco has descended into farce. Just ask Hertz

The company in the US is disposing of the 20,000 EVs it bought with great fanfare in recent years, and is replacing them with petrol models. Some of the Teslas, which are no more than two years old, have been listed for sale at $14,000 – little more than a third of their $40,000 price tag when new. The company says it will take a loss of $245 million but it seems to have little choice given the lack of demand from customers and the vehicles’ higher repair costs.

12 Replies to “For Sale”

that’s still $13,999 too much

There’s something off about this. In a business as competitive as the rental car industry, you don’t just jump off the deep end and invest in a large quantity of unproven, unreliable and overpriced vehicles when your product/service is proven and reliable transportation alternatives. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more competitive industry as they actually share immediate space with their competitors. There would have had to have been an incentive.

And, for argument’s sake let’s say that EV’s at Hertz were a boon and they started acquiring a bigger customer base. It would have only been very temporary, because their competitors would have followed suit. So, diminished returns and much higher overhead. That’s just stupid…and shortsighted.

So, I have to ask myself, what was the incentive that Hertz responded to? Well, my cynic’s mind seems to think that when governments describe Climate Change as a National Security Issue, I can’t help thinking that it opens up the black budget purses we know nothing about, and subsidies flow without authority, publicity or oversight. This whole thing makes no sense….and a $245 Million write off in a super competitive market is ridiculous.

This whole thing smells, and makes me wonder what other industries might be getting unseen subsidies or tax dollars to go down the road less traveled.

Thomas says:

January 13, 2024 at 6:56 pm

It’s more likely that like Budweiser, some wokist made a decision based on feelings rather than business. Ouch.

Hertz probably thought this would be a “great leveller”, offering the “New, FRIENDLY GREEN Hertz with this HUGE fleet of EV’s”. Reading about this, these EV’s have been driven hard – any bets on how many of them need new batteries, and how much that would add to the bargain price they’re being let go for?

Thanks, Hertz – no thanks…

Hertz probably thought this would be a “great leveller”, offering the “New, FRIENDLY GREEN Hertz with this HUGE fleet of EV’s”.

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For about 5 minutes, until their competitors did the exact same thing if it was successful. That makes no sense. Why make a huge investment when profits are almost NOT guaranteed and overhead is guaranteed to go up significantly? The only plausible explanation is that THEY did not make the investment.

Hertz sells all of their cars when they hit two years or 20,000 miles.
Selling all their teslas after two years means nothing.

I wouldn’t buy any used rental car.

EVs, because everybody wants to be far from home and out of gas :)..

This is a disingenuous article. Virtually every car rental company sells their vehicles at, and often well before, their two-year anniversary.

The only notable take-aways are:

1. Although Hertz will still have a decent number of EVs to rent, they are reducing that overall percentage. They took a shot in the dark as to what the initial EV demand would be and are now readjusting that number. Not drastic action in any way.

2. They will lose money on their initial purchase of EVs, as, just like many things during Covid, prices were elevated, and they bought at the peak. In the past 2 years, the price of Tesla’s has reduced significantly, so it’s only logical that their used cars would sell for less.

However, Hertz did screw up the implementation. As someone who rented EVs from them, they didn’t make it easy to recharge. They should have installed Tesla Super Chargers in all their airport facilities and charged the user a flat $10 recharge fee at drop off. Their costs would have been negligible, and it would have ensured a far higher uptake. No one who’s catching a flight wants to find a recharging station and then wait for 45+ minutes for a full charge (Up to 80% is quick, the final 20% takes much longer).

I would also concede that, for the average non-EV driving user, the rental market isn’t ready for mass-scale EV rentals. If you know what you’re doing, it’s all good. However, if you’ve never driven an EV, then the learning curve is too steep for a typical 2-day rental on a business trip.

Hertz is selling one third of their EV fleet, so it still will offer 40,000 EV’s for rent.
They’ll probably sell the rest as they age to two years, and the great experiment for Hertz, undoubtedly subsidized by taxpayers, will end unless another trendy alternative fueled (subsidized) vehicle comes along.