Man that Hertz.

//fortune.com/2024/03/15/ceo-steps-down-prices-following-purchase-teslas/

TLDR: Hertz CEO steps down after figuring out fleet of Teslas are very expensive to maintain and has too high of depreciation.

Who saw this coming?

I see quite a few for sale on the Hertz car sales lot that I pass each day coming home from work, so the liquidation has begun in earnest.

they did not have Superchargers at the Hertz office , so had to send the car and a guy offsite to charge them up ......

They will need to figure that out  before the next batch :)

In reply to californiamilleghia :

That would have been okay if the cars had enough downtime to charge at a Level 2 charger in the lot, but they may not have had enough chargers or downtime. I don't know what the turn time is for rentals, but if they're on the lot they're not making money. The big drop in resale - mostly driven by Tesla lowering MSRP - certainly didn't help from a bookkeeping standpoint. 

It wasn't just Teslas, Hertz had/has quite a variety of EVs. But most of them were Teslas.

Does this mean I should not be looking for used model 3 performances right now?

I think EVs are cool. Would certainly consider one for me or my wife as our next car. 

That said, I can't imagine a worse car to rent than an EV. Figuring out charging infrastructure for a new to you car in a new to you city with no home charging? No thank you! 

My brother in law rented a car in NYC last time he came to visit us in rural CT. They gave him an EV (said it was all they had; he didn't select it). It added considerable stress to his trip. Instead of taking 5 minutes to refuel at any of gas stations near my house he had to research where to find a charger, then drive 20 minutes to a Whole Foods, then spend 30 minutes there re-charging. He also had to pay a penalty for returning the car less than 85% full because he didn't want to repeat that process a second time on the drive back to NYC. 

It's weird that the Hertz CEO wouldn't be able to see that giving people EVs instead of ICE cars is a bug and not a feature. Seems like this would be really clear to anyone who vaguely understands EVs and how renting cars works. I guess that's why he's not the CEO anymore. 

Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

Does this mean I should not be looking for used model 3 performances right now?

There's only one and it's trapped in Hawaii.

They have quite a selection of Bolt EUV's for sale, but the pricing doesn't make sense to me. They're basically all $20k to $21k for the LT trim. New LT trims start at $28k before the $7500 tax credit. Plus GM will partially pay to put L2 charging in at my house (partially because there's always something hidden there.) Why would I buy an ex-rental car at that price?

In reply to The0retical :

Yeah, the Hertz stuff is seemingly selling at similar price/mileage as private party used sales. There's no real discount for being a former rental. But, having used inventory hit the market at the same time does tend to bring prices of all used examples down.

Think it might have any effect on new Tesla prices?

CrashDummy said:

He also had to pay a penalty for returning the car less than 85% full because he didn't want to repeat that process a second time on the drive back to NYC. 

That's interesting.  When I rented a Tesla from Hertz they told me there would be no charge (err, fee) as long as I was > 10% charge level.  Left at 80%, back 35%, no need to recharge for a weekend of light use.

CrashDummy said:

That said, I can't imagine a worse car to rent than an EV. Figuring out charging infrastructure for a new to you car in a new to you city with no home charging? No thank you! 

Agreed, however I think Tesla has gone through huge steps to make the UX as friendly as possible - likely a reason they were chosen as a major supplier.

But yeah, I know someone who accidentally rented an EV and it was a truly awful experience.

Coming soon to a Barrett-Jackson auction near you:

"Next up, this is one of the rare Hertz Edition Tesla's, you know, just like those highly-collectible Hertz-Shelby Mustangs from back in the day...." 

BoulderG said:

Think it might have any effect on new Tesla prices?

I think those are set purely to keep the factory running at the ideal level, and Hertz didn't buy enough to be a meaningful number in overall production. So, no.

It would have helped if Tesla had implemented a "rental mode" where it showed you a quick video of how to operate the vehicle. They've got these videos already, but they didn't show them on the big shiny screen. That would have helped with the overall weirdness of Tesla UX.

Finding charging stations is a different problem that's common across all EVs, compounded by the unreliability of the non-Tesla network. They're easy enough to deal with if you can get access to a destination charger at your hotel, but the EV manner of charging may not mesh well with rental car use in general. Plus, of course, renters are not necessarily interested in the actual vehicle or how to use it. It's pure applicance and unless they've got an EV at home already, there's a learning curve. 

In 2021 Hertz announced it would agree to buy 100,000 Teslas.

Hertz was emerging from bankruptcy and Hertz stock skyrocketed.  Tesla briefly hit an unprecedented $1 Trillion dollar market cap.

Not a single car had been built or sold, yet millions of dollars were made that day.

I remember being struck by the explosion of wealth created out of thin air when it happened.

In reply to bludroptop :

And, the outgoing CEO worked for Goldman Sacks the job before this one.  

Also, deep in that Fortune article it is mentioned the new guy now coming in is the guy they wanted in the past but GM would not release him.  He worked for GMs robotaxi start-up called Cruise.  Now that GM dropped Cruise, they can now get him.  

I suspect the outgoing man made a killing for himself in his brief time at Hertz.  

The0retical said:

Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

Does this mean I should not be looking for used model 3 performances right now?

There's only one and it's trapped in Hawaii.

They have quite a selection of Bolt EUV's for sale, but the pricing doesn't make sense to me. They're basically all $20k to $21k for the LT trim. New LT trims start at $28k before the $7500 tax credit. Plus GM will partially pay to put L2 charging in at my house (partially because there's always something hidden there.) Why would I buy an ex-rental car at that price?

Not saying it makes it worth it-but the $4k tax credit on the used bolt would at least make it cheaper than the new one.

Deja Vu?  Didn't we talk about this before?  Other than the CEO resinging part...

In reply to alfadriver :

We did, when the cars went up for sale.

Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

Does this mean I should not be looking for used model 3 performances right now?

The long range is 3.7 sec 0-60 vs the performance  models 3.1 sec. Still silly quick-aaaannnnd there are quite a few in the sub $25k range so you can grab the tasty $4k fed tax credit.

In reply to MrJoshua :

I was finding Performances under $30k.

Are the Long Range models all wheel drive?  The rear drive only models really chew up rear tires, I assume because of all the regen braking.

Far be it from me to suggest the performance model for cost reasons... oh wait I got an S60R because I hate the Ate calipers on regular S60s that require constant rebuilding

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Dual Motor used to mean AWD, but I think they changed the name to Long Range. There might have been a short-lived RWD big battery car but I think it's been gone for years. 

bludroptop said:

In 2021 Hertz announced it would agree to buy 100,000 Teslas.

This and think about the high dollar contract Tom Brady was paid to act goofy and it had to have cost Hertz a lot of money.....

This is a legit shocked pikachu moment.

Not shocked at all. It speaks to the current issues with EVs that are still not fully sorted.

My take is the CEO bought into the hype without having fully thought through what would be needed to make EVs viable for their business.

The depreciation is really what kills it.  If the value of EVs had not cratered (which I don't think anyone was expecting), then cars that are troublesome to rent due to charging infrastructure/etc could just be sold and swapped for vehicles that fit the business better.  Losing $20-30K per vehicle, OTOH, adds up to hundreds of millions of dollars.