Hertz CEO says buying EVs was a big mistake and very costly to the company margins

They get wrecked and damaged like any other rental car. Probably lots of people rent an EV to check them out, new EV driver plus EV instant torque and acceleration might account for more accident damage.
See my response above. It has much more than just being wrecked and damaged.
 
It's because not that many people rent a car to drive locally, if they do they're probably not set up with a home charger.
If I rent a car I'm probably taking it on a road trip and I don't want to stop every 2 to 3 hours and charge for 45 minutes.
 
You totally missed the point.

People say that there are fewer parts than ICE. False unless you consider the thousands upon thousands of parts in a battery as one single part. The reality is that there are more and more sensitive parts.

People say that the cars never need to get maintenance. Of course we know that there are lubricated systems in these, coolant chemistry to be maintained, rubber parts, suspensions, brakes, etc.

It’s just such a farce to make statements on what is essentially a new fleet of cars, without seeing the long term ramifications. That goes waaaaay beyond fixing a car when wrecked, which is its own issue because a wrecked car could have liability with the battery. Even baking the car in a paint booth is an issue with the battery inside.

So there’s much more to it than your comment….
You’re mentioning the same thing that is neglected in every ICE vehicle by the average consumer. The exact things I care about at 50k intervals. No one changes differential oil or coolant until something breaks. I do and I will with my Tesla too.

They’re also not as sensitive as you let on to be. They also have 10 year 150k mile warranties. I don’t plan to keep them more than 10 years as it is. The last thing on my mind is battery failure because if it happens while I own it it’s covered.
 
It's Hertz. I'm guessing it's like any rental company, but Hertz is the only one I've ever worked for. They push what they have an abundance on. Every year they buy or lease way too many of one type of vehicle and they sit on the lot collecting downtime. An EV adds another level for those that don't know how to manage them. There are a number of extremely simple solutions that could fix it for them, but they'd never do it because it would cost them a little money now to save a lot later. You have to think of the shareholders today, not where it could be 3 months from now. Any company beholden to some shareholders will be extremely wasteful.
This is a key point. Most public companies seem to care only for how the numbers look at the next quarterly report and, because of that, they're absolutely unable to plan anything out beyond 3 months which....ironically....causes the numbers to be poor. It's a never ending cycle. There are obviously various exceptions but I'm always disappointed when a company I like goes public because I know it means the culture and operations will change for the worse.
 
I would be willing to bet Hertz got sold a real of goods by musk.
Hertz probably did some virtue signalling by advertising that it was doing all it could to reverse climate change. Probably had its bean counters put in a provision in next year's budget to account for all the extra revenue its virtue signalling was sure to bring in.
 
Hertz should have just inked a deal with Toyota and made the new 5th generation Prius(especially the PHEV Prime variant) the backbone of their fleet. After all, the best car for an Uber driver is… a Prius. Augment that with the RAV4 Hybrid and the HiHy/CamHy.
 
So electric cars are great if you don't drive much. I would agree with that but that is the problem. Most people need a car they can use often
You missed the point, which was the 120V L1 charging worked fine if you didn't drive a lot of miles. I would recommend a L2 charger for any EV owner, it will guarantee the battery will be full every morning.

My 70 something parents took this same non-Tesla EV from the Austin suburbs to LA for the US Open golf.
Then up to San Jose on the I-5.
Then up to Oregon City.
Then to Aberdeen, WA.
Then to Port Angeles, WA.
Then back or Oregon City.
Then to Park City, Utah via Monroe, OR (wine stop), Mt Shasta City, CA and Reno, NV.
Then through Utah, Colorado and New Mexico to an overnight in Santa Rosa, NM
Charged in Amarillo and then drove down to Lubbock where they encountered their only issue. There are no DC fast chargers in Lubbock. They had to slow charge to get back to I-20 at Sweetwater, TX where there is Electrify America. For the record I was following their route extremely closely and multiple calls/texts per day, I told them not to take that route through Lubbock on I-27 and US84 as there was no DC Fast Charge. If they would have taken US287 to Fort Worth there is a DC fast charger about 5 miles off route between Amarillo and Fort Worth, that would have gotten them to Fort Worth and then there is Electrify America along I-35 for the rest of the way. Yes, it's longer than the direct route to go through Fort Worth but it would have saved them time vs spending 5 hours in Lubbock on a slow charger.
 
Last edited:
It's because not that many people rent a car to drive locally, if they do they're probably not set up with a home charger.
If I rent a car I'm probably taking it on a road trip and I don't want to stop every 2 to 3 hours and charge for 45 minutes.
You obviously haven’t been to any of the MANY inner ring Enterprise locations around here-when we used them there would be a line of people paying for their weekly rentals-ALL in cash…
 
This is a key point. Most public companies seem to care only for how the numbers look at the next quarterly report and, because of that, they're absolutely unable to plan anything out beyond 3 months which....ironically....causes the numbers to be poor. It's a never ending cycle. There are obviously various exceptions but I'm always disappointed when a company I like goes public because I know it means the culture and operations will change for the worse.
Tesla is a public company too.
Every company makes mistakes, if they are to expand they learn from them. Tesla's mistake was the Cyber-Truck, admitted to by Musk (almost)
Hertz mistake was thinking EV would work in their fleet. IT doesnt and affect their bottom line but Hertz still made money just less of it because their investment in EVs didnt work out. So they will get rid of them.

Only reason for my comment, I just dont know of any national or world wide company that isnt a public company. Sure they are out their but not to knowledgeable on who. I know BMW Group which owns BMW is 50%+ owned by family which besides personally owned by them, they are owned through their businesses. The rest are owned by share holders. I could never figure them out though. *LOL*
 
Last edited:
Hertz should have just inked a deal with Toyota and made the new 5th generation Prius(especially the PHEV Prime variant) the backbone of their fleet. After all, the best car for an Uber driver is… a Prius. Augment that with the RAV4 Hybrid and the HiHy/CamHy.
The Prius used to be one of their main cars. Tesla was a novelty item like other luxury or performance cars. I get why they’re using the Model 3 and Y like they are, they just didn’t put the proper measures in place to actually do it well.
 
This is a key point. Most public companies seem to care only for how the numbers look at the next quarterly report and, because of that, they're absolutely unable to plan anything out beyond 3 months which....ironically....causes the numbers to be poor. It's a never ending cycle. There are obviously various exceptions but I'm always disappointed when a company I like goes public because I know it means the culture and operations will change for the worse.
The CEO is responsible for ongoing company success and shareholder wealth. He/she needs to communicate his/her vision and strategy. Investors need to understand there are always business cycles.
 
The Prius used to be one of their main cars. Tesla was a novelty item like other luxury or performance cars. I get why they’re using the Model 3 and Y like they are, they just didn’t put the proper measures in place to actually do it well.
The question would be, what "proper measures" would have prevented the maintenance cost per car to be 100% higher than the ICE counterparts?

I think people are ignoring this part of the CEO's statement and focusing on charging the car. Not the issue for Herz. The issue for Hertz is a major hit to its profit due to the costs of EV maintenance, depreciation and write downs to do having to salvage and total cars after accidents.

It's a disaster for their business model, no matter what charging discussions are taking place here. Heck if everyone wanted to rent one, their costs would go even higher in more damaged cars, they are better off with them sitting on the lots I would think. ;)

You're in the business of supplying a service, you can keep your customers very happy with ICE vehicles that cost 50% less in all kinds of costs what would a smart business owner do? Get rid of its EV fleet.
 
The question would be, what "proper measures" would have prevented the maintenance cost per car to be 100% higher than the ICE counterparts?

I think people are ignoring this part of the CEO's statement and focusing on charging the car. Not the issue for Herz. The issue for Hertz is a major hit to its profit due to the costs of EV maintenance, depreciation and write downs to do having to salvage and total cars after accidents.
It's a disaster for their business model, no matter what charging discussions are taking place here.
I mentioned that earlier in this thread. My only point was they failed it in every possible direction they could.
 
I mentioned that earlier in this thread. My only point was they failed it in every possible direction they could.
I wonder at some point once they realized the costs, maybe they were better off discouraging their EV rentals and pulling the plug on building up its charging network, with the theory the more on the road the more costly and might have just stopped knowing they will be done with them soon.

More or less not wanting to throw more money after a failure that was already costing them to much money. At some point they knew they made a mistake and let's be honest, the CEO directly called Elon Musk out on the carpet for misleading and in-accurate statements. It's a pretty strong statement when you trash another CEO in public with strong statements like that. I am sure they have the documentation to back it up.
So strong a statement that he pretty much admitted that they put too much trust in Musk. Granted, they are idiots for doing that, to bad Hertz didnt call me on the phone for advice, they would have saved a lot of money and grief. These boards and CEOs (including Musk) are so wealthy and out of touch with the American family it becomes a handicap at times if they dont know how to read the "public" at large.
So while others were trashing Toyota as late to the party, seems they were the smart ones and GM and Ford at least learned very fast to start scaling back before ruin.
 
Last edited:
I wonder at some point once they realized the costs, maybe they were better off discouraging their EV rentals and pulling the plug on building up its charging network, with the theory the more on the road the more costly and might have just stopped knowing they will be done with them soon.

More or less not wanting to throw more money after a failure that was already costing them to much money. At some point they knew they made a mistake and let's be honest, the CEO directly called Elon Musk out on the carpet for misleading and in-accurate statements. It's a pretty strong statement when you trash another CEO in public with strong statements like that. I am sure they have the documentation to back it up.
So strong a statement that he pretty much admitted that they put too much trust in Musk.
I can't read the article, did they boot the Hertz CEO? If not clear the launch pad, time for a new Hertz CEO.
 
I can't read the article, did they boot the Hertz CEO? If not clear the launch pad, time for a new Hertz CEO.
No, that was his presenting their quarterly results, The company made money but would have made a lot more without EVs. BTW this is a relatively new CEO who has brought them out of bankruptcy. Companies do have to invest and take chances to stay relevant. This was one of them, they took a hit on profits but still profitable and learned EVs are not for them, at least on this scale.

Ok, got a date with the boat! One last trip on the InterCoastal and then bring it home and winterize it. May or may not take a swim too!
Taking the dog as do due deterioration heart valves he most likely may not ever get a chance to go boating again :cry:

He loves the boat and beach, the sand, smell of the ocean yet completely blind (no eyes) and cant see any of it, it lights up his senses he loves running up and down as the waves hit around his feet ... we are doing everything we can with him before his time arrives. Wife and him on the beach last week. I'll do a thread one day on him, he has taught me a lot over the last 14 years. More than most humans could, about how to survive a life altering disability.

IMG_8916.jpeg
 
Last edited:
  • Love
Reactions: GON
Back
Top Bottom