Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) EVs to Go!

It would seem that the Hertz Car Rental Company has had its fill of EVs, if this article from the Daily Telegraph today is correct...

Hit where it Hertz

US rental giant Hertz is selling off thousands of Teslas as weak demand forces it to replace 20,000 electric cars with petrol-powered vehicles.
Hertz said it would sell the vehicles over the next year and expected to take a $245m (£193m) hit as it reversed plans to massively expand its electric car fleet.
The company is selling off a range of makes and models but is expected to offload thousands of Teslas. More than 600 are already listed for sale on its used car website.

Three years ago, Hertz announced plans to buy 100,000 Tesla electric cars, a move that pushed Tesla’s market value beyond $1 trillion.
However, Hertz said renting out electric cars had proved to be less profitable than traditional vehicles and the cars had also come with higher repair costs.

James Titcomb reports…

The comment about repair costs is particularly interesting.....

I wonder who got the chop at Hertz for this, clearly they hadn't done enough market research or investigation into potential running costs, probably not surprising as the amount of empirical information available would be quite limited on EV's long term operation costs in the vehicle rental market. Being one of the firsts can sometimes bite you on the bum as in Hertz case.

It is interesting isn't it. I would have thought folk would like to test an EV if they needed a hire car.

Maybe they had one once..........

True & the running cost comment is very interesting. I guess lower cost fuel in the USA plays a big part there

Enough to make you ponder as to whether key decision makers had shares in Tesla, as it seems a bold decision to make, especially with such a costly u-turn.

I would have thought that range anxiety can become a bigger issue in the USA once outside the built up conurbations as the distances can be vast, it certainly did become an issue when travelling across the US on our Harleys, especially those who had smaller tanks.

Yes doing route 66 there isn't much about from Amarillo onwards. So a fair point.

I still notice an anti-EV sense here, why? You can love petrol cars and EV's at the same time.

BMW iX3 - Mini Cooper petrol and......

I'm not anti . I'm just not convinced they are a viable or indeed the best option.