Car rental company Hertz sells 30,000 electric cars, most of them Teslas. The company is doing this because it recorded a huge loss amounting to $392 million during the first quarter of the current year.
The loss can be partly explained by the fact that electric vehicles depreciate rapidly, especially when they are widely used. Uber drivers often use Hertz rental cars, which allows them to cover a fair amount of miles quickly. Hertz lost $195 million during the first quarter due to vehicle impairment alone.
In total, Hertz has already sold 10,000 electric vehicles. Another 20,000 copies are scheduled to be sold by the end of the year. However, according to New York Magazine, this will be difficult, because sales numbers have already begun to decline. This is partly due to high interest rates and substandard charging infrastructure in the United States.
According to Top Gear Holland, you can also import Hertz EVs into the Netherlands. You will then pay €1,000 for the container, plus other costs to the tax authorities. The cheapest Tesla Model 3 on the Hertz website, with an odometer of about 160,000 kilometers, is priced at $21,000, which is equivalent to about 19,300 euros.
Dream of electricity
Hertz ordered another 100,000 electric cars from Tesla in 2021, for an amount of approximately $4.2 billion, or about 3.6 billion euros. The company had plans to eventually electrify its entire fleet. Hertz owns a total of about half a million cars.
These plans now appear to have been shelved. In addition to selling Tesla vehicles, the company also canceled its planned purchase of 65,000 Polestar vehicles. The company is said to have already purchased around 13,000 Polestars between 2022 and 2023.
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