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from the but-but-but-the-fancy-brochure-said dept.
CNN Reports: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/11/business/hertz-tesla-selling/index.html
Hertz, which has made a big push into electric vehicles in recent years, has decided it's time to cut back. The company will sell off a third of its electric fleet, totaling roughly 20,000 vehicles, and use the money they bring to purchase more gasoline powered vehicles.
Electric vehicles have been hurting Hertz's financials, executives have said, because, despite costing less to maintain, they have higher damage-repair costs and, also, higher depreciation.
"[C]ollision and damage repairs on an EV can often run about twice that associated with a comparable combustion engine vehicle," Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr said in a recent analyst call.
And EV price declines in the new car market have pushed down the resale value of Hertz's used EV rental cars.
[...] For rental car companies like Hertz, which sell lots of vehicles in the used car market, depreciation has a big impact on their business, and is a major factor when deciding which cars to have in their fleets.
SoylentNews previously reported when Hertz was expanding their EV fleet.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 31 2024, @04:18PM (2 children)
I do believe that EVs are cheaper to own and operate, TCO, for people who buy new vehicles. But: the cost-per-mile is distributed differently. You only pay (roughly) 25% as much "at the pump" as you do for gasoline, but the batteries are depreciating at a rate roughly twice the cost of the electricity charging them, so overall savings is more like 25%, not 75%
I also believe that EVs are a bad bet for a used vehicle purchase. Market perception (and therefore values) is going to be influenced by things other than cost of operation and depreciation for many years to come, so that's going to skew the whole thing, including TCO for new vehicle purchasers who sell out early, like Hertz. Fear of high maintenance costs will fight against the "luxury halo" effect of getting a Tesla for 1/2 what it cost new...
I'd be willing to bet that Hertz has identified an "irrationally high valuation" in the used EV market at the moment, and they want to grab it before it gets away.
Tangential puns: Hertz is fundamentally incompatible with the DC voltage coming from the EV batteries, they need to rectify this by discharging some of their EV fleet to stop the pain.
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(Score: 2) by xorsyst on Friday February 02 2024, @04:58PM (1 child)
The "at the pump" cost in the UK is now about the same as petrol, per-mile, when rapid charging. It's ludicrous. Obviously at-home charging is much cheaper, but in the 3 years I've had an EV, the rapid cost has gone up over 400% for long-distance travel.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday February 02 2024, @05:12PM
Not so obviously. The cost of electricity varies a lot around the world. Costa Rica pays a bit over double for their home electricity what we do in Florida...
I suppose EV owners might tolerate a 400% premium for rapid charging on the road to cover the cost of infrastructure rollout. Sounds like something that would need regulation to make sure the premium goes away, eventually.
Florida had a fair number of toll bridges back in the day, tolls supposed to cover cost of construction of the bridge like ferry tolls covered the cost of ferry operations. Once the bridges were paid off, a lot of them went toll free, though some retained the tolls to continue "traffic shaping" because without the tolls too many people would choose to use the bridge instead of an alternate route.
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