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(Zero Hedge)—CEO Stephen Scherr’s barely two-year ride with Hertz came to a screeching halt on Friday. In his wake, he leaves a company still working to recover from a big bet on electric vehicles gone bad. It will do so under new CEO Gil West, whose previous posts include executive roles at Delta Air Lines and the Cruise unit of General Motors.
Scherr, who came on board in February 2022 after 30 years at Goldman Sachs, ushered the company through its emergence from bankruptcy. Hertz’s EV push began in the previous year, with a splashy move to order 100,000 Tesla Model 3 vehicles. After taking the reins of the Estero, Florida-headquartered company, Scherr doubled down on the green vision, committing to purchased another 65,000 EVs from Polestar, a Swedish company.
Traveling in the US. @Hertz has rows & rows of EVs that no-one wants to rent. They claimed I booked one when I didn't. Gold member & they mess me around like this.
I refused the EV & eventually I got a real car. What a hassle.
Go woke. Go broke. Rethinking my loyalty to Hertz.
— FermiLevels 🚚🛻🚛🏎 (@FermiLevels) September 10, 2023
In December 2023, Hertz emphatically demonstrated that its massive EV push just wasn’t working out, throwing 20,000 EVs into the used-car market to start a systematic liquidation planned to extend through 2024. “The company expects to reinvest a portion of the proceeds from the sale of EVs into the purchase of internal combustion engine vehicles to meet customer demand,” Hertz said at the time, adding, “The company expects this action to better balance supply against expected demand of EVs.”
The resale of fleet cars is a key driver of rental car companies’ profitability. On that front, Tesla threw a wrench in Hertz’s financials by aggressively slashing prices across its product line, crushing the resale values of not only Teslas, but the entire EV market. Top-selling EV’s saw their secondary-market prices plunge by almost a third in 2023.
Poor resale value isn’t the only EV liability biting Hertz — the company also pointed to the high cost of collision repairs. “For context, collision and damage repairs on an EV can often run about twice that associated with a comparable combustion engine vehicle,” Scherr noted in an October third-quarter conference call.
Guess the cost to repair this?
$5,000?
$10,000?
$12,000?NO….. estimate cost is $14,000 😂
No wonder why renting companies are ditching Tesla! $TSLA $TSLAQ pic.twitter.com/CcgiTLrnov
— Little John 💎 (@biotechpain) January 17, 2024
Then there’s the issue of consumer demand. It’s fair to assume that most rental car customers don’t want their first EV experiment to come on a business or vacation trip, where they may be in an unfamiliar area and unenthused about spending 20 minutes at a recharging station on the way to the airport, to say nothing of the hassle of figuring out how the whole EV-thing works.
There are many horror stories about consumers unpleasantly surprised to be issued an EV when they didn’t ask for one. Others say they picked up a car that was only half-charged and missing the charging cable. Earlier this month, Sen. Tom Cotton — one of the most sinister foreign-policy interventionists to ever walk Capitol Hill — decided to intervene in the rental car market, by introducing a bill that would make it illegal to force EVs on customers.
@Hertz Any help available? I’m on day three of rental and still can’t get help. I was given an EV (that I didn’t want) that can’t fast charge. The employee laughed when I called and said they know. I’m driving to and from the hospital every day and knew a car I can fuel up. 🙏
— Stack (@SmyrnaStack) February 19, 2024
In a statement issued Friday, Hertz vice chair Tom Wagner said, “We are appreciative of Stephen’s contribution over the last two years, including on a number of key strategic initiatives.”
…but definitely not that EV one.
Mark Zuckerberg Claims Facebook Is Ditching “Fact-Checkers” and Going to Community Notes Similar to 𝕏
by JD Rucker
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is a scoundrel, a billionaire snake who has backstabbed pretty much everyone he’s personally dealt with ever since rising to prominence. He spent over $400 million of his own money to prevent President Donald Trump from winning in 2020. His “platform” has been amongst the most…
Bill O’Reilly to Donald Trump: “The Press Hates You”
by Podcaster
There has been a very noticeable shift in the way legacy media is covering the transition for President Trump compared to his first victory in 2016. It seems that many in legacy media are toning down their rhetoric and preparing to treat President Trump more “fairly.” According to Bill O’Reilly,…
The Biggest Sale on Beef With 25-Year Shelf-Life EVER
by Sponsored Post
Let’s cut to the chase. Prepper All-Naturals is offering an unprecedented 40% off for its “Beef Steak” survival bags with promo code “steak40”. With a 25-year shelf life and a single ingredient (beef, of course), our most popular product is available for a very limited time with the biggest discount…
The Climate Agenda’s March Through the Institutions: Can It Be Stopped?
by Daily Signal
A spate of stories in the media recently provides a remarkable illustration of how the globalist policy agenda of the climate-industrial complex has captured key international institutions and perverted their original organizational aims. From initially serving broad, laudable objectives for the welfare of their constituents, these institutions have been subverted…
About That Video of Deb Fischer’s Husband and Kamala Harris That’s Circulating on Social Media
by Red State
Social media platforms can be bowls of dumb on any given day (that goes double for BlueSky), and Monday was no exception, with the certification of Donald Trump’s November election victory bringing out some fresh cray-cray from Democrats and their media allies. Though the President-Elect certainly does bring out the…
Trump Denies “Fake News” Report on Changes to Economic Plans
by Publius
President-elect Donald Trump has refuted a Washington Post report suggesting his aides were considering a more restrained tariff policy. The report claimed that Trump’s transition team was contemplating a tariff plan that would be less extensive than his campaign promises, targeting only imports deemed critical to national or economic security….
Radicalized Knife-Wielding Man Attempts to Storm Belgian Prime Minister’s Offices Shouting ‘Allah Akbar’
by RAIR Foundation
Brussels, Belgium — January 6, 2025: A potentially deadly attack was narrowly avoided this morning when a “radicalized” man in his twenties armed with a knife attempted to break into the offices of Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo. The incident occurred at 16 rue de la Loi as the…
Gold Breaks Out With Central Bank Surge and Interest Rate Drops Expected
by Sponsored Post
Precious metals are seeing gains once again following the post-election dip, just as many economists had expected. Even China, which had been holding back for five months, returned to purchasing massive quantities of gold. “Falling U.S. interest rates and ongoing solid demand from central banks are supporting the gold price,”…
JPMorgan: “Debasement Trade” Into Bitcoin and Gold Is Here to Stay
by Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge
(Zero Hedge)—The so-called “debasement trade” into gold and Bitcoin is “here to stay” as investors brace for persistent geopolitical uncertainty, according to a Jan. 3 research note by JPMorgan shared with CoinTelegraph. Gold and BTC “appear to have become more important components of investors’ portfolios structurally” as they increasingly seek to…
Study of 9 Million Exposes ‘Devastating’ Neurological Damage Surge Among Covid-Vaxxed
by Slay News
An explosive new study involving almost 9 million participants has exposed a devasted surge in deadly neurological and psychiatric damage among those who received Covid mRNA “vaccines.” According to the peer-reviewed study, just one dose of an mRNA injection puts recipients at risk of suffering several severe neurological diseases. The…
More Details Emerge Regarding the Plan to Kill a Supreme Court Justice
by Zachary Stieber, The Epoch Times
(The Epoch Times)—A California man allegedly told authorities that he flew to the East Coast to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, according to newly filed court documents. Nicholas Roske flew across the country from California to Virginia on June 7, 2022, landing just before midnight. He got into a…
First US Death From H5N1 Bird Flu Reported in Louisiana
by Infowars
On the same day Congress certified Trump’s election victory – and with just 14 days before he takes office – the official confirmation of the nation’s first “H5N1-related human death” has been reported in Louisiana. Notably, authorities have made it clear that all we will know about the diseased patient…
Embracing Natural Foods: A Path to Better Health and Healing
by Local News
A diet high in natural foods has many benefits, from reducing the risk of disease and obesity to the vitamins and nutrients that natural foods contain that can aid in the healing of certain health conditions or diagnoses. Using natural foods in our diets is vital for Americans to become…
Dana White Has Joined Meta’s Board of Directors
by Cactus Williams, Discern Report
UFC CEO and long-time friend of Donald Trump, Dana White, has joined Meta’s board of directors alongside Charlie Songhurst and John Elkann. This is just the latest in a series of decisions Meta has made following Trump’s historic electoral victory which seemed to be aimed at cozying up to the…
