Hertz decides to sell 1/3 of its electric cars and invest in gasoline ones

Several factors recently led car rental giant, Hertz, to decide on selling a third of their total U.S. electric vehicle fleet, or around 20,000 units, and invest in gasoline powered cars.

This decision came in contrast with the company’s goal to have 25% of its fleet replaced by electric vehicles by the end of 2024.

Two reasons played the most important role in this action, the recent depreciation of electric vehicles and considerably higher repair costs than gas cars.

Namely, it is expected that due to depreciation Hertz is going to lose about $245 million in resale value of the vehicles.

In addition to this, the Business Insider reports that the average car repair costs in the last quarter of 2023 were $4,474 for electric vehicles, and $4,205 for everything else, while Teslas had a higher average of $5,552.

Furthermore, the Reuters reports that Sixt, a German car rental company, has also halted its purchase of EVs, while it was going to sell its Tesla fleet too, as part of their regular de-fleeting process.

However, Sixt also announced that it is going to stick to its plan of electrifying 70-90% of their European fleet by 2030.