Rental firm Hertz Global Holdings (HTZ.O) said on Thursday it would sell about 20,000 electric vehicles, including Teslas, from its U.S. fleet due to higher expenses related to collision and damage, and will opt for gas-powered vehicles.
Shares of the company, which also operates vehicles from Swedish EV maker Polestar among others, fell about 4%. Tesla’s (TSLA.O) stock was down about 3%.
Hertz also expects to book an about $245 million charge related to depreciation expenses from the proposed EV sale in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Hertz’s decision underscores the bumpy road EVs have hit as the growth rate on sales of those vehicles has slowed, causing carmakers like General Motors (GM.N) and Ford (F.N) to scale back production plans of those vehicles.
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas in a note said the car rental firm’s move was a warning across the EV space and it was another sign that EV expectations need to be “reset downward across the market.”
“While consumers enjoy the driving experience and fuel savings (per mile) of an EV, there are other ‘hidden’ costs to EV ownership,” Jonas added.
That’s not an EV problem, but one of infrastructure.
This is like complaining about useless combustion engines when driving somewhere with no gas stations…
If the infrastructure doesn’t support EVs for a journey, that’s an EV problem.
The argument here is always that EVs need to solve a problem to become viable. No, they don’t. They don’t need to develop EVs with insane ranges to adapt to a non-existent infrastructure.
That’s just diversion. Fix the infrastructure instead of pretending that EVs need fixing imaginary problems first.
Only partially, inaccuracy in range estimations are certainly an EV problem.