Hertz made a splash in 2021 when it announced plans to spend $4.2 billion to purchase 100,000 Tesla vehicles, all of which the company hoped would be in its fleet by the end of 2022. However Hertz ended 2022 with less than half that amount, primarily due to the high level of demand that Tesla has been experiencing.
In a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published on Tuesday Hertz said its rental fleet in the Americas peaked at 428,700 vehicles in 2022. Of those 11% were Tesla vehicles, putting the Hertz Tesla rental fleet at approximately 47,000 at the end of last year. (via Yahoo Finance)
As for the reason why the car rental company has less than half the number of Tesla vehicles in its fleet than it said it would by the point appears to primarily be related to supply and demand. As everyone knows demand for Tesla vehicles over the past 12 to 18 months has never been higher, with delivery wait times at some points extending past a full year or more for some configurations. Musk pointed out soon after the deal with Hertz was announced that they would receive no special treatment and would pay the same price as a regular consumer purchasing one car, also putting them in the same line as everyone else.
That high level of demand also led to several price increases since the deal was announced, putting financial pressure on Hertz, which had just exited bankruptcy protection four months prior to announcing their plans to electrify their fleet.
Hertz suggested these could be the reasons why they were not able to purchase all 100,000 by the end of 2022, citing “our ability to purchase adequate supplies of competitively priced vehicles at a reasonable cost in order to efficiently service rental demand, including as a result of disruptions in the global supply chain,” as one of their Risk Factors.
Despite the inability to secure their 100,000 Tesla vehicles, Hertz is pushing ahead with its electrification plans with other EVs. The company also announced deals last year for 65,000 Polestar 2 EVs and 175,000 EVs from General Motors. It has also begun adding its own charging infrastructure to support their fleet of EVs.
Hertz partners with cities to launch “Hertz Electrifies” and transform rental car industry
