CEO Stephen Scherr resigns after Hertz’s disastrous adventure with EVs Bloomberg informed. He will be replaced by Gil West, former COO of GM’s robotics Cruise division, who will also join the board of directors.
In 2020, a year after bankruptcy, Hertz said it would transform its car rental business. Purchases 100,000 Tesla EVs. “The new Hertz will lead the way as a mobility company, starting with the largest EV rental fleet in North America,” the company said. The announcement helped boost Tesla’s value to $1 trillion.
Scherr joined Hertz after that decision, but increased Hertz’s bet on EVs by also taking orders from Polestar and GM. The company didn’t buy many EVs from these automakers, but it ended up getting about 60,000 units from the three automakers.
After that, though, things took a turn for the worse. Tesla has drastically reduced the prices of its Model 3 and Model Y electric cars. incendiary resale values. Additionally, Hertz said Tesla’s cars are expensive to repair and unpopular with renters.
As a result, the company began offloading 20,000 EVs, roughly a third of its electrified fleet. That resulted in a $245 million charge for Hertz and its biggest quarterly loss since the pandemic. Other car rental firms have also recently ditched EVs, with Germany’s Sixt scrapping its entire fleet.
West, meanwhile, was one of nine Cruise managers fired after the incident that saw the pedestrian. dragged by a cruiser after being hit by another vehicle. Authorities accused company hides a video showing the victim under his car.
