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This is a wild one. We’ve covered the Hertz decision to buy tens of thousands of Teslas, followed by the Hertz decision to buy tens of thousands fewer Teslas than it originally planned and to sell off most of the ones the company had. We’ve also covered the fact that Hertz set up a used EV website to sell off these cars more effectively. The latest twist in this story, though, is that Hertz is trying to sell these vehicles to customers — to rental customers.
While renting a car — and this goes for Teslas as well as other EVs, like Polestars, and potentially non-EVs, but I haven’t seen reports of that — people are getting emails that say:
Enjoying your rental? Take it home with Hertz Car Sales.
If you’re shopping for a new car, think of this rental as a test drive! If you’re far from home, Hertz Car Sales has locations around the US — or you can have the car delivered.
Someone posted a screenshot of that on reddit. In this specific example, he was being offered a 2023 Tesla Model 3 with fewer than 30,000 miles on it for just $17,913! I got a 2015 BMW i3 for slightly less than that in 2018. It was a REx i3 with 70 miles of electric range and another 60 miles of gasoline range. The EV landscape has improved a lot since then!
But is it a good deal? Well, Jalopnik points out that, “For what it’s worth, there are a ton of used Teslas on the Hertz Car Sales site, but anything priced this cheaply shows well over six digits on the odometer, and isn’t nearly as appealing. It’s unclear if this Redditor just got a particularly good deal, or if Hertz is just trying to sell everything not nailed down before the end of the calendar year.” Interesting. Curious, indeed.
Is this just a clever idea someone came up with to help push cars, or is Hertz desperate and going to extremes to get some of these vehicles off its books?
Circling back to Hertz’ issues with the Tesla rentals, here are some key points in case you missed them:
- Teslas were more likely to get into accidents (which could be from people driving them crazily, due to the company’s marketing, or could be from people not being familiar with them and getting distracted while driving — or both).
- Waiting on repairs was taking way too long (time is money in the car rental biz) and costing too much.
- Maintenance costs were much higher than expected, especially when it came to tires (again, renters were probably burning rubber too often — renting Teslas to “test them out” or even just being tempted by the torque once getting in them).
There was also a big issue at Hertz and other rental car companies in that they were (and presumably still are) renting electric cars without giving renters any tutorial or even video to watch on how to use them and where to charge. There was an epidemic of renters not knowing how to drive the cars or where or how to charge them. I had an experience where someone came up to me at a Tesla Supercharger asking how he could charge his non-Tesla EV rental there. I had to help him find an actual option, but he was far from anything good and not headed in the right direction. It’s complete malpractice how rental car companies have gone about introducing EVs to their fleets without proper education for non-EV owners.
I was very excited about Hertz going electric with its rentals and buying a ton of Teslas. The way the whole thing has gone, though, man … it’s not been good. Hopefully it has at least led to many people experiencing EVs during a rental and immediately being sold on buying one themselves. I imagine that must have happened a fair number of times, despite some obviously bad experiences.
Anyway, if you’re looking to buy a used Tesla, perhaps rent one from Hertz and see if they offer you a wicked low price.
Related story: Wicked Low Prices On Used Teslas — Just A Few Things To Watch Out For
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