The rental car company is reportedly modifying a 2022 purchasing agreement — and putting a pause on EVs
Plenty of people have their gripes with electric vehicle ownership. Truck people don’t think they’re powerful enough. People who live in cold climates complain that they can’t handle winter weather. Tesla $TSLA owners wonder which recall is coming next. Hertz, on the other hand, is worried about what happens when they’re done owning electric vehicles.
The Financial Times reported Monday (Feb. 5) that the rental company’s chief executive Stephen Scherr told Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath last August that it was pausing new purchases of the Swedish automaker’s cars, in part because it’s so difficult to get rid of them when the time comes.
Hertz was once much more enthusiastic about EVs as it added them to its fleet: Every recent press release the company has put out that isn’t about financial or personnel news is about electric vehicles. But the company has found that frequent, costly repairs are too much to deal with — and for that reason, it started selling off a bunch of its Teslas for cheap last year.
Per the FT, Polestar will give Hertz some slack on a purchasing agreement the two companies signed in 2022 if it promises not to unload the cars it has already bought too early for too little money. Neither company immediately responded to a Quartz request for comment.
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