<story><title>How Hertz’s bet on Teslas went sideways</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-04-03/hertz-htz-selling-electric-cars-ends-its-failed-tesla-bet</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jjulius</author><text>&amp;gt;PR more than anything.&lt;p&gt;Tesla doesn&amp;#x27;t believe in PR[1].&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;electrek.co&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;28&amp;#x2F;elon-musk-no-new-tesla-pr-department-manipulating-public-opinion&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;electrek.co&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;28&amp;#x2F;elon-musk-no-new-tesla-pr-dep...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>ado__dev</author><text>PR more than anything. Tesla growth story is pretty much over, many people turned off the brand for a multitude of reasons (Musk, terrible service, price, lack of innovation, more EV competition). So if anything a good opportunity for Tesla to win some PR, potentially expand partnership, sell more cars.&lt;p&gt;Now they get more bad news &amp;quot;rental company dumps Tesla because of XYZ&amp;quot;, the used market took a big hit as well pissing off existing owners, and I feel like this pushes newer buyers even more away.</text></item><item><author>LeafItAlone</author><text>In what way would that have benefited Tesla more than the current situation?</text></item><item><author>JumpCrisscross</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Tesla lowered prices forcing them to recognize the depreciation&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m surprised Tesla and Hertz couldn&amp;#x27;t work out a deal, &lt;i&gt;e.g.&lt;/i&gt; reimbursement or a large discount on additional purchases that would wipe out the accounting charge. Rental vehicles are a sales channel for new vehicles. And every Hertz Tesla being dumped on the secondary market is new-vehicle profit Tesla could have booked.</text></item><item><author>xenadu02</author><text>The article posits charging as the problem but that&amp;#x27;s not actually true.&lt;p&gt;The issue was twofold:
1. Repair cost and parts availability. Fleet damage was more expensive to repair and took longer. That means more of the fleet is offline at any given time and cost to operate is a bit higher.
2. Tesla lowered prices forcing them to recognize the depreciation. The cars resale value dropped faster than they anticipated.&lt;p&gt;Car and RV rental companies have this problem. People don&amp;#x27;t want to rent ragged out vehicles. In the case of RVs units for rental are built extra cheap so they don&amp;#x27;t last anyway. The model is get more in rent then you lose in depreciation then dump the vehicle. In the case of RVs they often turnover the entire fleet yearly.&lt;p&gt;The real killer was no doubt depreciation. That breaks the whole rental car model.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Spooky23</author><text>They didn’t believe in advertising either, but I’m getting alot of it.</text></comment>
<story><title>How Hertz’s bet on Teslas went sideways</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-04-03/hertz-htz-selling-electric-cars-ends-its-failed-tesla-bet</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jjulius</author><text>&amp;gt;PR more than anything.&lt;p&gt;Tesla doesn&amp;#x27;t believe in PR[1].&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;electrek.co&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;28&amp;#x2F;elon-musk-no-new-tesla-pr-department-manipulating-public-opinion&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;electrek.co&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;28&amp;#x2F;elon-musk-no-new-tesla-pr-dep...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>ado__dev</author><text>PR more than anything. Tesla growth story is pretty much over, many people turned off the brand for a multitude of reasons (Musk, terrible service, price, lack of innovation, more EV competition). So if anything a good opportunity for Tesla to win some PR, potentially expand partnership, sell more cars.&lt;p&gt;Now they get more bad news &amp;quot;rental company dumps Tesla because of XYZ&amp;quot;, the used market took a big hit as well pissing off existing owners, and I feel like this pushes newer buyers even more away.</text></item><item><author>LeafItAlone</author><text>In what way would that have benefited Tesla more than the current situation?</text></item><item><author>JumpCrisscross</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Tesla lowered prices forcing them to recognize the depreciation&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m surprised Tesla and Hertz couldn&amp;#x27;t work out a deal, &lt;i&gt;e.g.&lt;/i&gt; reimbursement or a large discount on additional purchases that would wipe out the accounting charge. Rental vehicles are a sales channel for new vehicles. And every Hertz Tesla being dumped on the secondary market is new-vehicle profit Tesla could have booked.</text></item><item><author>xenadu02</author><text>The article posits charging as the problem but that&amp;#x27;s not actually true.&lt;p&gt;The issue was twofold:
1. Repair cost and parts availability. Fleet damage was more expensive to repair and took longer. That means more of the fleet is offline at any given time and cost to operate is a bit higher.
2. Tesla lowered prices forcing them to recognize the depreciation. The cars resale value dropped faster than they anticipated.&lt;p&gt;Car and RV rental companies have this problem. People don&amp;#x27;t want to rent ragged out vehicles. In the case of RVs units for rental are built extra cheap so they don&amp;#x27;t last anyway. The model is get more in rent then you lose in depreciation then dump the vehicle. In the case of RVs they often turnover the entire fleet yearly.&lt;p&gt;The real killer was no doubt depreciation. That breaks the whole rental car model.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>FireBeyond</author><text>LOL. Tesla believes heavily in PR, Musk just doesn&amp;#x27;t believe in PR departments.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s why if you&amp;#x27;re involved in a Tesla accident, even a fatal one, Tesla will have no hesitation holding a press conference, pulling vehicle telemetry, to make sure that (rightly or wrongly) blame goes to you as the driver and not Tesla.&lt;p&gt;They&amp;#x27;ll make statements like &amp;quot;Autopilot wasn&amp;#x27;t to blame here. The vehicle had warned the driver of his inattentiveness&amp;quot;, and the Tesla fans will nod their heads, reassured.&lt;p&gt;What will later come out will be that Autopilot was active, and that while a driver attention (steering wheel) warning had occurred on the fateful trip, it had happened ONCE, and that that one time was EIGHTEEN MINUTES prior to the collision.&lt;p&gt;But there won&amp;#x27;t be a press conference to correct those details.</text></comment>