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Hertz orders 100k Teslas

bloomberg.com

321–330 of 516 posts

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#321

Tesla surges by over $100B on a $4B (revenue) deal, likely at very low margins. Memes galore.

This isn't just a very profitable deal for Tesla, it is a strong indicator towards that electric cars are really around to stay and that the electric car market is growing quickly. If it is more profitable for Hertz to buy Teslas than other brand cars, it should be for most car rentals and probably also most other customers.

Not too long ago Elon talked about Tesla making up to 20 million cars per year in 2030. That would make Tesla twice as large as VW, the currently largest car manufacturer. Of course this statement was treated as Elons typical optimism, but deals like this pave the way to that actually coming true.

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people are doing the math on car TCO finally. If nothing goes wrong, the first two-three years are practically free for an EV. Home charging costs pennies and if you're really stingy you can use free public chargers. Then you might need a new set of tires maybe a quick maintenance at the dealership and you're good for a few years again.

With Electricity prices topping $0.30/kWh in many places, this is no longer true... Unless you also have solar panels at home and want to have the hassles of making sure your EV only charges on sunny days, you're going to be paying rates for electricity close to rates for dinosaur-fuel, especially if you're comparing to a modern 60 mpg gas car.

But even at those electricity prices, the cost per mile is still cheaper than with an ICE car. And fuel prices are going to raise further with higher carbon taxing.

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you his the accelerator steady, you can easily keep a pretty constant speed. It's not like you have to either be slamming on the accelerator or completely off the accelerator, you can keep it constant and hold a speed. I really prefer single pedal as with just the single pedal I get far more control of my speed than if I had to switch between two pedals. Want to slow down a little? Just ease up a little. Want to g…

Oh my, this reminds me of a Lyft I got home from the airport once. The driver didn't know how to hold the throttle steady and was constantly on and off the gas for the entire 15 mile drive back home on the interstate. I was nauseous and nearly puking by the time I got home, even sitting in the front passenger seat because I'm already prone to motion sickness. I'm hoping their car was actually broken in some way, beca…

A certain kind of driver does this. It's as if they live in a binary world. Either "go faster" or "go slower".

Can't be good for their gas mileage (and hence profits!)

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#324

How wonder how Hertz intends to handle turnaround delays. If I turn in an ICE car at noon, they can clean and gas it and (as a guess) a new customer can drive away in it at 12:15. With an electric, filling it with energy could take quite a long time. I'm sure Hertz considered that, but I wonder how that works into their calculations.

hahaha, me picking up a rental: sales dude: you want to prepay for that full tank of gas, super cheap only for you my friend, just today me: no sales: if it's not full it's going to cost 50% more me: no sales: look at the gas station prices me: I never return with completely empty tank so whatever savings get wasted on the fuel I gift you on return sales: but it's so much cheaper :%s/gas/electricity/g

actually, I nearly always buy the tank because my time is worth more than , it's one less thing to stress about, and the refill prices are really punitive and when it's on your dime, they top it up.

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#325
post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, the major car manufacturers' dealership networks are franchises . Yes, they have massive financial arms but they are for financing the vehicles, not for insurance.

Car manufacturers aren't by an large allowed to own dealerships in the United States. The point is, the number of dealerships is a good proxy for demand and sales. Also, dealerships by and large don't make much money on the sale of cars (due to having to purchase the cars from the manufacturer), but rather they make their money on the service and repair of cars. Even then, they're not really rolling in the dough. Gen…

It's not a good proxy for comparing demand and sales between Tesla and, say, GM. GM has a network of franchisees and Tesla doesn't, because Tesla wants the profits (sales, service, whatever) for themselves, but state laws won't let them own dealerships.

So, if you want to compare GM and Tesla's market caps, you need to lump the appropriate fraction of GM's franchisees' market caps in with GM's in order to make them comparable.

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming the rental market is at least somewhat comparative I doubt this will happen. When you return a ICE car partially empty someone has to either bring gas to the vehicle or drive the vehicle to a pump. Even though this is probably on-site it is very labor intensive and most rental places are pretty low staff. I could see future EV ones being entirely self service. Anyway an EV can just be charged where you park…

Estimates are that each supercharger slot costs Tesla over $100,000 for permitting, install, equipment. Have you been to a rental car company lately? Most don't give the impression of being flush with cash. In order to get the best charging speed and turn your cars around, do you see them laying out $100K per vehicle/slot?

Hmm, I cannot imagine why it would cost $100K for a super charger unless they are for some reason much more expensive then regular chargers. And again the marginal cost per charger has got to be an order of magnitude lower than the first charger because trenching is very expensive but each parking space isn't very far from each other. i.e I'm guessing that putting a handful of superchargers in a lot of different places is much more expensive than putting a lot of chargers in one location.

In any case, I know that regular charger's are very simple they are really just glorified relays so it might make sense to use non-superchargers if they are actually much more expensive.

Sure most rental places aren't cash heavy ATM but they aren't the ones buying 100k Tesla vehicles.

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#327

I am wondering if such a big order comes with a special deal with Tesla for "rental app" or special "rental mode" in Tesla app. As a Tesla owner I would like to carry over all my personal settings and customizations to cars I rent and I would prefer to use familial Tesla app to unlock and control car.

Elon has tweeted that something like this is coming: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1452683841903202304

Though, he has also tweeted many other things that have yet to become reality...

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people are doing the math on car TCO finally. If nothing goes wrong, the first two-three years are practically free for an EV. Home charging costs pennies and if you're really stingy you can use free public chargers. Then you might need a new set of tires maybe a quick maintenance at the dealership and you're good for a few years again.

With Electricity prices topping $0.30/kWh in many places, this is no longer true... Unless you also have solar panels at home and want to have the hassles of making sure your EV only charges on sunny days, you're going to be paying rates for electricity close to rates for dinosaur-fuel, especially if you're comparing to a modern 60 mpg gas car.

Which cars are 60 mpg?

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#329

I was very pessimistic about Tesla and confused by their stock price. But I now believe that they indeed are doing it and that we’re finally at the EV revolution. I’m not an early adopter type and the Teslas don’t excite me at all, but I’m really delighted that the market is evolving. I’m delighted that I was wrong.

I've always been optimistic about the EV (and solar and battery) revolution, but I still don't understand the Tesla share price.

If there genuinely is going to be a revolution, then Tesla can't own it all.

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#330

Tesla surges by over $100B on a $4B (revenue) deal, likely at very low margins. Memes galore.

That's only if you consider this a one time thing. Those 100K vehicles are going to need replacement in a few years. And considering, Hertz's stock price increase, investors are clearly believing this is a great deal for them. Which raises the question about where all their competitors will be buying their EVs. There are millions of rental vehicles. Close to 2M in the US alone.

The reasons Hertz is considered to be getting a great deal here by investors is that EVs retain their value a lot better and are known to have much lower maintenance overhead. So, they'll get more miles out of them before they have to sell them on, get back more when they do, and be able to charge a premium for them at the same time. In a market where margins are razor thin, that's a big deal.

It's more a question of when than if their competitors will be lining up to buy some EVs. They'll have to. And then of course the next question is which one they'd be buying. The answer for the next few years is that Tesla is one of the few companies that has both product and manufacturing ready for volume production. Of course a few other manufacturers might make some nice money here too.

So, investors are thinking that Tesla could end up supplying many hundreds of thousands of vehicles for rental per year in the next few years. On top of their other business, which is also continuing to grow at a very nice pace. They'll likely need a few new factories for this but they've shown they can deliver those as well.

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