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Hertz orders 100k Teslas

bloomberg.com

311–320 of 516 posts

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#311
post #199

Electric cars are actually a very good fit for many rentals. Thinking through my last 5 rentals. A wedding that was 1 hour from an airport, ~100 miles RT. A ski trip where I wanted to drive from Denver to my AirBnB near Winter Park Colorado, ~200 miles RT. A hiking trip where I needed a second car for a point-to-point car shuttle (New Hampshire!), ~120 miles RT. A bachelor party where I needed to drive from the airpo…

On long trips, there may be one or more Hertz locations near your route. If all of them stock electric cars, Hertz could offer a premium offering where you change cars along the way...

If Hertz offers up their locations as supercharger locations... that's a LOT of locations to add to the supercharger network with a willing partner to help finance it and maintain it.

Kind of like how the dealer networks, which SHOULD be a massive advantage for Ford/GM to place chargers (and shadow market cars) and build out a huge charging network... well, that's not happening because dealers hate EVs.

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla’s stock price is confusing if you compare them to a car company. But they are not just a car company. They are also a car manufacturing supply chain, having brought much of their component production in house. They are also an energy company, both generation and storage, but also distribution, like gas stations. Think Exxon, BP, Chevron, ARCO, etc. They are probably a few other things, but this is the mystery o…

For the record, their market cap is also greater than "Australia's Woodside Petroleum, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Imperial Oil, Royal Dutch Shell, Shell Energy North America, Canadian Natural Resources, ConocoPhillips and French group Total [combined]" [1], so they're also valued kind of crazy compared to energy companies...and that was in January 2021 before the most recent spike. Sure, part of that is faith in renewable…

With many developed countries passing laws to ban the sales of petrol and diesel passenger cars by 2030 or 2035, do all the companies you mention actually have a strong future of growth?

Do you want to buy stocks in companies that have a strong future of growth, or who have always made a lot of money doing one thing, and expect to keep making money doing that same old thing, even though it's clearly not going to last.

While they're not going to die overnight, I suspect they're not going to be worth all that much by 2050, and ~nothing by 2075.

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name a mass market international car manufacturer that doesn't have a worldwide dealership network and an absolutely massive financial arm?

Most other OEMs don’t own much dealers. Tesla is more like Apple by owning their own retailers and controlling the whole value chain.

[deleted]

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#314
post #236

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.

Note, the EV revolution and Tesla being the winner of the EV revolution are different outcomes. They're certainly winning the EV race now, but it's possible that some of the other car companies can overtake them.

This line of reasoning reminds me the time when Android came out and people were predicting the imminent death of then-newborn iOS. Tesla is Apple of car manufacturing. That much is pretty obvious if you drive one of their cars. They seemingly deliberately depart from what everyone else is doing. And my bet would be that they'll continue to do so, and continue building out technological capabilities that no other manufacturer would even be able to imagine, let alone build, such as e.g. their own AI training silicon, new battery tech, material science stuff, deeper automation of manufacturing, etc, etc.

That said, I don't understand their stock price either, even in the light of all that, so I don't own any of their stock.

But my next car will be a Cybertruck. Once you go electric there's really no going back. And that's how it ought to be in general: green options _must_ be better all around (perhaps with the exception of price, though I'm sure price differential will go down over time), not a fucking "tofurky" style garbage that no one would buy if it wasn't "green". Because you can make people tolerate things "for the greater good", but you can't make them like things that suck, at least not for long.

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#315

Electric cars are actually a very good fit for many rentals. Thinking through my last 5 rentals. A wedding that was 1 hour from an airport, ~100 miles RT. A ski trip where I wanted to drive from Denver to my AirBnB near Winter Park Colorado, ~200 miles RT. A hiking trip where I needed a second car for a point-to-point car shuttle (New Hampshire!), ~120 miles RT. A bachelor party where I needed to drive from the airpo…

When you bring a gas car back empty, you get charged heavily. Wonder how the pricing and will be affected by the juice left in when you return it. And how their scheduling manages it. Also, will “FSD” be enabled or disabled? There’s an interesting liability chain.

When you bring an electric car back empty, it will get charged heavily :)

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also reported that model 3 sales in Europe for the month was just shy of 25k which is the first time an EV topped monthly sales. Renault Clio on spot #2 with 18k sold. Interesting considering the price of the tesla….

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.

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#317
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note, the EV revolution and Tesla being the winner of the EV revolution are different outcomes. They're certainly winning the EV race now, but it's possible that some of the other car companies can overtake them.

The bear thesis for Tesla has been something like, "Tesla might have an innovative EV-first design, but when the major manufacturers with a century of manufacturing know-how wake up to EVs, they will drown Tesla in vehicles." I think part of what's driving the increase in Tesla's value is the realization that this thesis was wrong. Tesla is now beating all the established manufacturers at gross automotive margins, an…

Further to this, Ford are only able/planning to make 80,000 electric F-150 pickups in 2024.

So clearly the major manufacturers are not going to beat them on sheer volume either.

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#318
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note, the EV revolution and Tesla being the winner of the EV revolution are different outcomes. They're certainly winning the EV race now, but it's possible that some of the other car companies can overtake them.

The bear thesis for Tesla has been something like, "Tesla might have an innovative EV-first design, but when the major manufacturers with a century of manufacturing know-how wake up to EVs, they will drown Tesla in vehicles." I think part of what's driving the increase in Tesla's value is the realization that this thesis was wrong. Tesla is now beating all the established manufacturers at gross automotive margins, an…

What about China? They really want to win that race, is there a reason they wont be a serious competitor?

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#319

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 give them full credit for their EV technology, but I'm still pessimistic about FSD. How much of the current stock price is hinged on the assumption that FSD is 'right around the corner'? What happens if Elon pushes FSD out and it turns out to be a fiasco, possibly with catastrophic consequences?

Re: Hertz orders 100k Teslas

#320
post #236

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.

Note, the EV revolution and Tesla being the winner of the EV revolution are different outcomes. They're certainly winning the EV race now, but it's possible that some of the other car companies can overtake them.

Norway is the most mature EV market in the world and it's not clear from the sales statistics that Tesla is winning. They sell a lot of vehicles, but not the most (might be winning in profits though).
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