Hertz Is Trying to Leave Gas Behind, But What's Standing in the Way?

pcmag.com:

Hertz is leading the charge to turn rental cars electric. In our most recent three-car, 10,000-mile road trip to find the best mobile network, we devoted our longest leg—a vast 4,500-mile loop around the American West—to driving electric.

We went with Hertz, because we found after some research that it was the only rental company that could make this possible for us.

Three companies—Avis, Enterprise, and Hertz—own almost all of the US car rental market. (Alamo, Budget, Dollar, National, and Thrifty are all owned by those three.) Of them, Hertz is by far the most aggressive in switching to an all-electric fleet. The company has committed to 100,000 Teslas in late 2021(Opens in a new window), followed by 65,000 electric cars from Polestar(Opens in a new window), although both fleets will be distributed globally, not just in the US.

So far, Avis has only hinted at offering electric cars(Opens in a new window), and while Enterprise has "several thousand" in its "exotic car collection," an Enterprise exec told(Opens in a new window) Reuters it has "no immediate plans" to increase the size of that fleet.

Jeff Nieman, Hertz's senior vice president of operations initiatives, told us that Hertz's move is about "being a leader in the future of mobility" and "reducing greenhouse gas emissions." Between the lines of his quite practiced remarks, though, there's a sense that Hertz is trying to skate to where the puck is headed.

"Electric vehicles are increasingly mainstream and demand is growing," Nieman said. "Today, 40% of US consumers say they are likely to consider an electric vehicle the next time they are in the market for a new vehicle, according to Pew [Research Center]. Global EV sales skyrocketed 200% in the last year, and