Shares of rental car giant Hertz plunged by more than 20 percent on Thursday after the company reported huge losses related to its investment in Electric Vehicles (EVs).
For months, Hertz has been struggling after going all-in on EVs. On Thursday, Hertz executives said it lost $1.28 per share in the first quarter, many times larger than Wall Street’s estimate of a loss of 45 percent per share.
The wider-than-expected loss came even though business was actually busier than expected for Hertz. The company took in $2.1 billion in revenue, slightly outpacing expectations.
In January, Hertz executives announced that they would sell 20,000 EVs from their fleet, which accounts for about 33 percent of the company’s total number of EVs. This week, Hertz executives said they would sell an additional 10,000 EVs from their fleet this year.
In return, the company is buying gas-powered cars, which executives said are in much higher demand than EVs. That lack of demand means delays for Hertz’s plans to buy 175,000 EVs from General Motors (GM) and 65,000 EVs from Polestar.
“Fleet and direct operating costs weighed on this quarter’s performance,” Hertz CEO Gil West said. “We’re tackling both issues — getting to the right supply of vehicles at an acceptable capital cost while at the same time driving productivity up and operating costs down.”
West was named CEO after Stephen Scherr resigned following the EV debacle.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.