Hertz dumps CEO following electric car ‘horror show’
CNN
Hertz is replacing its CEO for the fifth time in five years
Trouble and turmoil continue at rental car company Hertz. The company, which announced in January it was selling 20,000 of the electric vehicles in its fleet, or about a third of the EVs it owned, is now replacing the CEO who helped build up that fleet, giving it the company’s fifth boss in just four years. The company announced that Stephen Scherr, who came to the company two years ago after nearly 30 years at Goldman Sachs, is stepping down at the end of this month. He’ll be replaced by Gil West, former chief operating officer of Delta Air Lines and General Motor’s Cruise unit. In the most recent quarter, Hertz took a $245 million hit to its earnings due to a drop in value of the EVs it was selling. While the number of EVs bought by American customers surged 40% last year to top 1 million for the first time, there was less demand than some of the traditional automakers had expected as they moved to offer EVs. Tesla, the leader in US EV sales, started a price war for EVs just over a year ago, driving down the value of both new and used EVs, such as those in Hertz’ fleet. And the drop in prices hit Hertz bottom line since it reduced the money it could expect to get from reselling the vehicles. But the problem for Hertz wasn’t necessarily that the cars were electric, and customers simply do not want to drive electric cars. The problem was how Hertz handled the fleet in general, according to industry analysts.
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