After Selling 30,000 EVS, Hertz Is Now Chasing Fleet Rotation To Reduce Losses

Car rental firm Hertz Technologies HTZ CEO Wayne West said on Thursday that it has removed 30,000 EVs from its fleet as planned last year and is planning further fleet revamp.

What Happened: Fleet rotation is now “well underway,” West said.

“…as of year-end 2024, over 60% of our fleet was comprised of vehicles 1-year-old or less, and we remain on track to substantially complete our fleet rotation by year-end 2025,” West said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call.

The aim, he said, is to achieve depreciation per unit per month of less than $300, down from the $539 reported for the twelve months through December end.

The company announced its plan to remove a significant number of EVs from its fleet last year after their repair and operating costs proved too high to eke out profits.

For 2024, Hertz reported a loss of $2.9 billion, or $9.34 a share. The company’s fourth-quarter loss per share of $1.18 missed the consensus estimate of around 70 cents.

CEO Comments: “Through our operational improvements and our fleet management and our effort to sweat the assets, we remain focused on eliminating unproductive vehicles to generate higher utilization,” West said.

“We are working towards turning our vehicles more productively and shortening our vehicle turnaround time from drop-off to rental, reducing vehicle out of service and shortening our vehicle sales cycle times, which drive out waste by leveraging process and technology.”

Why It Matters: For the first quarter of 2025, the company expects earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) to be negative. This would turn positive later in the year after roughly breaking even in the second quarter, company CFO Scott Haralson said.

For full year 2025, the company expects a low single-digit EBITDA margin.

Price Action: Hertz shares closed down 8.5% at $3.9 on Thursday. The stock is down by nearly 50% over the past year, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

Check out more of Benzinga’s Future Of Mobility coverage by following this link.

Read Next:

• Nasdaq-Listed VinFast Records Uptick In 2024 Deliveries But US Figures Unknown

Image Via Shutterstock