Hertz's 100,000-Tesla bet unraveled into $468 million in EV write-downs

Emerging from bankruptcy, Hertz made the most aggressive electrification bet in rental history: an October 2021 order of 100,000 Teslas, estimated at around $4.2 billion and called the largest single purchase of EVs ever, plus orders with Polestar and GM and an exclusive partnership putting part of the fleet on Uber. Then-interim CEO Mark Fields said EVs were 'now mainstream' and that rising global demand had just begun.

By 2023 the company's own filing said the opposite: 'supply of EVs exceeded customer demand.' Hertz decided to offload part of its electric fleet and took a $245 million write-down as the cars' values came in lower than planned. By the end of 2024 it had added another $175 million in write-downs and $48 million in losses on EVs sold — roughly $468 million in hits explicitly tied to the bet, before another $1 billion of impairments it does not break down by powertrain.

Running the cars hurt too: Hertz's 10-K for fiscal 2023 attributed a $646 million increase in direct operating expenses primarily to 'higher collision and damage costs, particularly within the EV fleet' — the risk factors it had listed itself, from weak residual values to unfamiliar drivers crashing. For scale: Enterprise, four to five times Hertz's size, cites only 'several thousand EVs' in its global fleet.

$245 million written down in 2023, another $175 million plus $48 million in disposal losses by end-2024 — $468 million tied to EVs, plus $1 billion in impairments.

The same decision change.archi recorded as the comeback bet is here on its failure ledger: quantified write-downs, disposal losses and damage costs through 2024.

The admission is Hertz's own: a 10-K statement that EV supply exceeded customer demand, and a pledged 'significant' reduction of the global EV fleet.

The damage total is itemized ($245M + $175M + $48M), not a vibe — and the operating-cost blowout is documented in the 10-K.

Named decision-maker (Fields) and contemporaneous quotes let the reversal speak for itself.

A fleet is a commodity position: buying three years of demand upfront at the top of a hype cycle turns every point of residual value and every accident rate into balance-sheet damage.

Hertz spent 2023 and 2024 shrinking the EV fleet it had celebrated in 2021, absorbing the write-downs as it sold cars below plan. Business Insider's verdict: the bet showed American drivers remain reluctant to switch powertrains — though consumers proved willing to pay for an electric car at the right price.