By Steven Symes 
Used EV prices have really taken a beating lately, but Hertz offering to sell some of its rental Teslas for super cheap might throw even more fuel on the fire. Apparently, the car rental service is contacting people who are using electric cars and offering unbelievable deals if they want to simply purchase and keep the vehicle.
Learn about the troubling bump and run carjacking trend.
A Reddit user on the r/HertzRentals subreddit posted a screen capture of an email allegedly sent by Hertz while this person was renting a 2023 Tesla Model 3. In the message, the low-mileage EV is offered to the customer for a mere $17,913.
That’s a screaming deal for a car that’s about a year old and has under 30,000 miles. While some on the thread argue rental vehicles are beat on by customers and not maintained by the companies, one user claims Hertz “take(s) incredible care of their fleet.”
The emails states that the customer could “think of this rental as a test drive” and decide to scoop it up for cheap. It even offers to have the Tesla delivered to the customer if they live far away, or to sell one that’s already closer.
Hertz not only has Teslas in its rental fleet but Polestars as well. One user claims the company offered a Polestar they were renting for the low price of $28,500. In other words, this seems to be a practice with EV rental customers lately.
We already have seen Hertz, which bought a massive fleet of Teslas and Polestars, try to unload a big chunk of its EVs. It allegedly miscalculated how popular the electric cars would be with customers and so is doing a rapid turnaround in its strategy.
As Hertz continues to flood the market with these used electric cars, we can only imagine this will have at least a little downward pressure on prices. The big question is how many customers will actually want to buy the Teslas and Polestars?
Image via Hertz/Facebook