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Originally posted by egregore:

Isn't this a $100K+ car? Who's got that kind of money?

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Hertz Reports $392 Million Loss
Company Continues to Sell Off Tesla Fleet

Hertz Global Holdings Inc. reported a loss that was nearly three times worse than analysts expected as it accelerated sales of electric vehicles to reduce its fleet of Tesla Inc. models that have weighed on profits for the past year.

The company said it lost $1.28 a share, or $392 million, against analyst expectation for a loss of 44 cents a share. The car rental company took a $195 million charge for the depreciation of an additional 10,000 EVs that Hertz is now holding for sale. While the company met revenue expectations, it is trying to quickly work past its failed bet on electric vehicles that resulted in lower rental rates and higher costs.

Shares fell 2.4% at 8:19 a.m. in New York before the start of regular trading. Hertz had dropped 44% this year through the April 24 close.

New CEO Gil West appears to be willing to take bitter medicine in the near term to get the right number of EVs in Hertz’s fleet and reduce the damage the cars are doing to the company’s profits. EVs have higher repair costs than traditional gas-powered vehicles and the values have fallen after Tesla cut prices last year and continued to do so this year.

“Fleet and direct operating costs weighed on this quarter’s performance,” West said in a statement. “We’re tackling both issues.”

“We’ve put the right strategy in place, and I see a clear path for Hertz to generate sustainable and higher earnings for our shareholders,” he said.

That will take time, which means Hertz will spend much of this year unwinding its big bet on electric cars made over the past two years at the behest of controlling shareholder Knighthead Capital Management. Hertz ordered 100,000 Teslas in October 2021 expecting prices to hold steady and for renters to snap them up. The opposite happened.

The company never bought that many and is now trying to sell 30,000 EVs by the end of the year.

Hertz said its monthly depreciation costs soared to $592 per vehicle, an unusually high amount in the rental business. Part of that is because used-vehicle prices rose so much in the comparable period last year when the company made money on some sales. Hertz said that $119 of the monthly per vehicle depreciation was related to the additional EVs that are held for sale.

Collision costs are still an issue. The company’s direct vehicle operating expenses rose 3% to $1.4 billion. If not for collision and repair expenses it would have been flat, the company said.

Besides the company’s EV problems, Hertz performance slumped in other areas. Revenue per day fell 7% to $56.68 and vehicle utilization dropped fell slightly to 76%. Rental companies like to be at 80% or better.

The CEO who doubled down on EVs, Stephen Scherr, stepped down last month. West, the former chief operating officer of General Motors Co.’s Cruise robotaxi unit, has held the top job at Hertz since April 1.

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Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
To Para's point, the entire auto industry has gone full retard for EV's. I've worked in the industry for most of the last 30 years, with the last 21 years in IC engines.

Now Ford is losing a ton of money on EV's, Rivian and others like them will probably go bankrupt, and Tesla is laying off 10% of their people.

The executives aren’t kow towing to climate ideology, ESG, DEI, LGBTQWERTY+!@$# and every other leftist virtue signal they can think of. They refuse to stand up against Biden and the EPA and defend their shareholder's interest. Probably because the large institutional shareholders like Blackrock are calling the shots.

I'm waiting for shareholder class actions against Blackrock and their ilk. They might know how to manage money (maybe), but they are not product designers or manufacturers, or even reasonably technically capable, and have no clue about what they are insisting on.

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The latest 400 hp water engine: better than all hydrogen and the end of electricity
hydrogen engine

Electric cars have hit the brakes across the U.S., with brands like Tesla sinking in sales figures. However, this situation has ceased to be a mystery since we learned about the new water engine, the first of its kind in history. You know what makes it special? Not only its 400 hp, but also that it is a more efficient option than hydrogen in any environment.

New water engine: EVs and conventional hydrogen will be soon replaced

AVL, an Austrian automotive engineering company, has developed an innovative hydrogen combustion engine that could revolutionize motorsports and transportation. Their 400 horsepower prototype engine can run on hydrogen fuel with zero CO2 emissions, providing performance comparable to tradicional ICE.

Unlike other hydrogen engines that run on fuel cells, AVL’s technology utilizes direct hydrogen injection into the combustion chamber. This allows the engine to operate much like a conventional petrol or diesel engine, but fueled by hydrogen. The technology builds upon AVL’s decades of experience in high-performance powertrain.

Early testing shows tremendous promise for racing applications. Motorsports provide an ideal testing ground for developing hydrogen engine technology that could eventually make its way to road cars. AVL’s hydrogen engine offers drivers the sound, emotion and excitement of combustion engines.

This breakthrough demonstrates that high-performance vehicles do not need to sacrifice driving experience in the transition to cleaner energy. AVL’s hydrogen engine technology could pave the way for the motorsport and automotive industries to reduce their carbon footprint dramatically.

The AVL hydrogen engine is based on internal combustion engine (ICE) technology, but with key differences compared to conventional gasoline or diesel engines. Whereas normal ICEs burn gasoline or diesel fuel, AVL’s engine burns hydrogen gas to generate power.

Hydrogen gas is injected into the combustion chamber, then compressed and ignited by a spark plug, just like in a gasoline engine. This combustion of hydrogen and air drives the pistons up and down to produce rotational power. The main byproduct emitted from the exhaust is water vapor rather than carbon dioxide.

There are challenges associated with burning pure hydrogen gas in an ICE. Hydrogen’s flammability range in air and the combustion speed are different than gasoline. This requires adaptations to the fuel injection system, ignition timing, combustion chamber design, and cooling systems compared to a conventional ICE.

AVL’s engineers optimized the hydrogen engine’s design for efficiency and power output. This includes running the engine at a higher compression ratio to take advantage of hydrogen’s faster burn rate. The prototype achieves a thermal efficiency over 50% – significantly higher than an equivalent gasoline engine.

AVL’s prototype hydrogen combustion engine delivers 400 horsepower and was specifically designed and optimized to run on hydrogen fuel. The engine is based on a 2.0 liter 4-cylinder that has been modified to handle the unique properties of hydrogen combustion.

Some key details about the prototype:

It uses direct hydrogen injection into the cylinders for optimal combustion. This allows precise control of the hydrogen-air mixture.

The compression ratio was increased to 14:1, higher than a normal gasoline engine. This takes advantage of hydrogen’s higher autoignition temperature.

Dedicated engine control software was developed to account for hydrogen’s faster burning speed and wider flammability range compared to gasoline.

The cylinder head, pistons, valves and injectors were redesigned to withstand the higher temperatures and pressures of hydrogen combustion.

Lightweight materials like aluminum and titanium were used to offset the lower energy density of hydrogen fuel.

Overall, AVL’s 400hp prototype demonstrates the performance potential of hydrogen in an optimized internal combustion engine. It serves as a platform for further development and is a significant achievement in hydrogen engine technology.

A 400 hp hydrogen engine is not an invention we see every day, and it is certainly set to revolutionize the roads. In this sense, the only question that remains to be clarified is whether it will work as well in icy environments such as Alaska, where it is difficult to perform the combustion mechanism of this fuel. However, it already leaves electric cars far behind, no doubt about it.

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Originally posted by 1s1k:
I don’t think they are cowtowing to any of the people you suggested. Battery prices are something like 1/5 the cost they were when this craze first started and all of the executives are seeing green. I’m not talking about environmental green either. The entire EV is way simpler and much cheaper to produce other than the batteries. Once the batteries drop in half again these cars are going to be way cheaper and much simpler to produce and they won’t be passing all of that savings on to us. The batteries are assembled by robots the engines are like 5 major parts. A gas engine is over 500 parts that mostly gets assembled by humans.

Then you have the government (us) footing the extra bill until the batteries are that much cheaper. It’s a win win for the manufacturers. The problem is they didn’t realize the visceral reaction the American people would have to mandates and they screwed up by starting with very expensive models first.

In just about every developed country other than the U.S. the EV is taking over very quickly and the typical S curve on technology is about a 10% adoption rate. After that the tech just takes off incredibly fast. The U.S. is at something near 8% and climbing despite what the media is now trying to portray because they turned on Elon.

It’s going to happen there’s no doubt about it but it will take longer in the U.S. than anywhere else. If a company would put their money where their mouth is and give a 15 year 300,000 or so battery warranty they would take off way faster. Seventy percent of Americans do not have $800 to fix an emergency repair on their car so a battery failure scares the crap out of people. Take that away and it’s over for 70% of car sales. The manufacturers claim the new batteries are good for a minimum of 500,000 miles so if that’s true a 3 or 400 thousand mile warranty shouldn’t be a big deal.

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Originally posted by pedropcola:
You are off base on almost everything. I have heard that S curve nonsense (if it is misapplied it becomes nonsense) spouted many times. Please enlighten us how that applies to cars that are as expensive as your first house. S curve adoption is pretty predictable when applied to technology. Standalone technology. Internet, cell phones, tablets, computers, etc. You guys are taking a fairly predictable model and just like with “climate change” wildly misapplying it. Cars aren’t phones. Sounds simple yet you step past that salient point like it was nothing.

S curve models don’t include infrastructure. They don’t include city dwellers without access to power. Apartment livers. People who tow. People who drive long distance.

Nothing ever has been forced down societies throat against our will more than EV’s. Nearly to your magical 10% mark and yet the market still is resisting. Most of those cars are being sold to upper middle class families with multiple cars. That’s not adoption, it’s bling. Somebody call PR64 to post another picture of his “mustang” that only works because he is retired, well off, has a garage, and doesn’t drive all that much. Ie, the typical car buyer (sarcasm). (PR64 it is a beautiful car)

You guys also pretend like electric vehicles are magic. Ask any car guy what the hardest type of car malfunction there is to troubleshoot? Electrical. It will make you tear your hair out.

Left to market forces the hybrid is a winner. The pure EV is a loser.

Everyone betting on the EV win is banking on “surefire” tech breakthroughs. It is fucking nuts to listen to you guys telling us to “just wait, when the new batteries go 1000 miles on a 5 minute charge and use seawater in their cells it will be great”. Awesome. What exactly is the date those breakthroughs happen?

This is pure fantasy fueled by greed and subsidized by the taxpayers. None of this happens this way without massive government coercion and mandate.

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Originally posted by PR64:
I’m in a good situation for my EV.

House with a garage.

Solar on the roof.

Tesla power wall.

Charging station in the garage.