Tag: Car

Hertz CEO out following electric car ‘horror show’


New York
CNN
 — 

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 Motors’ 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.

“The execution and marketing of EV’s [by Hertz] was a horror show across the board,” said Daniel Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities who follows the EV market. “It’s a black eye they

Lithonia shop owners frustrated amid string of car, business break-ins

Some business owners in Lithonia are frustrated after a string of burglaries and car break-ins reported near Stonecrest Mall earlier this week. 

Surveillance video caught the crooks in action at a nail shop DeKalb County police said was hit last Sunday morning just after 4 a.m. 

“It’s really heartbreaking, to be honest, because just a couple of weeks ago, our cars got broken into already,” Couture Nails and Spa shop owner Jennifer Pham said. 

Pham told FOX 5 her goal when opening the shop four years ago was to create a tranquil experience for her customers. She says these past few days have been anything but that.

“Coming in, getting their nails and toes done … it’s supposed to feel really relaxing and calm, right?” she said. “They broke in our door at 4:40 in the morning. There’s three guys that came inside really fast.” 

Video showed the suspects taking the cash register, which Pham said was empty. While she told FOX 5 they only got away with two ID cards, damage to the shop’s front desk computer and door amounted to around $3,000.

Pham said break-ins have been an ongoing issue in recent months. First, it was their cars, now it’s her shop and others.

“My auntie’s shop got broken in just right around the corner, five minutes away from here. [It] got broken in two times in just one week,” she recalled. “We feel so unsafe. Like, [we] go to work, our cars parked outside get broken in, and now our shop

Bigger Is Better in India’s Nascent Electric Car Market

(Bloomberg) — In India, where an increasing number of consumers aspire to own bigger cars to cope with the country’s notoriously potholed roads and bad traffic, automakers are betting on low-cost battery-powered SUVs to capture the budding electric vehicle market.

At the nation’s major auto show in New Delhi earlier this month, there was a new breed of EVs taking center stage, with predominately foreign companies looking to muscle in on the nascent electric scene. In a marked shift in rhetoric, local auto bosses were also excitedly talking up the sector’s prospects.

Homegrown manufacturers Tata Motors Ltd. and Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. are now jostling with Chinese giants BYD Co. and SAIC Motor Corp. and South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co. Even India’s biggest automaker Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., which had previously largely pooh-poohed EVs, showed a compact electric SUV it says will hit the market in 2025.

Demand for smaller SUVs has been surging in India. They’re suited for the country’s driving conditions, which can vary vastly from smooth multi-lane freeways to rutted streets crowded with rickshaws, dogs and cows. They also offer aspirational buyers an important, yet affordable, status symbol, perching drivers above the masses. And while larger electric SUVs tend to be inefficient (and expensive) because they require bigger and costlier battery packs, their compact equivalents are built on small-car platforms, making them more cost effective.

“The conundrum for electric vehicles is lighter is better, but customers want SUVs,” says Andy Palmer, the former CEO of Aston Martin who also helped spearhead Nissan Motor Co.’s creation of the Leaf, one of the first mass market EVs. “Using a small-car platform to build an electric SUV meets the sweet spot for both manufacturers and consumers,” he said, citing the example of Volkswagen AG using the ID.3 hatchback platform to