Instead, they have decided to sell 20,000 of them and go back to gas engines.
The reasons are just what the impartial science and policy community warned about; unless you mandate and subsidize the entire ecosystem, electric cars are going to need a long time work. People drive them less than gas-powered cars, which means even the emissions claims don't hold up. Since $4 trillion in solar and wind subsidies have only made a difference in conventional energy of 0.1%, owners pay more for electricity, because the utility company has to convert natural gas to DC, then to AC, then back to DC, losing efficiency the entire time, so users can feel like plugging in is magic.
![](https://www.science20.com/files/images/Tesla%20Roadster.jpeg)
Hertz can maintain cars as affordably as anyone but even for them the maintenance is too expensive. Because the bulk of the supply chain is subsidized, repairs are expensive too. To reduce the possibility of accidents, which were going to be expensive, Hertz limited both torque and speed for renters.
It's a bad look for Tesla, which wants to be seen as the elite brand for renters and was willing to cut a deal for 100,000 cars, now has to watch as its stock drops 3% in a day,
It turns out that rich people are a finite market, which literally everyone with high school understanding of economics could have told the federal and state governments which have pushed these.
Hertz is out $245 million, all renters will pay more in the future due to this government-mandated fiasco, while Ford and General Motors have closed plants and laid off union workers to stick within the revenue they get in subsidies.
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