General Motors will supply 175,000 EVs from across multiple brands and segments to support a major expansion of rental company Hertz’s electric line-up in North America.
The collaboration between the two American companies will commence in 2023 with General Motors’ best-known electric cars – the Chevrolet Bolt EV and Bolt EUV.
As the consumer market continues to trend toward EVs, Hertz is anticipating increased demand with this preemptive order of 175,000 EVs over the next five years.
Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr announced it will “dramatically expand” its EV offering to all customers “including leisure and business travellers, rideshare drivers and corporates”.
Bolt EUV
This investment will aid Hertz in its quest to create the largest rental fleet of EVs in North America, which will include electric models from Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac and BrightDrop.
The move from Hertz comes on the back of other investments into the EV market. The company has inked large-scale deals with Tesla (100,000 cars) and Polestar (75,000 cars) since 2021, and is growing its ‘Green Collection’.
Hertz estimates by 2027 its customers will have saved approximately 1.8 million metric tons of CO2 emissions by opting for EVs.
GM chair and CEO Mary Barra claims the partnership is “a huge step forward for emissions reduction and EV adoption that will help create thousands of new EV customers for GM”.
Chevrolet Bolt 
Confident the “rental experience will further increase purchase consideration for EV products and drive growth for the company”, GM will increase its annual production capacity in North America to 1 million EVs by 2025.
GM has been leading its EV charge with its Ultium Platform, a unique architecture involving stackable pouch-style battery cells which “allow engineers to optimise battery energy storage and layout for each vehicle design”.
The American giant’s ability to produce EVs across market segments is in accordance with Hertz’s goal of completing the broadest EV fleet expansion that will span “a wide range of vehicle categories and price points — from compact and midsize SUVs to pickups, luxury vehicles and more”.
While the partnership with GM shows Hertz’s commitment to electric expansion in North America, the addition of the Polestar 2 to Australian fleets indicates the local market will follow suit.
GM Specialty Vehicles is yet to announce an EV for the Australian market, yet the company’s intentions of an ‘all-electric future’ suggest the brand is only heading one way.
