Uber CEO: We hope our drivers end up buying the Teslas they rent through Hertz
Anna Cooban for CNN Business
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said he hopes drivers who rent Teslas through Hertz will eventually end up buying them.
Hertz announced on Tuesday that it had placed an order for 100,000 Teslas as it tries to electrify its fleet. Through a partnership with Hertz, Uber plans to offer 50,000 of them to its drivers to rent by 2023.
“This is an open doorway for our driver community to try it… If you’ve been in a Tesla, I have, once you try it, you want to buy it,” Khosrowshahi told CNN’s Julia Chatterley on First Move Wednesday.
“And that’s what this is all about,” he added.
Khosrowshahi said that its drivers who chose to rent a Tesla through Hertz would receive a $1-a-ride bonus, up to $4,000 a year. Less than 10% of Uber’s drivers rent their vehicles, but they tend to drive more miles, he said.
“This is our way of pushing the economics, and kind of tilting the economics a little bit in favor of sustainability,” he said.
From November 1, Uber drivers will be offered Tesla rental cars through Hertz across four US cities — Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Washington DC — for $334 a week, which includes insurance.
Mark Fields, Hertz’s interim CEO, told Chatterley that the partnership was “helping to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles and sustainable technology and transportation.”
The-CNN-Wire
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