Update: Lede paragraph date revised to Thursday to reflect accuracy.
Hertz gave several updates on its fleet of Tesla and Polestar all-electric vehicles, which it started offering to customers earlier this year, during its Earnings Call for Q2 2022 held on Thursday.
Hertz expanded its EV offerings to sixteen new cities earlier this month and has experienced widespread success in its EV fleet.
Initial Order of 100,000 Teslas
Hertz initially ordered 100,000 Tesla Model 3 and Model Y vehicles in October 2021. The move was Hertz’s introduction into EV adoption, which has expanded to other automakers, including Polestar, who announced a 65,000 unit deal with the rental agency just months later. The 100,000 vehicle deal was not offered at a discount. However, Hertz has maintained that its adoption of Teslas has resulted in a dramatic spike in interest from renters.
“With respect to EV specifically, over 15,000 Uber drivers to date have rented a Tesla from Hertz, at a minimum rate of $334 per week, comprising over half a million transaction days,” company CEO Stephen Scherr said. “Driver feedback has been positive and they remain drawn to the opportunity as gasoline prices remain elevated and demand for the service among Uber customers is strong. Our Tesla’s enabled Uber drivers could differentiate themselves and to improve upon the quality of their riders experience, and that translates into higher earnings for them.”
20,000 Teslas and Polestar EVs Delivered
Hertz detailed on the call that it has accepted around 20,000 electric vehicles in its fleet since it started taking deliveries of its various EVs. Scherr continued that deliveries are ongoing.
Maintenance Reductions
Electric vehicles are most often noted for their drastic reductions in service compared to combustion engine vehicles, which results in more savings over the lifespan of the car due to fewer moving parts. Hertz is learning that lesson pretty easily, according to Scherr, who stated the company is seeing a roughly 50 to 60 percent decrease in maintenance costs:
“On maintenance, I think Kenny said to you, we are running kind of 50% to 60% of what maintenance costs are on ICE vehicles. That’s roughly in line with where we are. If there’s anyone surprised, it’s probably a slightly higher expense on tires, but not much more, and that’s embedded in the figure I’m giving you. So I would say, overall, we are very pleased with the results. They’re coming in roughly in line with what we thought when we first underwrote the move in this strategic direction.”
Additionally, Kenny Cheung, Hertz’s CFO, also commented on the maintenance cost reductions:
“As for the primary drivers of the year-on-year increase, we experienced higher cost and transportation and fuel, reflecting the effect of broader inflationary trends as well as in maintenance on order fleet. We expect maintenance expenses to moderate as our fleet continues to grow younger. On the forward, we anticipate additional operating leverage as more expensive third-party labor strategically replaced with Hertz employees and we further reduced maintenance expense as we rejuvenate the fleet and continue to grow our number of EVs.”
Return Customers
Scherr said that customers seem to be more interested in renting Teslas over and over again, which has translated to an increase in repeat clients for the company. “I think we have schooled our customers on how to use them, so much so that I think there’s an embedded tether there,” he said, referring to Tesla’s key card. “They’re coming back to use the car and rent the car more frequently. And I think all of those are expressions of the first mover edge that we have around EVs.”
Consumers may be hesitant to try a new, technologically-advanced product, especially when dealing with a car. However, it seems that once Hertz’s rental clients make the jump to try an EV, they’re much more likely to come back simply because of the ease of access and features.
Less Vehicle Depreciation
Company executives also stated that the depreciation of EVs in their rental fleet is moving at a slower pace than its ICE vehicles. Cheung said that the performance of the EV fleet early on has the company “more confident” in the economics of the BEVs compared to their ICE offerings.
This is comparable to the scenario that police departments have when purchasing an EV. Initially, the cost of a quality electric vehicle is somewhat higher than an ICE vehicle. Over time, as fuel costs, maintenance, and other costs pile up, the EVs will be more advantageous to Hertz and other adoptees in the books. The cost of savings is exponentially more in an EV compared to an ICE car. This has been proven on several occasions, including with the Westport, Connecticut Police Department.
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Tesla has taken home the “Overall Loyalty to Make” award from S&P Global Mobility for the fourth consecutive year, reinforcing Tesla owners’ willingness to come back. The 2025 awards are based on S&P Global Mobility’s analysis of 13.6 million new retail vehicle registrations in the U.S. from October 2024 through September 2025. The complete list of 2025 winners includes General Motors for Overall Loyalty to Manufacturer, Tesla for Overall Loyalty to Make, Chevrolet Equinox for Overall Loyalty to Model, Mini for Most Improved Make Loyalty, Subaru for Overall Loyalty to Dealer, and Tesla again for both Ethnic Market Loyalty to Make and Highest Conquest Percentage.
Tesla’s streak in this category started in 2022, and the brand has now won the Highest Conquest Percentage award for six straight years, meaning it keeps pulling buyers away from other brands at a rate no competitor has matched. Tesla’s retention among Asian households reached 63.6% and among Hispanic households 61.9%, rates that significantly outpace national averages for those groups. That breadth of appeal across demographics adds a layer of significance to a win that some might dismiss as routine.
The timing matters too. After several consecutive quarters of decline, Tesla’s share of U.S. EV sales jumped to 59% in Q4 2025. That rebound, arriving just as competitors were flooding the market with new models and incentives, suggests Tesla’s loyalty numbers are not simply the result of limited alternatives. Buyers are still choosing it when they have plenty of other options.
What keeps Tesla owners coming back has a lot to do with the and convenience of charging. The Supercharger network is the most straightforward example. With over 65,000 Superchargers globally, it remains the largest and most reliable fast-charging network in the world, and owners who have built their routines around it face a real practical cost when considering a switch. Competitors have made progress, but the consistency, speed, and availability of Tesla’s network is still the benchmark the rest of the industry is chasing. Then there is the software side. Tesla has built a model where the car you own today is functionally different from the car you bought two years ago, through over-the-air updates that add continuous game-changing improvements such as Full Self-Driving that has moved from a driver-assist feature to an increasingly capable autonomous system. For many Tesla owners, leaving the brand means starting over with a car that will not get meaningfully better over time, and that is a trade-off fewer and fewer are willing to make.
Tesla Robotaxi services in Austin have been operating since last Summer, but Tesla has admittedly been delayed in its expansion of the geofence, fleet size, and other details in a bid to prioritize safety as new technology rolls out.
But those barriers are being broken with new guardrails being removed from the program.
Tesla has achieved a significant advancement in its autonomous ride-hailing program. As of May 4, the Robotaxi fleet in Austin, Texas, has begun operating unsupervised during evening hours for the first time. This expansion moves beyond previous limitations that restricted unsupervised service to daylight hours, typically ending in mid-afternoon.
Tesla Robotaxi in Austin is operating unsupervised in the evenings for the first time today.
Previously in Austin, unsupervised operation ended mid-afternoon
— Robotaxi Tracker (@RtaxiTracker) May 4, 2026
The change brings Austin in line with operations in Dallas and Houston. Those cities have supported evening unsupervised runs since their initial launches in April, and both recently received additions of new unsupervised vehicles to their fleets. This coordinated progress across Texas strengthens Tesla’s regional presence and provides a broader testing ground for the technology.
This milestone carries substantial weight in the development of autonomous vehicles. Extending operations into low-light conditions meaningfully expands the Robotaxi’s operational design domain (ODD)—the specific environments and scenarios in which the system is approved to operate safely without human intervention.
Nighttime driving presents unique technical demands: diminished visibility, headlight glare from oncoming traffic, reduced contrast for identifying pedestrians and lane markings, and greater variability in camera sensor exposure.
Tesla’s pure vision approach, powered by neural networks trained on vast real-world datasets rather than lidar or pre-mapped routes, must handle these variables reliably. Demonstrating consistent unsupervised performance after sunset validates the robustness of the end-to-end AI stack and its ability to generalize across diverse lighting conditions.
Beyond technical validation, the expansion holds important operational and economic implications. Evening hours often coincide with peak urban demand for rides, including commutes, dining, and entertainment outings.
Enabling service during these periods increases daily vehicle utilization, allowing each Robotaxi to generate more revenue while gathering additional high-value training data. Higher utilization accelerates the virtuous cycle of data collection, model improvement, and further ODD growth.
Looking ahead, this step paves the way for more ambitious rollouts. Success in low-light environments positions Tesla to pursue near-24-hour operations, potentially integrating highways and expanding into varied weather patterns. Regulators worldwide frequently demand evidence of safe performance across day-night cycles before granting wider approvals.
Proven capability in Texas could expedite deployments in planned cities such as Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas during the first half of 2026.
Tesla confirms Robotaxi expansion plans with new cities and aggressive timeline
Moreover, scaling evening service supports Tesla’s long-term vision of a high-efficiency robotaxi network. Greater fleet productivity lowers the cost per mile, making autonomous mobility more accessible and competitive against traditional ride-hailing.
As the company iterates on software updates informed by nighttime data, reliability is expected to compound rapidly, unlocking denser urban coverage and longer-distance trips.
In summary, the introduction of an unsupervised evening Robotaxi service in Austin represents more than an incremental schedule adjustment. It signals a critical maturation of the underlying technology and sets the foundation for broader geographic and temporal expansion.
With Texas operations gaining momentum, Tesla is steadily advancing toward transforming urban transportation at scale.
Cybertruck
Tesla Cybercab just rolled through Miami inside a glass box
Tesla paraded a Cybercab in a glass display at Miami’s F1 Grand Prix event this week.
Tesla set up an “Autonomy Pop-Up” at Lummus Park in Miami Beach from April 29 through May 3, 2026, embedded within the official F1 Miami Grand Prix Fan Fest. The centerpiece was a Cybertruck towing the Cybercab inside a glass display case marked “Future is Autonomous,” rolling through the beachfront crowd.
Miami is on Tesla’s confirmed list of cities for robotaxi expansion in the first half of 2026, making the promotion a strategic promotion that lays groundwork in a target market.
This was not Tesla’s first time using Miami as a showcase city. In December 2025, Tesla hosted “The Future of Autonomy Visualized” at its Miami Design District showroom, coinciding with Art Basel Miami Beach. That event featured the Cybercab prototype and Optimus robots interacting with attendees. The F1 pop-up this week marks Tesla’s return to Miami and follows a pattern Tesla has been running since early 2026. Just two weeks before Miami, Tesla stationed Optimus at the Tesla Boston Boylston Street showroom on April 19 and 20, directly on the final stretch of the Boston Marathon, letting tens of thousands of runners and spectators meet the robot for free, generating massive earned media at zero advertising cost.
Tesla is sending its humanoid Optimus robot to the Boston Marathon
Tesla has confirmed plans to expand its robotaxi service to seven cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas, building on the unsupervised service already running in Austin. Musk has said he expects robotaxis to cover between a quarter and half of the United States by end of year. On the production side, Musk told shareholders that the Cybercab manufacturing process could eventually produce up to 5 million vehicles per year, targeting a cycle time of one unit every ten seconds. Scaling robotaxis to 10 million operational units over the next ten years is a key condition of his compensation package, alongside selling 20 million passenger vehicles.
As for the Cybercab’s price, Musk has said buyers will be able to purchase one for under $30,000, with an average operating cost around $0.20 per mile. Whether those numbers hold through full production remains to be seen.
Cybercab at F1 Fan Fest in Miami
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Tesla owners keep coming back for more
Tesla Robotaxi service in Austin achieves monumental new accomplishment
