Hertz CEO on Tesla deal: We want to lead the adoption of electric vehicles
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Interim Hertz CEO Mark Fields is jazzed by the company's big deal with Tesla (which he has secured, despite Elon Musk's Twitter assertions) and is ready to get to work to rebuild the car rental giant.
"We are excited about the Tesla relationship. It's all wrapped around our strategy to lead the adoption of electric vehicles," the former CEO of Ford said on Yahoo Finance Live. Fields is credited with planting the seeds for Ford's EV pivot prior to his departure in 2017.
Hertz said in late October it had ordered 100,000 Tesla Model 3s, expected to be delivered late in 2022. The company is expected to rent out 50,000 of those cars to Uber to support its drive network. Tesla CEO Elon Musk then took to Twitter and said the contract hadn't yet been signed.
But Fields told Yahoo Finance Live all systems are go with Tesla, and that Hertz did order 100,000 Teslas.
"So we are starting a great relationship with Tesla. We are also ready to partner with many other manufacturers to extend our lead in the adoptions of electric vehicles. But clearly we are going to work I think very collaboratively with Tesla. Importantly, our consumers really want to drive Teslas and we want to be there to be able to provide those products for them. We are very excited about the relationship going forward," Fields added.
The EV focus by Hertz will be crucial to it drumming up sustained investor interest after its re-IPO on Tuesday.
Hertz returned to public markets today, after raising $1.3 billion in an offering that priced late Monday. Hertz sold 44.52 million shares at $29 each. It had expected to sell 37.1 million shares in a range of $25 to $29, per its prospectus. The pricing valued Hertz — which exited a high-profile bankruptcy in June — at $13.7 billion.
Shares of Hertz were trading at about $27 Tuesday afternoon.
Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.
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