Hertz teams up with BP to install EV chargers across the U.S.

Yahoo Finance Live anchors discuss Hertz and BP teaming up to install EV chargers throughout the U.S.

Video transcript

[AUDIO LOGO]

JULIE HYMAN: Want to move on to Hertz here and what those shares are doing this morning. As we talk about electrification, this is on that note. Up 2%, after the car rental company announced it's teaming up with oil giant BP to install thousands of electric vehicle chargers in the US. Hertz has already had thousands of EVs available for rent at about 500 of its locations. And the company plans to have electric vehicles make up a quarter of its fleet by the end of 2024.

Of course, BP isn't just an oil giant, it has a lot of BP-branded gas stations as well. And so, you know, that's where this partnership comes from. But as we've talked about before, one of the things that's been holding back EV adoption, to some extent, is the lack of charging stations. So now we got some.

BRIAN SOZZI: We're supposed to be critical of all companies, that just comes with our gig. But I have to say, I just like what Hertz is doing. They signed that deal with Tesla. Signed a recent deal with General Motors. Signed a deal with Polestar. Now, this.

They are laying the groundwork, I would argue, before many of their competitors for that EV future. And this BP deal makes a lot of sense. A lot of sense.

BRAD SMITH: It might be one of the most significant kind of peak to trough or trough to peak, we should say, turnaround stories.

BRIAN SOZZI: Yes.

BRAD SMITH: Because this is a company also that was staring down the face of bankruptcy in the depths of the pandemic. And at a time where they were waiting for so much of the demand to actually come back on the corporate travel side so that they would see even higher rates, not just of rentals but at the spend level, for so many of these consumers, even though you were seeing people opt for rental cars over the course of the pandemic versus some of the mass transportation options.

So they still had that backdrop. But then it was about investing in the future, which they are squarely doing. And then eventually, able to relist on the NASDAQ with ticker symbol HTZ, which we're tracking here.

And so there is a huge kind of difference in the Hertz that we knew before and the Hertz now that's looking at where they can really woo that next generation of consumers that are gonna continue to rent, and looking for cleaner options to rent as well, given the different cities that they may be navigating, moving in and out of. And it's really gonna be in that electric vehicle capacity.

BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah, I was just out in San Francisco for the past two weeks. And you couldn't get a rental car. It was-- there was clearly-- I passed a couple of rental stations, there were no cars for availability, which really signaled to me, maybe, Hertz, even an Avis, maybe that might be sitting on some pretty good third quarters.

But we're gonna ask Stephen Scherr about this in the 11 o'clock hour-- he's the CEO-- or relatively new CEO, took over earlier this year, of Hertz-- about his turnaround plan in this push to EVs.