In a conference call on Friday regarding Hertz's financial restatements, Hertz CEO John Tague indicated that Hertz will be withdrawing its carsharing service (Hertz 24/7) in the U.S., but it will continue to grow its carsharing programs internationally.
Hertz 24/7 provides self-service vehicle access — cars can be rented by the hour and are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
During the question-and-answer period, Tague was asked about the future of Hertz’s carsharing initiatives. Tague elaborated that the investment in carsharing “isn’t competitive with the return on invested capital in the core business.”
“Hertz was not successful in building scale in its U.S. carsharing business over the last several years,” said Tague. “And it was a very small scale business for us even last year. So we’ve elected in the U.S. to withdraw from carsharing, and we are executing that at this time.”
However, Tague said Hertz will continue to build these programs internationally.
“We are operating successfully with a number of models internationally and intend to continue to expand those models,” said Tague. “We have a profitable operation in Australia. We have a lot of promising business models in Europe that are with key retailers such as IKEA.”
Tague added that the door isn’t completely closed on carsharing in the U.S.: “That’s not to say that it might not be appropriate for us to re-enter the market overtime. But the investment required today to create scale would be very significant, and we are where we are.”
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