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  • 00:00I do have Gail West here, the CEO of Hertz and Gill. Great to get some time with you. I do want to talk about the business, but first I have to ask about your finish last night. Cadillac won two hurts. Team Yoda locked out the front row for Lamar. I mean, how did you do it? Oh, it's historic stuff. You know, I'm a big gearhead myself. Race vintage and couldn't be happier. Couldn't be prouder of the team and the partnerships we have. So it's historic stuff at the most historic racetrack in the world. I always ask CEOs, you know, what's the return on investment when it comes to motorsport? Because it's fun. So I get why you want to do it. A lot of people see it maybe as a vanity project, but does it really feed down to the bottom line Is this Does your big Hertz logo on that winning Cadillac make a difference at the end of it? Yeah, it's Racing Motorsports. You know, it's part of our heritage. Hertz has been involved in motorsports longer than I've been alive. You know, me as a customer before I joined Hertz, you know, the 65 Shelby Hertz, G.T., you know that, you know, that drew me to her. So, you know, we're in the car. Business and motorsports are central to that. In terms of your business. We've had some real worries about travel slowdown in demand, maybe softer numbers than you would have wanted in the first quarter. Do you see that picking up now in the second quarter? Yeah, I think at an aggregate level, you know, we still see year over year growth, you know, as far out as we can see. I think the challenge has been the mix has shifted. So, you know, government is down a bit, but leisure travel, which is our kind of highest margin travel is up. So while the mix may shift US inbound government down, there's other other increases in travel as well. Hertz famously built up its fleet of Teslas before you came on as CEO. And I know you've been working to get them down from, I think, about 100,000. How have you worked through that inventory and is that part behind you now? Yeah, Well, I think the whole industry probably went too far too fast with ease for us. Yeah, we've we've rationalized our fleet and we've reduced it, but more importantly, we've rationalized it around where the natural product market fit for each these are. So we've got a great partnership with Uber and Lyft. So on the Ride Hail business that we support, there is a lot of demand for EVs, so we've rationalized most of the EVs that we have around that. We also have them off airport rentals, which is another good product market fit. Much fewer at the airport. You also are one of the biggest sellers of cars and a lot of people don't know that. They think obviously of you as a rental car business. But if we see car prices go up, does that help your business because you can sell cars at a higher price or does it hurt your business because you need to replace them at a higher price? Yeah, I think we look at the buy and the sell. So the difference is what's key for us is an example. One of our strategies around our fleet is to sell more vehicles through retail, which then if you look at what we buy vehicles for, ultimately what we sell them for, you know, it narrows the gap between the two and improves our depreciation. So it's a conscious part of our strategy. You ride not a lot of people know that we sell cars, but we're one of the largest used car dealership ships in the world, so we've grown our capacity to sell through retail channels. We do that ourselves. We digitize the experience, we offer financing, insurance, everything. And then we've got great partnerships in that space as well. But as residual values increase, it certainly helps us in the short run. In terms of you mentioned the airport locations, obviously, and then off airport is helpful. You're getting a lot more competition right now. What does that do to pricing? If you have, say, six coming in to 50 airports across America? Yeah, well, I mean, competition will always face competition. You know, we're positioned well. We've got an iconic brand, been here for over 100 years. For us, we've really focused and leaned into what we call back to basics. But it's run and just a great operational excellence along with enhancing our customer experience. So we're differentiated and people want to rent from Hertz. And then from a competitive standpoint, we've we positioned ourselves well in terms of investors. We just heard from Tom Wagoner. You know, he at night had they have well over 50% stake, I think, in the company. And recently we've seen Bill Ackman get involved as well. Does Bill want to call you up? Does he get you on the phone? Did he give you advice? Yeah. Well, first of all, I mean, we're really happy with his confidence in Hertz and his investment. So we welcome investment. Certainly welcome all ideas. He's included from all quarters, you know, as we're looking to transform the business. So he's got some great insights, he and his team. So we appreciate all the input we can get. How do you transform the business, I think. Of a future where we all get into a car that drives itself. Is that a benefit to you or is that is that a problem for Hertz in the future? Yeah, we're of course, we're a huge fleet manager, right? I mean, we've got, you know, well over half a million vehicles. So if you think about large fleets, asset heavy footprint, operate them globally, you know, carrying, feeding, maintenance of all those vehicles. We're one of the few in the world that can do this at scale. So we're a natural player in the RV space. And so how soon do you expect that to happen? When am I going to go to, you know, my Hertz location at John Glen International Airport in Columbus, Ohio, and get myself a car that can drive me home to Grandville? Yeah, I think it's coming. It's coming quicker than what we have all thought. You know, it's been leading up to the moment, but I think right now, most major cities in the U.S., you're starting to see not just testing, but commercial deployment. So our aim is to be, you know, one of the key players in that market space. All right. Well, you're certainly one of the key players here at the 24 hours Le Monde. It was amazing to see you guys qualifying first and second lock out the front row.
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Hertz CEO at Le Mans: EVs, Autonomy, and What’s Next

June 13th, 2025, 7:22 PM GMT+0000

Matt Miller sat down with Gil West, the CEO of Hertz, to talk about the company's golden performance at Le Mans, how the company is moving past its Tesla EV fire sale and when he expects autonomous driving to hit the main road. (Source: Bloomberg)


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