US rental giant Hertz is selling off thousands of Teslas as weak demand forces it to replace 20,000 electric cars with petrol-powered vehicles.

Hertz said it would sell the vehicles over the next year and expected to take a $245m (£193m) hit as it reversed plans to massively expand its electric car fleet. The Telegraph has the story.

The company is selling off a range of makes and models but is expected to offload thousands of Teslas. More than 600 are already listed for sale on its used car website.

Three years ago, Hertz announced plans to buy 100,000 Tesla electric cars, a move that pushed Tesla’s market value beyond $1 trillion.

However, Hertz said renting out electric cars had proved to be less profitable than traditional vehicles and the cars had also come with higher repair costs.

Drivers also still want petrol or diesel-powered cars. Hertz said it would “reinvest a portion of the proceeds from the sale of EVs into the purchase of internal combustion engine vehicles to meet customer demand”.

The sell-off, which applies only in the US but amounts to around a third of the company’s global electric vehicle fleet, comes after years of Hertz positioning itself as a “first mover” in electric car rentals.

As well as agreeing to buy 100,000 Teslas, it committed to buying 65,000 vehicles from Polestar, Volvo’s electric subsidiary, and last year it said a quarter of its fleet would be electric by the end of 2024.

However, deliveries to date have been well below those headline numbers.

The company said the decision to sell off thousands of cars was being taken “to better balance supply against expected demand of EVs” and that “this will position the company to eliminate a disproportionate number of lower margin rentals and reduce damage expenses associated with EVs”.

Read the full story here.