Rental car giant Hertz announced their new partnership with Polestar back in April to buy up to 65,000 electric vehicles over the next five years. Now, Polestar 2 EVs are available for Australians to rent through Hertz across many parts of the country.
As part of the local launch, I got to test drive a Polestar 2 EV and learn what this partnership with the Swedish premium electric performance car maker means for Hertz locally as they prepare to provide EV experience to many hundreds of Australians over the coming months.
Access to rent EVs in every Australian State
As part of the test drive, I spoke with Eoin MacNeill, who is the Hertz Vice President for the Asia Pacific region to hear his thoughts on this EV-focused partnership and what it means for everyday Australians.
According to MacNeill, Hertz will “have enough EVs for our consumers to be able to access these vehicles across every state in Australia and from every major airport including Launceston and Hobart.”
And he is sure that the availability of Polestar EVs through the Hertz network will be a big plus for Australians wanting to experience an EV while they are travelling the country.
Australia at the “forefront” of Hertz-Polestar partnership
As part of EV transition of Hertz fleet, I asked a question about the rollout of the Polestar 2 fleet as part of the overall 65,000 global fleet rollout over the next 5 years. The response from MacNeill gave a good glimpse into what’s to come:
“As we work through our partnership with Polestar, we get more allocation for Australia. We’re really excited about the Polestar 2 (as part of this launch) and then following that, obviously, the Polestar 3 when that becomes available, it will be part of our mix”
Polestar 3 will be an SUV EV that many locals could rent through the Hertz network as they become available.
“So globally, the really nice thing for Australia is that we’re very much in front, in terms of the Polestar relationship and rolling out the fleet, including America, and probably the Netherlands, the other two countries that are doing this,” said MacNeill.
MacNeill says the corporate world is also very interested in EVs.
“We’ve got a lot of our corporate customers that are talking to us about, ESG at the moment and how to reduce their footprint. So it’s pretty exciting that we can help them reduce their carbon footprint too (by getting into EVs),” he said.
“And I think the earlier adoption that Hertz is trying to do is to make us preeminent in the space so that we can allow our corporate customers to access EVs just like everyone else”
The role that fleets have to play in reducing transport emissions and increasing EV adoption is quite significant.
Experiencing an EV, as many EV owners would already know, means that it’s very unlikely that you’d consider buying a combustion car again.
The challenge has been experiencing what it’s like to own an EV due to the availability of EVs. This partnership between Hertz and Polestar aims to solve that which helps more Australians get behind the wheel of an EV.
Long term, many of the fleet vehicles are put back on the used car market in a couple of years. This will increase the availability of affordable EVs which we so desperately need to increase further EV adoption.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.