by Tina Bellon
(Reuters) – Uber on Wednesday announced a partnership with car rental company Hertz to offer 50,000 Tesla vehicles as a rental option for its drivers by 2023.
Drivers will be able to rent a Tesla electric car through Hertz starting Nov. 1 in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Washington DC. The program will be expanded later this year to cities across the country, the company said.
The Tesla rental, which consists primarily of the Model 3 sedan, will start at $334 per week, including insurance and maintenance. Uber said the rental cost will drop to $299 a week or less as the program expands next year.
Uber’s announcement came just days after Hertz on Monday said it would order 100,000 Tesla vehicles by the end of 2022. News of Tesla’s biggest order ever led to a surge in the stock price, making the value the company’s market share exceeds 1 trillion dollars.
Wednesday’s announcement is Uber’s most significant step so far in expanding the use of electric cars. The company has promised to operate only electric vehicles on its platform in the US, Canada and Europe by 2030 and worldwide by 2040.
But only a few app drivers can afford the higher prices of electric cars. In 2019, only 0.15% of all Uber miles in the US and Canada were driven by electric vehicles, company data showed.
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