Rental car company Hertz has ordered 100,000 Teslas as part of an ambitious plan to electrify its fleet. A first tranche of Tesla’s Model 3 sedans will be available to rent from Hertz in major US and European markets from early November, said the company in a press statement. The announcement comes just months after Hertz escaped bankruptcy.
After the purchase was announced, Tesla’s stock price reached as high as $998.74 early in the day, increasing its market cap to over $1 trillion before the price dropped again. However, by the time the market closed for the day, its price had risen again, finishing at $1,024.86 per share for a market cap of $1.01 trillion. As CNBC notes, that put it in the rare company of other trillion-dollar market cap companies like Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft.
News of the purchase was first reported by Bloomberg, which says the deal is the single largest order ever for electric vehicles, and worth $4.2 billion in revenue to Tesla. The automaker’s stock was up 4.3 percent on the news in pre-market trading. It was also reported this morning that Tesla’s Model 3 became the first electric vehicle to top monthly sales charts in Europe this September. Earlier this month, the company reported record sales in its third quarter, despite chip shortages denting the automotive market.
