Hertz has begun utilizing artificial intelligence to electronically inspect rental vehicles at select locations, with plans to expand the service. The company believes it will boost efficiency and shorten wait times.
Based on its corporate release, the company admitted that it had “always relied heavily on manual inspections conducted in varying conditions.” Pivoting to “machine learning algorithms” to scan vehicles presumably has a high entry cost. But it should theoretically allow for more accurate results and enable rental locations to operate with fewer staff members — potentially saving the brand money over time.
The Hertz bankruptcy was the direct result of the company miscalculating its inventory and debt load ahead of the economic ramifications created in the wake of the public response to COVID-19. It certainly wasn’t the only reason. Private equity firms always seem to tank whatever businesses they manage to wrangle. As a semi-regular customer, your author likewise noticed a marked decline in service that only got worse after 2020. But it was poor inventory management and a surplus of debt going into that year that ultimately did the company in.
Since then, the revived Hertz has been keen to rebrand itself as on the cutting edge of vehicle rentals. The company leaned into all-electric vehicles and hired Tom Brady to proudly promote its new inventory of Tesla Model 3s. But it turned out that renters didn’t want to fuss with charging an automobile while on vacation. Hertz was also still in the habit of setting up storefronts in places that lacked the proper charging infrastructure, creating additional problems for itself.
Needless to say, the EV gambit did not succeed and the business has continued losing money after selling those vehicles at a significant loss. But the rental market has started to return to normal, meaning more vehicles are returning for inspection. This has encouraged Hertz to partner with the relatively new AI vehicle-inspection service UVeye.
Already implemented at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, the technology basically scans every angle of the vehicle as it enters or exits the designated parking areas. The whole process takes seconds and forgoes the need of hiring someone to do a walkaround of the vehicle. Should it be successful, the plan is to expand the AI-inspection service to additional airport locations.
“Hertz is setting a new standard for vehicle maintenance and fleet management in the rental industry, and we’re thrilled to partner with them,” stated Amir Hever, CEO and co-founder of UVeye. “Our AI-driven inspection systems complement manual checks with consistent, data-backed assessments completed in seconds.”
It’s hard to know how to feel on this one. I once returned a Hertz rental to a Manhattan garage only to find there was nobody there to accept it. The few staff members present were involved in a shouting match with a sea of unruly customers, requiring me to fill out the return forms myself after thirty minutes of waiting around.
Having automated inspections could help offset a lack of manpower, resolving some of those issues (assuming they haven’t been dealt with already). But Hertz, Dollar, and Thrifty also reported a major data breach (via Cleo Communications) late in 2024 that resulted in over 100,000 U.S. customers potentially having their credit card, phone number, driver’s license, address, and other personal information leaked.
The companies responded by offering two years of complementary identity-theft protection from Kroll. But the truth of the matter is that the digitization and outsourcing of data management is ultimately what puts customers’ privacy the most at risk to begin with. Partnering with UVeye (which may be a fine company) could create new vectors for future data breaches.
Meanwhile, AI seems decidedly over-hyped these days with the term swiftly becoming as meaningless as “mobility” or “cloud computing.” The definition has grown ludicrously broad and the phrase primarily crops up to impress investors whenever there’s a program at play that has to make determinations. However, by that logic, we could argue that even the most rudimentary calculator possesses some form of “artificial intelligence.”
That’s not to suggest UVeye’s systems aren’t impressive or advanced. But having a program compare two individual scans of a vehicle and attach it to an online customer profile isn’t on par with sentient machines. It also doesn’t make the tool any less useful to Hertz, which admittedly looks to have a lot to gain from the partnership — should the hardware function as advertised.
Apparently, Hertz isn’t the only company considering automated inspections. Both Avis and Enterprise have been discussing the possibility of implementing similar technology within the next year or two. Our guess is that renters will probably start seeing them at airport locations as more companies test how well they function. If they end up being cheaper to operate than a couple of employees with clipboards, they’ll likely become ubiquitous over the next several years.
[Images: UVeye]
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