August 21, 2025 - Buy Your Used Hertz at Amazon

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for August 21, 2025, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, vice president of market research for Telemetry.

Since beginning as an online bookstore more than three decades ago, Amazon has become the world's second-largest retailer behind only Walmart. Over the years, Amazon has steadily expanded into markets, eventually earning the nickname the everything store. At the 2023 Los Angeles Auto Show, Hyundai announced that it was partnering with Amazon to pilot online sales of its vehicles. Due to franchise laws in most US states, Hyundai is not allowed to sell vehicles directly to consumers, as startups like Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid do. Instead, consumers can go to Amazon.com/autos and shop for a Hyundai, and when they find the one they want, they go to their local dealer to purchase it. 

Those same franchise laws only apply to sales of new vehicles while used vehicle sales have a lot more freedom about who can sell. That opens up a whole new area for Amazon to sell used vehicles. To that end, Amazon is teaming with Hertz to provide another outlet for the rental company to dispose of vehicles from its fleet. Hertz already has brick and mortar used vehicle retail locations around the country as well as its own online sales site. 

However, most potential customers are probably still unaware that Hertz even has a used car sales business. Thus, the relationship with Amazon gives Hertz much more exposure. Hertz is planning to launch with Amazon listings for its inventory in Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Seattle before expanding to 45 locations around the US. Customers will be able to browse and purchase the vehicles on Amazon and then pick up the car from a Hertz Car Sales location within 3 days. 

If Amazon is successful with this, it will likely expand to other used car retailers, which would allow buyers to browse from a broader selection similar to what they can currently do with sites like Carvana and AutoTrader. What's not known is if Amazon will establish a mechanism for dealers to take trade-ins or purchase vehicles like its competitors do. 

Thanks for listening.