by davefairtex
Wolf used to be in the car biz. This is his wheelhouse.
Fleet sales are generally not a positive sign. If retail demand were there, why on earth would you sell 100k cars at a big discount (dropping your margins accordingly) vs selling them to the public at full price?
Selling vehicles to rental fleets is a low-margin business that automakers don’t tout and that investors consider low-quality sales. When the percentage of fleet sales to overall sales is large, investors consider them a negative. And automakers are hounded for it. And that’s why automakers don’t tout those deals.