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Thanks for the explanation! This seems very plausible to me, but I wonder why that is so.

I can understand trucks retaining their value, as there is a clientele who drives them for utilitarian reasons (though not necessarily the ones who buy them new). I can understand why luxury sedans devalue quickly, as they are bought for prestige.

But it is not self evident to me why SUVs would have superior utilitarian value to regular sedans.

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There's nothing self-evident about it :)

Crude oil was going for $113/barrel in 2014 (which is likely around the time that Hertz made the decision to buy sedans) and then went down to less than half of that a year later. While the price has fluctuated since then, the prices have remained fairly low. Meanwhile, Americans like SUVs for reasons that I don't fully understand, but it's just a fact. And when gasoline is cheap, it doesn't cost that much more to buy one, so demand is high, and therefore resale prices go up (at least compared to sedans).

They do not. The higher price for the SUV is a product of American market preferences for SUVs that have nothing to do with utility and everything to do with branding and self-image.

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