Category: Auto News

VinFast’s bold ambitions to sell electric cars to consumers in the US have suffered another setback with production at its as-yet-unbuilt facility in North Carolina now not expected to start until 2025.

The Vietnamese company had most recently said it planned to start trial production at the plant by 2024. Earlier this week a company spokesperson said VinFast had “received the air permit and we are preparing for sub-contractors bidding and will start the construction soon.”

An updated filing for VinFast’s planned U.S. initial public offering released Friday however said that commissioning of the facility is targeted for 2025.

“Pre-construction work for phase one commenced in the third quarter of 2022, with commissioning targeted for 2025,” the filing said. “Phase one of the facility is expected to have an initial capacity of 150,000 vehicles a year” rising to 250,000 cars upon completion of phase two.

Tesla Inc.’s factory in China, by way of comparison, pumps out around 70,000 cars a month.

VinFast said to Bloomberg News that the delay was because “we need more time to complete administrative procedures.”

That delayed timeline also means VinFast won’t be able to take advantage of tax credits provided for under President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. The IRA EV tax credits are only eligible for electric cars that are made in the US. Currently, VinFast is making its electric cars at a factory north of Hanoi and putting them on a ship.

“If purchases of our EVs are not able to qualify for tax credits under the IRA, demand for our EVs may decrease,” VinFast said in the filing.VinFast’s latest pre-IPO filing also showed the company lost $2.1 billion in the 12 months ended Dec. 31 versus around $800 million in 2020 and a deficit of $1.4 billion in 2021. Revenue last year from vehicle sales was just $525 million, down from about $586 million in 2021.

VinFast is part of Vingroup JSC, owned by billionaire Pham Nhat Vuong, who has a net worth of around $4.1 billion.

As of the end of last year, Vingroup, its affiliates and external lenders had pumped about $8.2 billion into VinFast. Vuong has no plans as yet to personally invest any more money in VinFast, the carmaker’s Chief Executive Officer Le Thi Thu Thuy said in February.

The EV maker’s owners and lenders had invested about $7.5 billion to fund operating expenses and capital expenditures as of September, an earlier pre-IPO filing showed.

The cars that were shipped over from Vietnam started to be delivered to US customers this month. There were 45 so-called VF 8 City Edition electric SUVs delivered to buyers and VinFast said the vehicles will continue be delivered to customers at VinFast’s stores or through a home delivery service. Some 999 cars are expected to be handed over in total.

Responding to questions from Bloomberg about some cars not starting upon arrival in the US, a company spokesperson said “some vehicles might have run out of batteries and need to be recharged when they arrived in the US. This is normal thing.”

VinFast says it has around 12,000 pre-orders for the VF 8 and VF 9 models.

VinFast said in its latest filing that the City Edition cars, which have a limited driving range, were the first version of the VF 8 to go through relevant testing and approval process in the US and therefore were available sooner than the VF 8 with enhanced driving range.

Donkervoort has announced that it will be adding another 25 cars to the production run of the all-new F22 due to the high demand. The announcement came after the fact that the initial 75 models announced last December were all sold out. Donkervoort will be producing a total of 100 units of the F22. Of note, the production is already in full swing, and the first cars have already been delivered to their new owners.

According to the Dutch boutique carmaker, the bulk of the orders came from Western Europe. However, it also received orders and inquiries from as far as North America, the UAE, the UK, southern Europe, Scandinavia, and even Israel. Five cars were allocated to the US.

Denis Donkervoort, the Managing Director of Donkervoort Automobielen, commented, “We had hoped people would appreciate the F22, and they did. They appreciated it so much we had to turn back to our logistics chain to source enough high-quality pieces to create another 25 cars after all the regular production slots had been filled. This is where it ends, though.”

Of course, the additional Donkervoort F22 units will have the same power, torque, weight, and performance specifications as the initial models.

That said, all 100 units of the 1,653-pound (750-kilogram) F22 will have a power-to-weight ratio of 666 horsepower per metric ton – better than a Bugatti Veyron. Power comes from an Audi-sourced turbocharged 2.5-liter inline-five that churns out up to 492 horsepower (367 kilowatts). That power goes to just the rear wheels via a five-speed manual transmission, paired with a Torsen limited-slip differential.

The Donkervoort F22 can sprint from zero to 62 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour) in 2.5 seconds, and ceilings at 180 mph (290 km/h).

Donkervoort had planned to end production of the F22 at the end of 2024, but the additional units will push the production out until midway through 2025. This extension will allow the automaker to broaden its extended customer family and introduce a new buyer group to its brand.

BERLIN — BMW’s core carmaking business hit its 2022 earnings target, the company said in a statement on Thursday, helped by strong pricing and consolidation of its China joint venture.

Group revenue rose 28 percent to 142.6 billion euros ($150.66 billion) versus a Refinitiv SmartEstimate of 141.6 billion.

Its autos business reported an 8.6 percent margin on earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of 10.6 billion euros and cash flow of 11.1 billion euros.

Almost half of the latter came from a cash contribution from Chinese joint venture BMW Brilliance Automotive (BBA).

It proposed a dividend to shareholders of 8.50 euros, up from 5.80 a year earlier.

BMW said last February it would pay 3.7 billion euros to take majority control of BBA after securing the necessary license from Beijing, increasing its stake to 75 percent from 50 percent.

The company said over the year it had faced higher costs of sale, including materials, commodities, logistics and refinancing.

The batteries will supply Shyft’s Blue Arc, a new line of electric last-mile-delivery vehicles. The company declined to specify customers, but its largest clients include Amazon Inc. and FedEx Corp.

It also has an initial order of 2,000 electric vehicles from North Carolina-based Randy Marion Automotive Group. The loss of defunct Electric Last Mile Solutions is Shyft’s gain. Marion had placed an order of 1,000 units from Troy-based ELMS before the company crumbled, and Mullen Automotive Inc. absorbed its assets.

ONE will produce a new variation of its 79kWh Aries battery for Shyft’s Class 5 truck. ONE is dividing the battery into two 62 kWh segments and double stacking them for 248 kWh and 540 volts. The company said the flexible configuration allows for better energy efficiency and more discretion over how to use vehicle storage capacity, a key concern for delivery vehicles.

LFP batteries do not contain nickel or cobalt — elements that are problematic for their limited supply and origins. The chemistry offers less range than the current industry standard NMC (nickel, manganese, cobalt), but LFP is ideal for last-mile delivery vehicles that are frequently charged. Shyft’s other battery supplier, California-based Proterra, makes NMC batteries.

Shyft joins Berkshire Hathaway, Motiv and Bollinger Motors, also acquired by Mullen last year, as ONE customers that have been announced.

ONE’s commercial vehicle batteries are being produced in a Piston Group plant in Van Buren Township near ONE’s planned $1.6 billion plant, which will make batteries for passenger vehicles.

Production for the Shyft batteries is to begin at the end of the month. The company announced last month that it would invest $16 million at its plant in Charlotte, MIch., to build EVs.

“We feel very confident in the product’s ability to function in their system because we have been driving their vehicles in metro Detroit for months,” Ijaz said.

The auto industry lags others in cybersecurity, said Mohammed Ismail, chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Wayne State University in Detroit.

“With any new technology, this is a very typical situation,” he said. “When Wi-Fi and Bluetooth started 25 years ago, it took years for those technologies to be seamless and mature.”

Ismail estimates the auto industry needs about five more years of R&D to produce millions of predominantly software-based vehicles that are very secure.

Friendly hackers will help the industry get there.

“Using a bug bounty platform has proven to be an effective way to bring on board the knowledge and expertise of the security community,” Katja Liesenfeld, Mercedes-Benz Cars & Vans’ manager for IT communications, said in an email. “We cannot give more details on any technical details as the programs are private.”

Automakers are reluctant to talk about their reward programs and cybersecurity issues. Ford, Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan, Stellantis and Subaru declined to discuss their cybersecurity programs with Automotive News. BMW, Porsche and Volkswagen did not respond to queries. Honda said it doesn’t have a bug bounty program.

Nonetheless, most of the auto industry is proactive about cybersecurity issues, said Kevin Tierney, General Motors’ chief cybersecurity officer and vice chair of the Automotive Information Sharing and Analysis Center, known as Auto-ISAC. The group of automakers shares information about potential cyberthreats, vulnerabilities and incidents.

“Everyone’s making big moves and big investments,” Tierney said. “It’s not always obvious to the end consumer with everything that’s happening.”

GM started its bug bounty program in 2016. It is administered by HackerOne, of San Francisco, which also runs programs for BMW, Ford, Rivian and Toyota.

HackerOne’s automotive business jumped 400 percent from 2021 to 2022 as clients added services to their contracts. In addition to bug bounty management, HackerOne provides vulnerability disclosure programs, penetration testing of online systems and other services.

TOKYO – The global chairman of the struggling Japanese premium brand Infiniti is retiring from the position at the end of the month and will be replaced by an interim head.

Peyman Kargar, who has led Infiniti since June 2020 and was preparing for a wide-ranging brand reboot centered on the QX80 SUV, will leave the role on March 30, the end of Nissan’s fiscal year.

A person familiar with the move said Kargar will be returning to France.

Kargar, 55, worked at French alliance partner Renault for nearly two decades before coming to Nissan in 2017. He led Nissan’s Africa, Middle East and India operations before leading Infiniti.

Olga Filippova, general manager in charge of global sales and marketing, will be acting head of Infiniti, parent company Nissan announced on Wednesday in a personnel shuffle.

Filippova joined Infiniti in 2018 and assumed her current role as Kargar’s global No. 2 in 2020.

Last year, Kargar outlined plans to Automotive News to jumpstart Infiniti for a new era of growth and a belated leap into the battery-electric race.

The road map included a new look for Infiniti dealerships, a new design language for its vehicles and a flurry of accents to impress customers, such as a unique Infiniti scent and signature sound.

The relaunch was scheduled to coincide with the introduction of the redesigned QX80 as the brand’s flagship. A close to production Monograph prototype is set to be unveiled this year.

Kargar landed at Infiniti after a period of rapid turnover at the top.

He replaced Mike Colleran, who served as global brand head for only three months. Colleran had taken over from an interim chairman following the departure of previous Infiniti President Christian Meunier in 2019 to become global president of the Jeep brand. Meunier’s resignation came just four months after the departure of his predecessor, Roland Krueger.

Infiniti’s global sales plunged 55 percent to 84,830 vehicles in 2021, from 188,990 in 2019 before the pandemic. U.S. sales, the bulk of brand volume, fell 20 percent to 46,619 vehicles in 2022.

Former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn had set a goal for Infiniti to account for 10 percent of the industry’s global luxury market, racking up annual sales of 500,000 vehicles.

At one point, Ghosn’s plan called for Infiniti to be a pioneer in luxury electric vehicles, getting an EV based on the Nissan Leaf on sale in 2014. That never happened.

The brand’s last major product — the redesigned QX60 midsize crossover — was delayed several months, rolling into stores in late 2021. Infiniti still has no full-electric vehicle. But two EVs for the brand are scheduled to enter production at Nissan’s Canton, Mississippi, plant from 2025.

Jaguar and Land Rover dealers in Europe are threatening to take the automaker to court over the automaker’s new contracts that dealers says substantially reduce their margins.

Dealers are angry that the automaker plans to reduce their margins after they have invested millions in their dealerships in recent years at the automaker’s request.

JLR‘s plunging sales in Europe are also adding to dealers’ struggles. Last year, sales of Land Rover and Jaguar vehicles in the EU, EFTA and UK fell 20 percent to 119,861, according to data from industry association ACEA.

Jaguar Land Rover has terminated contracts with its European dealers and offered new terms.

If the automaker sticks to introducing the new dealer contracts as early as April 1, it could lead to a court battle from which no party would benefit, the head of JLR’s European Dealer Association, Arjen de Jong, wrote in a letter to the manufacturer obtained by Automobilwoche.

A key problem from the dealer’s point of view is that JLR is way off the mark with its sales forecasts.

“JLR’s current volume forecasts are significantly lower and with worse margins,” de Jong wrote.

In Germany, JLR’s new contract will halve dealer margins to a maximum of 9 percent.

JLR also wants to curtail the influence of the dealer association in the new contracts.