Electric vehicle stocks fell across the board in the week ending Sept. 23, dragged by the Fed-induced sell-off in the market. Stung by worries concerning a potential recession and the impact of a rising rate environment, most clocked double-digit losses.
Now, here are the key events that happened in the EV space during the week:
Mixed Tidings From Tesla: Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) sent out invitations to its second AI Day, which is going to be an invite-only event scheduled to be held on Sept. 30. From what CEO Elon Musk has thus far said about the event, it’s going to be “epic.” The EV maker will likely share more details on its full self-driving software, the Dojo supercomputer and the Tesla Bot humanoid robot.
In another development, Tesla has opened an order book for its Model Y vehicles in Taiwan, tweets by Tesla fans in the country confirmed. These vehicles would be imported from the company’s Gigafactory in Germany.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ordered the initiation of a recall of over 1 million Tesla vehicles this week due to issues over the automatic window reversal system not reacting correctly after detecting an obstruction. Musk shrugged off the development as an insignificant one, given the recall was not physical but can be set right by an over-the-air software update.
Tesla countersued the California Civil Rights Department this week for the impropriety involved in the agency’s racial discrimination lawsuit against the company, on the grounds that the investigation was not done on a fair and neutral basis.
The week also witnessed another setback for Tesla, as one of its megapack batteries installed at PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG) in Moss Landing, Monterey, California, caught fire, resulting in a temporary shutdown of a section of Highway 1 and shelter-in-place order from the county sheriff’s office.
Ford Reshuffles Management Team With Eye On EV Leadership: Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) announced key management changes to support the development of breakthrough EVs at scale, strengthen its ICE product line and transform its global supply chain management.
The company announced Doug Field will now have an expanded role as chief advanced product development and technology officer. The company named Lisa Drake as VP of EV industrialization, and she will be responsible for manufacturing engineering as the company scales to a rate of two million EVs per year by the end of 2026.
GM's Busy Week: General Motors Corporation (NYSE:GM) is joining hands with Lithion Recycling, a Canadian battery recycler, for recovery of battery materials. The automaker through its GM Ventures arm has participated in a Series A funding round in the battery recycling company.
Separately, the company announced it would spend $760 million to renovate its transmission factory in Toledo, Ohio, which would allow it to build drive lines for EVs.
Car rental company Hertz Global Holdings (NYSE:HTZ) agreed to secure 175,000 EVs from GM over the next five years, with the deal worth multi-millions of dollars for the Detroit automaker.
GM also said this week it has stopped taking reservations for Hummer EVs, both pickup trucks and SUVs, following reservations overshooting production capacity. The company said it now has about 45,000 reservations each for the pickup truck and SUV versions.
Nio To Set Up Shop In Germany: Chinese EV startup Nio, Inc. (NYSE:NIO) said it will hold its Germany launch event, titled Nio Berlin 2022, in Berlin on Oct. 7. Themed "A New Horizon", the event will be live-streamed globally at 7 p.m. ET, the company added. The company already has a footprint in Europe, thanks to its Norwegian foray in May 2021.
EV Stock Performances for The Week:
Photo: Courtesy of ford.com, tesal.com and nio.com
