Millions Of Kia Cars Could Have Dangerous Airbags

Kia told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in December 2016 that nearly 4 million vehicles made by the car company over a 16-year period were equipped with air-bag inflators from Knoxville, Tenn.-based ARC Automotive, according to the document, which was posted on NHTSA’s website in recent days. […]

A Kia spokesman didn’t have an immediate comment. The company previously said it is aware of and evaluating the situation involving NHTSA’s recall demand to ARC.

The disclosure of the 2016 letter is significant because to date, NHTSA has not publicly released a comprehensive list of vehicle models and brands affected by the potentially hazardous part. NHTSA says the risk associated with the air-bag inflators, if left unaddressed, would lead to more incidents in the future.

The document was submitted by Kia in response to a request for information sent by NHTSA during the early part of its investigation into ARC’s inflators, which has been continuing for about eight years, one of the regulator’s longest ongoing safety-defect probes. Kia at the time said it was aware of only one incident involving an ARC inflator rupturing in one of its vehicles, according to a newly released document.

At an investor conference, Farley said that, for many automakers, EVs will remain more costly than their internal combustion engine counterparts until the second and third generation models go into production later in this decade.

Analysts have predicted that EV cost parity could come as soon as 2025.

Between 2030 and 2035, Farley added, much of the industry’s EV cost savings will come from “dramatically lower labor content” because the vehicles will be simpler to build with fewer parts, and will be fitted with smaller batteries that use cheaper materials.

He also predicted the industry could realize lower distribution costs from selling EVs online, as well as higher revenue from new software-driven digital services.

PIF, which owns more than 60% of the company, has agreed to buy 265.7 million shares in a private placement for about $1.8 billion, Lucid said, implying a price of about $6.80 per Lucid share, compared with the stock’s Wednesday close of $7.76.

The remainder will be raised from a public offering of 173.5 million shares of common stock.

The additional funds are critical and come as the automaker, like its peers, struggles with mounting losses and tightening cash reserves amid recession fears and a price war sparked by market leader Tesla Inc.

“The secondary offering will probably be ok as there’s a lot of ESG dollars looking for investments,” said Louis Navellier, chief investment officer at money management firm Navellier, which has made EV and related investments but has stayed away from Lucid.

“That, along with money from the Saudis, will ensure Lucid survives a couple of more years. But their burn rate needs to fall fast. There’s a glut of EVs for sale in the US and competitors are cutting prices and offering discounts,” he said.

Were your retailers ready for the Solterra, and will they be ready for this expansion of Subaru EVs?

They’ll be ready. We had a modest and slower launch for the Solterra, but that’s been OK for us. We put that car out there with fairly modest expectations, but at the same time, we also launched it nationally, in part because this was an exercise we wanted to undertake with that car line to learn how to sell electric vehicles. When you don’t have that knowledge and you’re starting from a fresh sheet of paper, there is a lot to learn, because as we get closer to the 2025-26 calendar years, the expectations are going to ramp up quickly.

Shares of Blink Charging Co., ChargePoint Holdings Inc. and EVgo Inc. have slid over the last year, even as their annual revenues roughly doubled. ChargePoint stock on Tuesday had its best trading day since August, jumping as much as 16% after an upgrade from Bank of America Corp. But just over a week earlier, it hit an all-time low of $7.93, far below its 2021 peak of $35.69. The company, which runs the largest US network of charging stations for electric cars, saw its annual sales rise 94% last year to $468.1 million and is scheduled to report its latest results Thursday.

Charging companies waited a decade to see such explosive growth as low EV sales in the US limited demand for charging stations. Now, mainstream drivers finally seem ready to give electric cars a try and the federal government plans to spend $7.5 billion on public stations to serve them. President Joe Biden has made the switch to electric cars a cornerstone of his climate change policies, and that transition rests on public charging.

But the companies are spending heavily to deploy chargers in what some liken to a land grab, and investors have grown leery of the amount of capital the companies will need to install their plugs along roadsides and parking lots. None of the charging companies have yet proven it can turn a profit, nor is it clear when any will. And the industry already has a cautionary tale: Volta Inc. The San Francisco company, worth an estimated $1.4 billion when it went public via a special purpose acquisition company in 2021, quickly used up its cash and accepted a $169 million buyout offer from Shell Plc in March.