The electric vehicle (EV) revolution is speeding up with each passing day. Pressing ahead in the transition to EVs, U.S. President Biden signed an executive order last week that calls for the purchase of only zero-emission vehicles for the federal fleet by 2035. In fact, Biden has pledged to make all light-duty government fleets emission-free by 2027.Per the White House Fact Sheet, the government will spend its annual purchasing power of $650 billion to enhance the efficiency of its portfolio of 300,000 buildings and electrify its fleet of around 600,000 cars and trucks.
Meanwhile, Japan’s largest automaker,
Toyota
TM
announced its plans to establish a battery hub in the United States to speed up its electrification game. U.S. auto giant
General Motors
GM
provided a production update on Chevy Silverado electric pickup, while its close peer
Ford
F
scaled up the production target forMustang Mach-E. EV charging company
ChargePoint Holdings
CHPT
posted third-quarter fiscal 2022 results. EV behemoth
Tesla
TSLA
also made headlines with its decision to stop taking Model S/X orders outside North America.
Recap of the Week’s Important News
Toyota
announced its decision to build the first battery factory in the United States in North Carolina to bring its EV supply chain to the country. The Japan-based automaker plans to invest $1.29 billion in the battery plant, to be named Toyota Battery Manufacturing, North Carolina (TBMNC). The facility is expected to create 1,750 new jobs and use 100% renewable energy to make the batteries. Production is anticipated to commence in 2025.
TBMNC will initially have four production lines, each capable of manufacturing battery packs for around 200,000 cars annually. Toyota eventually aims to add two more lines, with the goal to rev up the total production capacity to battery packs sufficient for 1.2 million vehicles per year.The latest investment decision forms part of TM’s wider commitment to investing $3.4 billion (380 billion yen) for automotive battery development and production in the United States through 2030.
General Motors
plans to commence production of its upcoming Chevy Silverado electric pickup in early 2023 with sales set to begin in late 2023. Production will begin at the recently inaugurated Factory Zero in Michigan, previously known as Detroit-Hamtramck.General Motors also confirmed that the Chevy Silverado EV will be followed by several other EVs throughout 2023, including the GMC Sierra E pickup truck.
In a separate development, General Motors entered into a strategic collaboration with MP Materials to develop a fully integrated U.S. supply chain for rare earth magnets.The deal with MP Materials will aid GM in building a sustainable and resilient U.S.-based supply chain for EVs, encompassing the entire ecosystem from raw materials to battery cell manufacturing to electric drive motors and beyond.Accelerating the production of materials used in EVs will help the automaker fortify its U.S. manufacturing foothold of EVs, bring down the cost of EVs and, in turn, speed up their domestic adoption.
ChargePoint
reported third-quarter fiscal 2022 adjusted earnings of 14 cents per share, in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate. The company had reported earnings of $2.18 in the year-ago quarter. Revenues of $65 million were up 79% year over year and beat the consensus mark by 2.88%. Subscription and networked charging systems revenues contributed 20.6% and 73.1%, respectively, to the overall revenues.
As of Oct 31, 2021, ChargePoint had cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash of $365.89 million.For fourth-quarter fiscal 2022, the EV charging stalwart expects revenues in the range of $73-$78 million. For fiscal 2022, CHPT expects total revenues in the range of $235-$240 million.
Ford
is planning to ramp up production of the all-electric Mustang Mach-E in 2022 to cater to the unprecedented demand for the vehicle. Ford CEO Jim Farley recently took to Twitter to announce that the company aims to achieve an annual output of more than 200,000 units by 2023 in North America and Europe for Mustang Mach-E, its first mainstream electric vehicle (EV). This would imply tripling the current production rate for the vehicle.
Ford further confirmed that it will be able to rev up the Mustang Mach-E production capacity by utilizing the entire Cuautitlan plant in Mexico. In addition to boosting production, F has confirmed a price bump in the United States for the Mustang Mach-E by $1,000 to $3,000, depending on the variant, as part of the shift to the 2022 model year.
Tesla
announced its decision to cease taking new orders for its flagship Model S and Model X for markets outside North America. The EV giant sent out emails to customers waiting for their Model S and Model X vehicle orders in Europe, stating that it is not accepting any new orders from customers outside North America for the time being in order to accelerate the delivery of existing orders.
This decision has been triggered in response to Tesla’s massive backlog of orders in Europe and other international markets, where no new Model X and Model S shipments have been made in the past year. Per the email, the EV behemoth plans to deliver the first Model S and Model X in Europe during the second half of next year.
Tesla currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see
the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here
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Price Performance
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What’s Next in the Space?
Stay tuned for announcements of upcoming EV models and any important updates from the red-hot industry.
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