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Chinese electric carmaker Xpeng said demand for its cars, outside of Covid-affected areas, has recovered to levels seen before the company raised prices.
From Nio to Tesla, electric car companies in China have raised prices in the last few months, citing the impact of rising commodities costs such as those for battery components.
However, Xpeng vice chairman and president Brian Gu said in an exclusive interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” that “the second quarter will be a challenging one” because of the impact of Covid.

Guangzhou-based Xpeng is one of several Chinese electric car companies that’s started to expand overseas.
Feature China | Future Publishing | Getty Images

BEIJING — In a sign Chinese drivers are still willing to buy electric, start-up Xpeng said that demand for its cars has shaken off the impact of price hikes.
From Nio to Tesla, electric car companies in China have raised prices in the last few months, citing the impact of rising commodities costs such as those for battery components.

After hiking prices by a few thousand U.S. dollars in March, Xpeng has seen a recovery in demand in regions not affected by the latest Covid lockdowns in China, Brian Gu, vice chairman and president, said Tuesday in an exclusive interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”
With that ability to pass on rising raw materials costs to consumers, Gu said the company can then “continue our innovation and investments.”
Last week, Nio CEO William Li told CNBC his company’s biggest problem was supply chain disruptions, not demand for electric cars in China.
Passenger car sales fell by 35.5% year-on-year in April, but new energy vehicles — which include battery-powered electric cars — saw sales surge by 78.4%, according to the China Passenger Car Association.

Covid controls still took a toll on Xpeng, whose shares fell 5.5% in overnight U.S. trading after giving second-quarter guidance below expectations.

The electric car company said it expects total revenue to nearly double in the second quarter from a year ago, to between 6.8 billion yuan ($1.02 billion) and 7.5 billion yuan. But that was below prior FactSet estimates ranging from 7.08 billion yuan to 9.02 billion yuan.
In the first quarter, Xpeng did report a smaller-than-expected loss of 1.8 yuan per share, versus the FactSet estimated loss of 1.9 yuan per share. Revenue of 7.45 billion yuan also beat FactSet expectations for 7.39 billion yuan.

Covid, chip shortage all take a toll

Gu told CNBC “the second quarter will be a challenging one” because of the impact of Covid, particularly in April.
“There are no operations per se in the city of Shanghai and some of the surrounding areas,” he said Tuesday.
The southeastern metropolis of Shanghai has been battling Covid since March, with citywide lockdowns now nearing the two-month mark. The city in mid-April started to prioritize some businesses — especially in the auto sector — for resuming production within a bubble.
Shanghai also plans to restore normal life and work by mid-June. But over the weekend a downtown district banned residents from leaving their apartment complexes again, illustrating the challenges to reopening quickly.

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Gu said earlier on an earnings call, accessed through Refinitiv Eikon, that the Covid lockdowns have affected “important markets” for Xpeng, and that he expected strong order momentum as those areas ease restrictions.
In addition to Covid controls, the company’s CEO Xiaopeng He added on the call that the ongoing chip shortage was a problem.
“If there weren’t any COVID resurgence in China right now, I think the majority of our peers or all of the new EV makers in China right now will be actually restricted by the capacity or the supply of the chip in general,” he said.

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SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell defended Elon Musk in an email to employees last week responding to sexual misconduct allegations directed at the company’s CEO, CNBC has learned.
“Personally, I believe the allegations to be false; not because I work for Elon, but because I have worked closely with him for 20 years and never seen nor heard anything resembling these allegations,” Shotwell wrote.
Musk has denied the allegations, which claim he propositioned a flight attendant on one of SpaceX’s private jets in 2016, calling them “wild accusations.”

SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell defended Elon Musk in an email to employees last week, responding to sexual misconduct allegations directed at the CEO, CNBC has learned.
“Personally, I believe the allegations to be false; not because I work for Elon, but because I have worked closely with him for 20 years and never seen nor heard anything resembling these allegations,” Shotwell wrote in a companywide email sent on Friday and seen by CNBC.

Musk has denied the allegations, which claim he propositioned a flight attendant on one of SpaceX’s private jets in 2016, calling them “wild accusations.”
In a response to Business Insider, which reported the allegations and that the flight attendant was paid $250,000 severance after confronting the company, Musk said there is “a lot more to this story,” describing it as a “politically motivated hit piece.” Neither Musk nor SpaceX’s vice president of the legal department, Christopher Cardaci, denied the payment in statements to Business Insider.
Shotwell emphasized in her email that she “will never comment on any legal matters involving employment issues” before noting Musk publicly denied the allegations as “utterly untrue” in a tweet.
Shotwell, who is No. 2 at SpaceX and the company’s top female executive, also noted in the email that SpaceX has a “ZERO tolerance” policy for harassment, adding that every accusation is taken seriously and investigated, “regardless of who is involved.”
SpaceX did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on Shotwell’s email.

SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell
Jay Westcott / NASA

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A federal judge in New York blocked Tuesday’s scheduled auction of a dress worn by Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz” that had been expected to fetch up to $1 million or more for The Catholic University of America.
The halt in the planned sale of the dress by Bonhams auction house in Los Angeles came more than two weeks after a Wisconsin woman sued, claiming the dress belonged to the estate of her late uncle, the Rev. Gilbert Hartke.
Her lawsuit, which contests ownership of the dress, will proceed in Manhattan federal court.

A blue and white checked gingham dress, worn by Judy Garland in the “Wizard of Oz,” hangs on display, Monday, April 25, 2022, at Bonhams in New York.
Katie Vasquez | AP

A federal judge in New York blocked Tuesday’s scheduled auction of a dress worn by Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz” that had been expected to fetch up to $1 million or more for The Catholic University of America.
Monday’s injunction barring a sale of the dress by Bonhams auction house in Los Angeles came more than two weeks after a Wisconsin woman, Barbara Hartke, sued to stop the sale, claiming it belonged to the estate of her late uncle, the Rev. Gilbert Hartke. The lawsuit will proceed in Manhattan federal court.

Judge Paul Gardephe ordered Catholic University, which is located in Washington, D.C., and Bonhams not to sell the dress until the lawsuit is resolved.
Anthony Scordo, the attorney for Barbara Hartke, in an email to CNBC said, “I am pleased with the ruling preventing the sale. I feel the judge carefully reviewed the submissions of all parties and came to a fair result.”
In its statement, Catholic University said, “The Court’s decision to preserve the status quo was preliminary and did not get to the merits of Barbara Hartke’s claim to the dress. We look forward to presenting our position, and the overwhelming evidence contradicting Ms. Hartke’s claim, to the Court in the course of this litigation.”

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Hartke received the “Oz” dress in 1973 as a gift from Academy Award-winning actress Mercedes McCambridge while serving as head of Catholic University’s drama school, which he founded. It is not known how MacCambridge obtained the costume from the classic 1939 film.
As an heir to the priest, Barbara Hartke stands to inherit a fraction of the ownership to the dress if she prevails in her lawsuit to prove that it belongs to her late uncle’s estate.

The dress had been missing for decades before it was found in a trash bag in a room at the drama school last year. Catholic University then moved to put it up for auction, generating widespread media coverage last month.
The university argues that it is the legal owner of the dress, because Hartke, as a Roman Catholic priest, had taken a vow of poverty and that the dress was intended to benefit the school.
The school also submitted affidavits from a grandnephew of Hartke who remembered that “my grand uncle Father Gilbert Hartke said to me that I could not have it as the dress belonged to Catholic University.”
That man, Thomas Kuipers, with a cousin said that they and other descendants of the priest supported the auction of the dress with the understanding that it was given as a gift for the school.
In its statement, Catholic University said that “it continues to be committed to its plan to use proceeds from a sale of the dress to endow a faculty position in the Rome School of Music, Drama and Art, which it believes is in line with Mercedes McCambridge’s original intent and Father Gilbert Hartke’s desire to support and grow the University’s drama program.”
The dress is one of only two dresses known to still exist of the several created for Garland to wear in “The Wizard of Oz.”
The other dress was auctioned in 2015 by Bonhams for more than $1.5 million.   

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Starbucks announced Monday that it will exit Russia.
The company has 130 locations in the country, which account for less than 1% of its annual revenue.
Starbucks said it will pay its nearly 2,000 Russian workers for six months.

A woman drinks coffee in a Starbucks in a mall in Khimki outside Moscow.
Alexander Natruskin | Russia

After 15 years operating in Russia, Starbucks will exit the market, joining companies like McDonald’s, Exxon Mobil and British American Tobacco in withdrawing from the country completely.
The coffee giant announced Monday that it will no longer have a brand presence in Russia. Starbucks has 130 locations in the country, which account for less than 1% of the company’s annual revenue. They are all licensed locations, so the Seattle-based company itself doesn’t operate them.

Starbucks said it will pay its nearly 2,000 Russian workers for six months and help them transition to new opportunities outside of the coffee chain.
Both consumers and investors pressured Western companies like Starbucks to cut ties with Russia to show opposition to the Kremlin’s war with Ukraine, but unwinding licensing deals takes time. Starbucks has suspended all business activity with the country since March 8. The pause included shipping all Starbucks products and temporarily shuttering cafes.
In its latest quarterly results released in early May, the company did not disclose the financial impact of the suspension of business operations. Former CEO Kevin Johnson had pledged to donate royalties from the Russian business to humanitarian causes.
But it was surely a smaller financial blow than that dealt to McDonald’s, which has been in Russia for over 30 years.
The fast-food giant said the suspension of its sizable Russian and Ukrainian operations cost it $127 million in its first quarter. The two markets accounted for 9% of its revenue in 2021. The company had roughly 850 restaurants in Russia, most of which were operated by the company instead of licensees.
On Thursday, McDonald’s announced it would be selling those locations for an undisclosed sum to a Siberian franchisee, who will run them under a new brand.

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Speaking to CNBC on Monday, Fatih Birol paints a stark picture of the current situation, describing oil prices as being “very high.”  
“They are risky for economic recovery around the world, but especially in the importing countries in the emerging world,” he says.
Birol also stresses importance of spending money on solar, wind and hydrogen.

Speaking to CNBC on Monday, the executive director of the International Energy Agency spoke about the intricacies of the energy transition and the competing challenges that will need to be balanced in the years ahead.
Imaginima | E+ | Getty Images

The executive director of the International Energy Agency spoke of the current challenges facing global oil markets on Monday, highlighting the significant influence Chinese demand could have over the next few months.
In an interview with CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Fatih Birol painted a stark picture of the current situation, describing oil prices as being “very high.”  

“They are risky for economic recovery around the world, but especially in the importing countries in the emerging world,” he said. “It’s a big risk, together with the food prices being very, very high, and I think that it may well trigger us, the world … step by step to a recession.”
With geopolitical tensions elevated following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and continued concerns about supply casting a shadow over oil markets, the price of Brent crude currently sits at around $113 a barrel.

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Looking ahead, Birol went on to lay out some of the challenges markets may face in the coming months.
“I very much hope that the increase coming from [the] United States, from Brazil, Canada this year, [will] be accompanied by the increase coming from the key producers in Middle East and elsewhere,” he said.
“Otherwise, we have only one hope that we don’t have big trouble in the oil markets in summer, which is hoping … that the Chinese demand remains very weak.”

Chinese oil demand weakened in recent months as the country imposed a number of stringent lockdowns in a bid to curb the spread of Covid-19.
If China went back to the usual oil consumption and oil demand trends, “then we will have a very difficult summer around the world,” Birol said.

During his interview with CNBC, Birol was also asked about the “enormous” profits being made by a lot of hydrocarbon based companies — as well as exploration companies — and what should be done with them.
His response illustrated the intricacies of the global energy transition and the competing challenges that will need to be balanced in the years ahead.
“In the last five years, on average, [the] oil and gas industry made revenues [of] about $1.5 trillion,” he said.
“And this year, from 1.5 it will go to 4 trillion U.S. dollars, more than two times increase in the oil and gas companies’ revenues.”
It was not only businesses that were making money, he added, namechecking countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Angola and Nigeria.
“Of course, money should go, in my view, to replace the Russian oil and gas, in terms of the traditional assets,” Birol said.
“But I very much hope that money also goes to clean energy, clean and secure energy technologies, ranging from solar, wind, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen.”
“We are [responding to] … this immediate crisis,” Birol said. “But our response should not lock in our energy infrastructure to a terrible world which is much, much hotter than today and with a lot of problems — extreme weather events and so on.” More

Founding member Bjorn Ulvaeus confirmed to CNBC that the much-loved band’s 2021 chart-topping “Voyage” album – their first in 40 years — will be their last.
ABBA — Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad — launched onto the world stage after winning the Eurovision Song Contest with “Waterloo” in 1974. 
The band has gone on to sell over 400 million records worldwide, and once reportedly came only second to Volvo as one of Sweden’s biggest exports. 

Swedish music band ABBA, shown here as wax figures, have sold over 400 million records worldwide.
Jonathan Nackstrand | Afp | Getty Images

Pop legends ABBA are taking a big punt on their latest immersive project, founding member Bjorn Ulvaeus has told CNBC.
The much-anticipated immersive performance called ABBA Voyage is billed as “a concert 40 years in the making,” and features digital avatars of the Swedish supergroup accompanied by a 10-piece live band.

Speaking in late April ahead of its long-awaited world premiere in London, U.K., this week, Ulvaeus told CNBC it was “a hell of a risky project in so many ways.”
“The risk is, of course, that people won’t find it to be the experience that I think and hope it will be. That is the main thing. If people would go from the concert thinking, yeah, well, that wasn’t bad but … We want them to feel, you know, emotional and to feel that they’ve gone through something that they’ve never seen before.”  

Last album

The pop icon also confirmed to CNBC that the much-loved band’s 2021 chart-topping “Voyage” album – their first in 40 years — will be their last.
ABBA — Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad — launched onto the world stage after winning the Eurovision Song Contest with “Waterloo” in 1974. 

The band has gone on to sell over 400 million records worldwide, and once reportedly came only second to Volvo as one of Sweden’s biggest exports. 

It’s been 40 years since the band last performed together and Ulvaeus said he was “nervous and thrilled.”
He said he expects this week’s opening of the ABBA Voyage digital concert to be “so incredibly special” and beat any other moment in his professional life so far.
In the latest episode of “The CNBC Conversation,” Ulvaeus says the idea first came about five years ago — to create digital “ABBA-tar” copies of the band from their 1979 prime, in a cutting-edge technology concert.
He said trials had been done before with Michael Jackson and Elvis, but the team behind the technology were keen to use it with living figures.
“It’s better to do it with someone who is still alive because your cranium, even though the rest of your body falls apart … the measurements in the cranium are the same, so it’s easier to recreate a younger copy of yourself if you’re still alive,” Ulvaeus said.
To create the human-like avatars, the four members of the band, who are now in their seventies, dressed in motion capture suits and performed all of the songs on stage in a specially constructed studio in Stockholm, Sweden.

“They would dress us in kind of tight costumes, black with dots on them and there were dots on our faces, and we would have helmets. And then we’d go on that stage and we would perform a song almost as if we had performed it on ‘Top of the Pops,’ the old British [TV] program,” he said.
“It was weird at first. I mean, I was looking around and there’s Agnetha doing her stuff, and Benny, just like the old days. But in the end, it was fun.”

Deep fakes

Ulvaeus said the band were leading the way with the technology behind ABBA Voyage. 
“We are pioneers in this field, to make avatars, to build digital copies that are as human beings — to the pores, through the hairs in the nose, through everything [it] will make you feel after a while that this is a human being, this is not digital, this is a video of a human being, and it’s great fun to be the pioneer and to do it in this context,” he said.
But the celebrated star said he does worry about how the technology could be misused by those wanting to create “deep fake.”
“I realized that it could be misused, and it will be misused. Not our avatars, but other avatars will be used as vehicles saying things that the original people don’t mean, fake, I mean, deep fake. Deep fake is going to be indistinguishable from the real thing going forward and that’s something we really have to watch out for,” he said.
“But somebody was going to do it anyway, so I thought maybe to do it in a positive way as pioneers would be good to show how it can be used.”

A purpose-built “ABBA Arena” which can hold a 3,000-strong audience has been created in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London.
The ABBA Voyage concert performances open to the public on May 27 and Ulvaeus told CNBC they can expect a hit parade with a few not so well-known songs, and some from their latest album.

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