Last month, a cargo ship named ‘Felicity Ace’ sank in the Atlantic Ocean on its way from Germany to the US. The ship was carrying 4,000 VolksWagen luxury cars, including Porsches, Bentleys, Lamborghinis, and Audis, worth 155 million dollars (Rs. 27 billion). Porsche CEO Oliver Blume talked about the loss, saying the company plans to replace more than 1,000 cars for its customers.
Blume spoke ahead of Porsche’s annual result call and said, “Unfortunately, the ship sank and we had over 1000 cars on the ship. Now it’s up to us to recover the production while we are faced with all the challenges: semiconductors, the supply chain – especially with the Ukrainian war – but we are used to working with challenges over the last two years.”
Lamborghini, Bentley & Audi Cars
Sister brands Lamborghini and Bentley have also pledged to replace their customer cars that sank to the bottom of the ocean. Audi has already announced that it will build an extra 1,800 vehicles to compensate for the loss.
Lamborghini lost 85 vehicles; 15 of them were the Aventador Ultimate units. The company had stopped taking orders for the Aventador Ultimate but had to restart production to replace the 15 cars it lost on the ship. Other Lamborghini models were the Urus SUVs and a few Huracan, which have already been replaced.
Bentley lost 189 cars in the ship sinking incident. CEO Bentley Adrian Hallmark says, “We have already found a solution for 100 that we can rapidly redirect, and we will catch the others up within six months.”
Don’t know when the customers would receive their replacement vehicles, but covering the losses is a big step for the VW Group. When the incident happened in February, there had been hopes that the ship was recoverable. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. And now, the ship rests two miles below the ocean’s surface.
