Cloud-init fails to set the default gateway on RHEL 7/8 via VMware Guest Customization

Issue

The default gateway set during the Guest Customization in VMware is ignored after the VM deployment.

nmcli con show "System ens222" | grep -i GATEWAY
connection.gateway-ping-timeout:        0
ipv4.gateway:                           --
ipv6.gateway:                           --
IP4.GATEWAY:                            --

/var/log/messages

Cloud-init v. 18.2 running 'init' at Thu, 23 May 2019 09:46:54 +0000. Up 9.90 seconds.
ci-info: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Net device info+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ci-info: +---------+------+-----------------+---------------+-------+-------------------+
ci-info: |  Device |  Up  |     Address     |      Mask     | Scope |     Hw-Address    |
ci-info: +---------+------+-----------------+---------------+-------+-------------------+
ci-info: | ens222: | True | 192.168.160.111 | 255.255.255.0 |   .   | 00:50:56:a2:61:41 |
ci-info: | ens222: | True |        .        |       .       |   d   | 00:50:56:a2:61:41 |
ci-info: |   lo:   | True |    127.0.0.1    |   255.0.0.0   |   .   |         .         |
ci-info: |   lo:   | True |        .        |       .       |   d   |         .         |
ci-info: +---------+------+-----------------+---------------+-------+-------------------+
ci-info: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Route IPv4 info++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ci-info: +-------+---------------+---------+---------------+-----------+-------+
ci-info: | Route |  Destination  | Gateway |    Genmask    | Interface | Flags |
ci-info: +-------+---------------+---------+---------------+-----------+-------+
ci-info: |   0   | 192.168.160.0 | 0.0.0.0 | 255.255.255.0 |   ens222 |   U   |
ci-info: +-------+---------------+---------+---------------+-----------+-------+