It may be the looming post accident battery safety realities that has caused this...it's possible a massive recall or worse is in the works for Tesla given the volatility of damaged batteries catching fire repeatedly after accidents. https://electrek.co/2018/05/10/tesla-battery-reignited-days-...
Why on Earth would that require a recall? Hundreds of gas powered cars catch fire every day. The only difference is first responders expect and know how to handle gas fires. They will learn to handle batteries too.
Tesla’s Engineering Chief Takes Leave of Absence at Pivotal Moment
91–100 of 108 posts
Re: Tesla’s Engineering Chief Takes Leave of Absence at Pivotal Moment
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is the door handles I wonder about. They seem overcomplicated since they are electric servos I believe instead of typical mechanical handles. In a complete loss of power can the doors be opened? This is unclear to me. I don't own a Tesla and am genuinely wondering. The difference to a gas car could be that you can't get out of a Tesla if there is a fire. I think I read in a teardown of the Model 3 that the rear do…
Why would anyone rebut? Buy a car you like.
Curiosity? Also I'm captivated by all the swings in TSLA stock I suppose.
Re: Tesla’s Engineering Chief Takes Leave of Absence at Pivotal Moment
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm getting the impression that there's some kind of axe-grinding going on in the general region of WSJ when it comes to Elon. Not sure why. But this article definitely feels like someone just trying hard to find an angle to cast a deprecating light on Tesla. Like a "vested interests" type of feeling.
Head of Sales Chief Financial Officer Chief Accounting Officer Treasurer Director of Battery Tech All gone in the past year. That's a notable amount of turnover. Some of them left a lot of options on the table when they chose to depart. It's odd, and probably what triggered an entire article about something as normally mundane as a leave of absence.
The electric car market is booming right now. All of these people would be in strong demand. And with the Model 3 now in production they might well be looking for a new challenge with, probably, much better pay.
Re: Tesla’s Engineering Chief Takes Leave of Absence at Pivotal Moment
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, and I think the reason he's taking a 6-week break now is that he failed to take sufficient breaks earlier. I've burnt out myself, and it's no joke. I wish him only the best. But to me the real risk here isn't "senior leader out for long, possibly indefinite period". It's "Tesla has been running a sprint, not a marathon." If somebody this high up is burnt out, what's it like for everybody else? Given Tesla's pre…
Silicon valley likes to pretend you can run a marathon in 45 minutes by breaking it into subsequent 100 meter sprints. Dashing without breaks burns people fast.
I’m on an ongoing campaign to eradicate the word “Sprint” in relation to software delivery from the company I work at, so far with some success. It seems pedantic at first, but using the word “Iteration” in its place does actually seem to be driving an understanding that we’re not going to get everything done in a week, and should instead work steadily towards completion.
Re: Tesla’s Engineering Chief Takes Leave of Absence at Pivotal Moment
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
> WSJ ... editorials Twice I conducted a study: I collected everything on their op-ed page over a week or two and coded them for their political stance. I think there were a couple pro-Democratic/liberal pieces out of over a hundred, and a few criticized the Republicans;[0] all the rest were pro-GOP/conservative or anti-liberal/Dem (plus a few that were apolitical). (And if you think the NY Times is the same, you're…
It's owned by Rupert Murdoch, that shouldn't be a surprise.
From what I recall, the editorial page was much the same before the Murdoch era. However, the rest of the paper was a fairly stark contrast, and I didn't have the general impression that they slanted the actual news. After Murdoch bought it I lost faith in their reporting, but I never held the editorials against them too much prior to that. The opinion section seemed like a quarantine for the right wing types.
Back in Apple's pre-Steve Jobs era, though, I did get the impression that the news stories were consistently bashing Apple in a way that made it seem like they had some ulterior motivation. Apple would always be described as "troubled" or "beleagured" like a mantra. And it's passed into mythology that Apple was near bankruptcy when in fact they hoarded cash and abhorred debt.
So I'm not really sure if any anti-Tesla agenda is really coming from Murdoch.
Re: Tesla’s Engineering Chief Takes Leave of Absence at Pivotal Moment
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why on Earth would that require a recall? Hundreds of gas powered cars catch fire every day. The only difference is first responders expect and know how to handle gas fires. They will learn to handle batteries too.
It is the door handles I wonder about. They seem overcomplicated since they are electric servos I believe instead of typical mechanical handles. In a complete loss of power can the doors be opened? This is unclear to me. I don't own a Tesla and am genuinely wondering. The difference to a gas car could be that you can't get out of a Tesla if there is a fire. I think I read in a teardown of the Model 3 that the rear do…
There are many cars that don't have rear doors, but do have rear seats. The worst case scenario in a Tesla, if the rear doors don't open, doesn't seem any worse than the inevitable situation in a 2 door 2+2.
Something else people worry about (or used to) was power windows not opening in a crash in case the door is jammed. But we don't mandate crank windows for that reason.
Re: Tesla’s Engineering Chief Takes Leave of Absence at Pivotal Moment
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would anyone rebut? Buy a car you like.
Curiosity? Also I'm captivated by all the swings in TSLA stock I suppose.
If you don't like "flashy overcomplicated things", why would I try to talk you out of that? I've known a lot of people with that opinion, they're not early adopters, they get great pleasure out of buying less complicated things, and my curiosity about why they are this way was satisfied a long time ago.
Re: Tesla’s Engineering Chief Takes Leave of Absence at Pivotal Moment
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is the door handles I wonder about. They seem overcomplicated since they are electric servos I believe instead of typical mechanical handles. In a complete loss of power can the doors be opened? This is unclear to me. I don't own a Tesla and am genuinely wondering. The difference to a gas car could be that you can't get out of a Tesla if there is a fire. I think I read in a teardown of the Model 3 that the rear do…
There are many cars that don't have rear doors, but do have rear seats. The worst case scenario in a Tesla, if the rear doors don't open, doesn't seem any worse than the inevitable situation in a 2 door 2+2. Something else people worry about (or used to) was power windows not opening in a crash in case the door is jammed. But we don't mandate crank windows for that reason.
That's a great point, though since I have kids I can only dream of a 2 door car for a while. It is technically possible but hard to schlep with them back there when they are little. So I think of it more as a safety scenario in my present life situation.
Re: Tesla’s Engineering Chief Takes Leave of Absence at Pivotal Moment
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Curiosity? Also I'm captivated by all the swings in TSLA stock I suppose.
If you don't like "flashy overcomplicated things", why would I try to talk you out of that? I've known a lot of people with that opinion, they're not early adopters, they get great pleasure out of buying less complicated things, and my curiosity about why they are this way was satisfied a long time ago.
Oh I'm just curious if the door thing is a fire safety concern. Nothing more. I won't buy a Tesla for a while at least but I follow the stock from an investment standpoint. You don't need to convince me of anything, just answer if the doors can be opened in a power loss situation. Satisfy my curiosity - though admittedly I'd probably use this data to further confirm my dislike of overengineering...
Re: Tesla’s Engineering Chief Takes Leave of Absence at Pivotal Moment
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/key-statistics?p=TSLA A bit down the page on the right, you'll see "Shares Short", "Short Ratio", "Short % of Float", and "Shares Short (prior month)". What that is telling you is that almost $10B of Tesla stock has been borrowed and sold (with the profit coming from buying in the future at lower prices, ie, betting against TSLA). That is increased about 7% from the prior month, a…
Is this short ratio atypical? I presume it involves some major institutional investors being against TSLA, but is there a good way to determine who?
>Is this short ratio atypical?
I wouldn't say so. There are other heavily shorted stocks that have a much higher short ratio because of their small float (e.g. MTCH).
>but is there a good way to determine who?
Short sellers don't have to disclose their positions, unlike investors who're long the stock. You can try to get a better sense of who's thinking what through headlines and analyst notes/reports.
Side note: Elon tweeted out that we'd see the 'burn of the century' (a short squeeze) and that it would be bigger than the VW/Porsche squeeze in 08.