TSLA corporate outlook

cwerdna said:

Ex-Tesla employees reveal the cryptic ways they learned they were getting laid off

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Tesla Model S Catches Fire While In Motion – Not Caused By Crash

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The brand-new all-electric 2019 Jaguar I-Pace is not an exceptional car. It one-ups that by being a truly extraordinary one. While it wears the Jaguar moniker, it’s fair to say that it’s representative of nearly everything an all-electric Land Rover could offer. Marrying this with the I-Pace’s sports-car-meets-SUV facade, athletic handling, exhilarating acceleration, and spacious, luxurious cabin makes for a true game-changer. Like any car, it’s not without its faults, though they’re few and far between. . . .

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cwerdna said:

Tesla workers say they pay the price for Elon Musk's big promises
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/13/tesla-workers-pay-price-elon-musk-failed-promises

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LTLFTcomposite said:

Jilted employee did some damage...

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/18/elon-musk-email-employee-conducted-extensive-and-damaging-sabotage.html

(or something else going on here)

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From: Elon Musk

To: Everybody

Subject: Some concerning news

June 17, 2018

11:57 p.m.

I was dismayed to learn this weekend about a Tesla employee who had conducted quite extensive and damaging sabotage to our operations. This included making direct code changes to the Tesla Manufacturing Operating System under false usernames and exporting large amounts of highly sensitive Tesla data to unknown third parties.

The full extent of his actions are not yet clear, but what he has admitted to so far is pretty bad. His stated motivation is that he wanted a promotion that he did not receive. In light of these actions, not promoting him was definitely the right move.

However, there may be considerably more to this situation than meets the eye, so the investigation will continue in depth this week. We need to figure out if he was acting alone or with others at Tesla and if he was working with any outside organizations.

As you know, there are a long list of organizations that want Tesla to die. These include Wall Street short-sellers, who have already lost billions of dollars and stand to lose a lot more. Then there are the oil & gas companies, the wealthiest industry in the world — they don't love the idea of Tesla advancing the progress of solar power & electric cars...

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Director's Tesla Model S catches fire in L.A.

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. . . In a 2016 study, Swedish researchers found that Teslas had a rate of fires of about 1 in 20,000 cars, compared with about 1 in 1,000 fires for gasoline-powered cars, though they note that this includes all types of fires in gas cars, including some that were set intentionally. . . .

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ARE ELECTRIC
VEHICLES SAFER
THAN COMBUSTION
ENGINE VEHICLES?

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The number of EVs on the road is still too low to conduct reliable statistical
studies of incidents and accidents. Anyhow, the limited data on incidents up to
now, presented in this chapter, give an indication that electric vehicles might be
less prone to fire incidents than vehicles with internal combustion engines.

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Tesla severance agreements may restrict whistleblowers
Language could prevent employees from speaking publicly about safety

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. . . Bloomberg reports that a proposed severance agreement required the recipient to acknowledge that he or she "had the opportunity to raise any safety concerns, safety complaints, or whistleblower activities against the company, and that if any safety concerns, safety complaints, or whistleblower activities were raised during your employment, they were addressed to your satisfaction." In addition, the agreement would bar the former employee from sharing "business-related" information, require the person to help Tesla defend itself against claims, release any of the employee's claims made against the company, and stipulates that any disputes under the agreement go to individual arbitration. . . .

A Tesla spokesman told Bloomberg the company uses the language about safety issues to ensure that issues are addressed and that employees who don't believe those words apply to their case should come forward and share their concerns. Labor experts say the language will likely discourage former workers from speaking out, or keep them from being taken seriously if they do. . . .

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LTLFTcomposite said:

Jilted employee did some damage...

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/18/elon-musk-email-employee-conducted-extensive-and-damaging-sabotage.html

(or something else going on here)

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Tesla Pays Its Own Salespeople In $1 Million Lawsuit Settlement

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Tesla has settled another class-action lawsuit after allegedly not paying its sales staff minimum wage or overtime, and not granting food or rest breaks.
According to Jalopnik, a total of 253 people involved in the case will receive about $2,200 each. Several employees made statements about the situation, saying they were miserable, overtime was just expected, and days off were rare. Even if there was a day off, the employees claim there’s an expectation to work from home during that time. This is all attributed back to Tesla’s grand mission, which managers reportedly push on employees when they are asked to go above and beyond their job description. . . .

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Here's how many Model 3 cars Tesla has made so far this year

Tesla has completed about 30,000 of its Model 3 sedans in 2018, according to internal documents viewed by Business Insider and two Tesla employees...

It's made about 6,000 of the cars this month, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Tesla did not respond to requests for comment on the figures.

The company is in a race to ramp up its manufacturing of the mid-priced sedan — a process CEO Elon Musk has called "production hell" on more than one occasion.

The effort has been beset by bottlenecks, and the company has gone as far as flying equipment from Germany to speed up the process.

Nevertheless, Musk challenged his factories to produce 5,000 cars a week by the end of June. In the first quarter, Tesla completed 9,833 Model 3 vehicles, according to Business Insider's sourcing.

The company actually delivered 8,180 Model 3 cars, according to its first-quarter earnings report.

Musk ordered a new assembly line built outside of Tesla's Fremont plant to speed up manufacturing so that it could reach the 5,000 goal. It's known as the GA4 (General Assembly 4) line...

But fewer than 100 vehicles have actually made it through GA4 since production began in early June, according to internal documents viewed by Business Insider and a person familiar with the matter.

And it's unlikely GA4 will provide the output Tesla needs to reach its 5,000 Model 3 goal for some time, according to one of the company's employees.

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As Tesla races to meet Model 3 deadline, factory pressures and suspicions grow

Tesla chief Elon Musk said last week that the company’s layoffs of 9 percent of its workforce wouldn’t affect production as the all-electric automaker races to build thousands of new Model 3 sedans a week.

But documents the company filed days later with the state of California show that more than 400 workers will be terminated at its Fremont factory, including dozens of directors, managers, technicians and other workers in manufacturing, engineering and quality inspection.

The mass layoffs offer a glimpse of the surging pressure the company is facing to keep up with the ambitious goals Musk has set. Factory workers say they’re being pushed to ramp up work even as their co-workers are being pushed out the door.

But they also suggest the space-age car company is facing more chaos at the factory than its drivers and investors may understand. The company has, unconventionally, moved some car production to a giant tent. And Musk, in recent all-employee emails, said the company suffered setbacks from a factory fire and an internal saboteur...

The billionaire tech entrepreneur has long advanced a viewpoint of Tesla-against-the-world, helping build his upstart car company’s reputation as a nail in the tire of Big Auto. But Musk’s latest wave of conspiracy thinking — coming within days of similar attacks on labor unions and journalists — has surprised even long-time Tesla watchers.

“He’s always been combative,” said Mike Ramsey, an automotive research director at Gartner, the advisory firm. But “the public displays of paranoia have become increasingly odd. To me, they seem to reflect a level of anxiety or pressure that I haven’t seen recently."...

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EVDRIVER said:

Some people here really have an issue with reality...

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Tesla sues ex-employee for hacking and theft. But he says he's a whistleblower

Tesla Wednesday sued an ex-employee accused of hacking its manufacturing operating system and stealing company data.
But that ex-employee is fighting back, saying he's being targeted by Tesla for trying to bring problems at the company to light.

"I am being singled out for being a whistleblower. I didn't hack into system. The data I was collecting was so severe, I had to go to the media," said Martin Tripp, the defendant in Tesla's suit, told CNNMoney soon after the suit was filed.

Tesla filed the suit in federal court in Nevada Wednesday against Tripp, 40, of Sparks, Nevada, who had worked at its massive lithium battery Gigafactory since October 2017. Tesla (TSLA) asks for unspecified financial damages and to be able to search Tripp's computers and personal USB and electronic storage devices, email accounts, cloud-based storage accounts, and mobile phone call and messaging history...

But Tripp told CNN he was fired within the last week and sued by Tesla because he was trying to warn investors and the public about problems at the electric carmaker. He said that he discovered that 1,100 damaged battery modules were installed in Model 3 cars that are on the road today. He said that he was also concerned about excessive scrap that is being stored in a dangerous manner on Tesla's property in Nevada that will be expensive to safely dispose of in the future. And he claims that Tesla inflated the number of Model 3's it made when it said it had built 2,020 of the cars in the seven days prior to a much anticipated April 3 report. Tripp said the actual number is closer to 1,900...

Tripp also told CNNMoney he did not have the ability to make changes to the operating system at Tesla, and that he only did computer work that he had been hired to do in his role as a process technician...

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Former employee sued by Tesla says he was a whistleblower, alarmed by company practices and Elon Musk

Tesla sued a former employee Wednesday, accusing the man of hacking the automaker's computer systems and stealing company secrets, shedding light on what chief Elon Musk had suggested was the work of a secretive internal saboteur.

But the employee, Martin Tripp, told The Washington Post that he did not tamper with internal systems and is instead a whistleblower who spoke out after seeing "some really scary things" inside the company, including dangerously punctured batteries installed in cars...

Tripp said he is seeking an attorney and official protections as a whistleblower. He said he, his wife and his 2-year-old son were driving to a hotel because people had posted the address to his apartment online.

The lawsuit adds a new layer of intrigue to a Silicon Valley giant already consumed with production pressures and internal suspicions from Musk about a corporate conspiracy...

Asked if Tripp was the employee Musk had suggested was behind the sabotage, Musk tweeted Wednesday, "There is more, but the actions of a few bad apples will not stop Tesla from reaching its goals. With 40,000 people, the worst 1 in 1000 will have issues. That’s still ~40 people."...

Tripp said Musk emailed him shortly after the lawsuit was filed to say he was a horrible person. Tripp said he responded that Musk deserved what was coming.

Tripp said he left his previous job with a medical-device company and moved his family to Nevada to work for Tesla, believing it was "a golden opportunity. I looked up to Elon, I looked up to Tesla. I was always drooling about the Teslas and wanting to buy one. And I was living the mission: to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy."

But he said he grew disillusioned after seeing the company's waste, unsustainable practices and "seeing how Elon was lying to investors about how many cars they were making." He added, "I wanted to leave the world better for my son. And I felt I was doing everything but that."

He said he did not share the information to hurt Tesla but to shine a light on potential dangers. He said he now believes Musk is a "narcissist" who "only cares about himself."

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TESLA SAYS THREAT TO ‘SHOOT UP’ GIGAFACTORY CAME FROM FRIEND OF SACKED EMPLOYEE

Tesla has bulked up security in its Nevada Gigafactory, after receiving a shooting threat linked to an employee who was recently fired for allegedly stealing secrets and hacking computers.

The car company, headed by billionaire tech tycoon Elon Musk, confirmed in a statement to Newsweek on Thursday that it believes the incident to be tied to Martin Tripp. Tripp was a former technician with the company who was this week hit with legal action and accused of pilfering “several gigabytes” of data.

A Tesla spokesperson commented: “Yesterday afternoon, we received a phone call from a friend of Mr. Tripp telling us that Mr. Tripp would be coming to the Gigafactory to ‘shoot the place up.’ Police have been notified and actions are being taken to enhance security at the Gigafactory.”...

Local police confirmed to CNBC that they responded to investigate, but determined no credible threat.

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EVDRIVER said:

Bassed on posts by many internet trolls he has good reason to think that. In addition some on this forum think the same way unfortunately. I have never seen so much hate for company. But we know what that exists. $$$ for shorts and other agendas.

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Tesla Leaker Is 'Looking Forward To The Lawsuit' Over Alleged Stolen Documents

Former Tesla technician Martin Tripp told Jalopnik on Thursday that he’s lawyering up and plans to file a countersuit against the automaker, which accused him on Tuesday of stealing reams of confidential data and making false claims to news outlets. That’s all to say nothing of his heated, headline-grabbing email exchange with CEO Elon Musk.

Tripp said he has been dealing with a sudden onslaught of attention over the past 48 hours, after Tesla filed an explosive lawsuit on Tuesday that accused him of secretly leaking documents to news organizations and then exaggerating the claims that he made.

In that time, he sparked a wild exchange by email with Musk, who called him a “horrible person,” and, after someone alluded to where he lives in an article online, he said he has since fled to a hotel, where he’s been camped out with his family since.

“They’re out to get me,” Tripp told Jalopnik in a near half-hour interview by phone.

Tripp’s also fearful following a separate accusation from Tesla, which said Thursday that it was beefing up security at the Gigafactory in Nevada, after receiving an alleged report that Tripp had threatened to “shoot up” the plant. Tripp said the claim is bogus, and the local county sheriff’s office investigated the matter and found no credible threat.

...in the interview, Tripp was adamant about the punctured cells, and offered up a specific number of cars he claims are driving around with them.

“I was able to determine that 732 of those modules are in Model 3 cars driving around right now, with the possibility... that [they have punctured cells,” he told Jalopnik...

Tripp said he’s still looking for a lawyer and had spent all day Thursday trying to secure one. His plan is to file a counter-lawsuit against Tesla that asks for significantly higher damages than what Tesla lays out in its complaint, he said.

“It’s going to be for a lot more than what they’re asking from me,” he asid. “A lot more.” ...

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palmermd said:

Interesting thread at TMC. https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/elon-musk-vs-short-sellers.118431/

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