Tesla investors are mad at Musk for focusing solely on Twitter

Tesla investors They are left wondering whos truly employment electric vehicle like maker stock Communicationes to fall, stronghold It adds another crew to a Michigan plant to support it EV pickup truck output f Tesla much less than caught End-From-year sales forecast. All that and more in morning shift For Wednesday, December 14, 2022.

Step one: Tesla investors think Musk should stop obsessing over Twitter

Tesla stock continues to fall, and now individual investors are worried about it Elon Musk’s focus on his latest acquisition, Twitter. The situation has left some wondering who actually makes the decisions Texas-based electric car maker.

Gary Black, managing partner of Future Fund LLC, which owns about $50 million in Tesla stock, He recently tweeted, “No CEO of TSLA today.” that – that’It is a very stark indictment of a corporate CEO. From Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Black expressed his frustration after another sharp sell-off in Tesla stock on Monday. Shares in the world’s largest automaker by market value fell more than 6% in Monday’s trading after a turbulent weekend for Mr. Musk on Twitter, including the billionaire targeting the company’s former trust and safety boss; calls for the prosecution of the US government’s chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci; Criticizing those who offer their pronouns without being asked.

Mr Black said: “The market voted today that the $TSLA brand has been negatively impacted by drama on Twitter. Where before electric car buyers prided themselves on driving their Teslas to their friends or showing off their Teslas in their driveways, the controversy is now on Twitter damages ownership of the Tesla brand.”

Ross Gerber, a longtime Tesla supporter, tweeted Monday with a question to Tesla’s board of directors. “Who is running Tesla day in and day out during this critical time for the company,” said Mr. Gerber.

He tweeted separately, “There is absolutely nothing wrong with Tesla. Other than a CEO who works for another company, Tesla definitely deserves a focused CEO. It will be helpful to know what Elon’s plans are.”

Mr. Musk said, at a trial over Tesla’s compensation package last month, that he was He spends most of his time lately focusing on Twitter, which he acquired for $44 billion. “I expect to reduce my time on Twitter and find someone else running Twitter over time,” he testified.

Tesla shares have already fallen over 50 percent this year alone, which they have It caused Musk to lose his position as the richest person in the world.

In addition to all this,s reported that the automaker’s brand image has taken a hit in recent months. Wall Street Journal Reports indicate that self-identifying Democrats have particularly soured on the brand since Musk’s takeover of Twitter. Crazy, I know.

Second gear: Ford is Cranking OUT F-150 Lightning

Ford is adding a third crew to the nearby assembly plant Detroit In order to increase production of the F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck. In general, you add the third transformation step 250 jobs at the factory in Rouge.

The company had It previously said it was targeting a production figure of about 150,000 lightning per year by the fall of 2023.. From Reuters:

Later on Tuesday, Ford’s commercial vehicle business division president, Ted Canis, told reporters that the unit is seeing “huge demand.”

Kanis said Ford expects the electric vehicle subsidies available under the US Inflation Reduction Act to increase demand for the company’s electric trucks and vans. But he said many companies and fleet management companies are still not sure if they qualify for the subsidies.

Ford is the US market leader in commercial vehicles, which include the Lightning and an electric version of the Transit van.

Reuters reports that the company’s fleet and commercial division, Ford Pro, is targeting annual revenue of $45 billion by 2025. That would be a 67 percent increase 2019.

Third gear: Elon WAs wrong about his sales of Tesla predictions

Time is running out for Tesla to reach the top of CEO Elon Muskejaculate That the automaker will have an “epic” year-end in 2022. Case seems to be coming down to demand. From bloomberg:

The CEO’s enthusiastic look during the automaker’s recent earnings call gave way to lower prices and production in China. In the US, Tesla is offering consumers something previously unimaginable: a $3,750 incentive to pick up certain cars now, instead of waiting for the new year.

“Tesla increasingly appears to have a demand problem,” Tony Sacconaghi, a Bernstein analyst with a par-sell rating on the stock, wrote in a report last week. It is believed that Tesla will need to cut prices further to stimulate demand in China, as well as make permanent reductions in the cost of models in the United States to qualify for the perks under the Inflation Reduction Act.

[…]

The company remains the dominant seller of electric vehicles globally, and it carried just eight days’ worth of cars in inventory at the end of September. No other automaker is well-positioned to take advantage of IRA tax credits to manufacture battery cells and locally assembled electric vehicles.

But in order to meet its goal of increasing deliveries by 50% annually over several years — a goal Tesla has already said it will fall short of in 2022 — it seems increasingly likely that Musk will have to make some concessions. Cut label prices for the models in the lineup even with battery costs Rises Profit margins may shrink.

Musk assures people that this isn’t entirely Tesla’s fault, nor his. They are frequentTly sparked a headwind that was out of Tesla’s control. Some of the issues identified by Bloomberg include a slowdown in China’s real estate market, and Europe’s overcapacityy crisis, Interest rate hike by the US Federal Reserve.

The first sign of trouble for Tesla this quarter came when the company reported that its production had exceeded deliveries by more than 22,000 vehicles over the previous three months. Chief Financial Officer Zachary Kirkhorn warned during the Oct. 19 earnings call that investors should expect another “gap” at the end of the year, with more cars manufactured and still in transit toward the end of the quarter.

Last April, Musk said that Tesla will produce more than 1.5 million cars in 2022, but it looks like the company will fall Far below this target. For the first three quarters of the year, the company only built a small mark under 930,000 vehicles, so it had to build 570,000 more in the fourth quarter alone to achieve that goal.

Fourth gear: Mercedes-Benz boosts itpower generation network

Mercedes-Benz has just laid out its plan (Cost North billion) to prepare its global production network to begin large-scale electric powertrain manufacturing 2024. This manufacturing will include assembly of batteries, electric drive units and axles. From Reuters:

Factories in Kamenz and Untertuerkheim in Germany as well as in Beijing, which are already assembling batteries for electric and hybrid models, will also assemble batteries for models on the upcoming MMA and MB.EA platforms, with another battery assembly site in Koelleda awaiting support from the regional government.

Untertuerkheim, Beijing and Sebes in Romania will build electric drive units for the cars on the new platforms, with Hamburg and Untertürkheim to remain the main factories for assembling axles and electrical components.

“There is no location that is not listed,” production chief Jörg Borzer said on a press call.

Management and staff representatives reached an agreement in June on converting European car factories to electric vehicles, making Sindelfingen home to high-end vehicles on the AMG.EA platform, Bremen and Kecskemet in Hungary for basic luxury models and Rastatt and Kecskemet for entry-level models. vehicles.

Mercedes has set up its car factories in a way that allows them to do so To build all of the internal combustion Vehicles and electric vehicles are on the same product line, but Purzer says so Building batteries and motors on the same line is a lot More complex than building traditional vehicles.

Reuters reports that many components manufacturers will continue to make parts for ICE vehicles as long as there is demand for them. Mercedes reportedly plans to have all-electric sales by the start of the next decade “where market conditions permit.”

Fifth gear: Management change in the Volkswagen Group

The Volkswagen Group has appointed a number of new heads of the company’s quality and design departments in an effort to speed up decision-making and improve coordination between Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche. From Auto News:

From January 1, Michael Neumayer will be responsible for the VW Group’s Quality Management department while retaining his position as Head of Quality at Audi. He will replace Frank Welch, as VW Group’s Chief Quality Officer. Welch is retiring after nearly 30 years of service with Volkswagen.

Also on January 1, Michael Mauer will become head of design at the VW Group, while retaining the same role at Porsche. He will replace Klaus Zysiora, who is leaving the carmaker.

The latest management change follows a leadership restructuring announced by new Volkswagen Group chief executive Oliver Blume in September.

This move means that all key functions have been assigned to the Group’s flagship brands. Basically, Volkswagen (the brand, not the parent company) will oversee the group’s production and procurement. Audi is now responsible for sales and quality, and Porsche takes the lead in design and development.

Volkswagen said the new structure would lead to clearer prioritization and faster execution amid sweeping changes in the industry.

Managing key quality and design functions across the Audi and Porsche brands will also allow the Volkswagen Group to intensify its focus on customers, Blum said in the statement.

It must have been a tough task to run a carmaker of the huge size of the VW Group. I do not envy these People.

Reverse: Have a glass of milk