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.

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.

Wsj also has some nice pieces about Tesla, such as their recent tour of the production factory. https://www.wsj.com/articles/teslas-factory-in-a-fishbowl-15...

For example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilwinton/2015/02/16/tesla-sho...

Source article: http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-tesla-paradox-1423786534

Electric car site looking at subsidies across the industry: https://electrek.co/2016/11/25/tesla-subsidies-big-three-oil...

One complaint I have with both of you both is that neither provides breakdowns by dollar of subsidies per car produced or sold.

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 wrong: Ross Douthat, Bret Stephens (former WSJ editorial page editor) and David Brooks are all conservatives, and maybe others are too.) I encourage anyone to do the same; I feel I can almost guarantee results ever over a small sample like a day.

My conclusion: WSJ op-eds and editorials are partisan mouthpieces for the Republican Party and conservatives. I don't know how Tesla fits into that, but that's their motive. Denying climate change and demonizing any attempt at a solution? Supporting big oil? Musk pulling away from Trump? Others might have a better guess than I do.

[0] Criticizing Republicans is not necessarily pro-Democratic. For example, an editorial could criticize the Republicans for not cutting taxes enough.

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.

There is (or was) a lot of internal conflict over what the reporters feel is favorable coverage of Trump.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=wall+street+journal+trump+coverage...

This has never been true, has it?

That's like saying everybody lies, therefore nobody has ever been honest. Sure, journalists are human and have emotions and make mistakes, but it's not a binary issue; it's a continuum. Journalists generally should strive to be dispassionate.

But why?

For comparison on mass production: "more than 15 million Model Ts were manufactured in all, reaching a rate of 9,000 to 10,000 cars a day in 1925, or 2 million annually" [1]. Toyota was producing 13,400 units per day in 2014.

Model3 is currently somewhere around 300 to 500 per day.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T

No, he didn’t. The assembly line existed before Ford applied it to cars.

[1] https://www.wiley.com/legacy/products/subject/business/forbe...

* Tesla produced ~250k vehicles (cumulative as of Q2 2017) prior to the first production Model 3, so it's not appropriate to compare them to a brand new company: They know how to build cars by the time Model 3 rolled around. This is their 4th vehicle model.

* Tesla has stated many times how the Model 3 is a far simpler and trimmed down vehicle compared to the S or X: production should be easier.

* Tesla had a goal of 2,500/wk by December 31st (they managed 793 the last week by shutting down S&X production) and a total of 2,425 for that entire quarter.

* Tesla had a goal of 5,000/wk and a revised goal of 2,500/wk by March 31st but only managed to hit 2,020 by that point, again which required shutting down the S&X lines.

* The new goalpost is 5,000/wk by June 30th.

* Elon said that "excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake" and that "Humans are underrated". [1]

If Musk himself is suggesting that the Model 3 delays would have not occurred due to human assembly instead, I think it's quite fair to compare against Ford's Model T assembly line a century ago. Not to mention a few advancements in technology since then which should give Tesla the upper hand.

[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/984882630947753984

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 precarious cash position this is the time when they really need for things to go smoothly. But if people are at or near burnout, they'll be making mistakes, cutting corners, etc.

Not saying we don't deserve that sort of time off, but it seems somewhat excessive given the circumstances.

Usual disclaimer: TSLA shareholder

Personally, I don’t think their valuation is irrational. They’re not a car company, they’re an energy storage company, the market for which is enormous.

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, and would take almost 5 entire days of average trading volume to close out all the short positions.

This is a high level of betting against a stock by any standard.

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.

If there's a way to report who is short a stock, I don't know it. There are also other trades to profit from decreases in an underlying security (buying puts, selling calls) and I don't know about reporting obligations there, either.

1. https://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/01/tesla-short-interest-hits-re...

Really? That's nonsense. This sentiment is a great example of what's so toxic about the public markets now. Everyone is complaining that so much value creation is happening in private companies going public later - a big reason is because of this idea that investors should care about when one person at a 36,000 person company goes on vacation and that this should move the stock price. Ridiculous. It's distracting noise.

Btw - I don't believe he is "on vacation". It's something else, but probably doesn't matter in the end.

Maybe if you had hundreds of thousands invested in TSLA and were concerned about their downward spiral you’d think different.

There's no such thing for a public company. It either talks to the board, which represents investors, or to the public, since it is impossible to know who owns shares of a public company.

And in practice, given index funds, most people do.

But then that would imply that Tesla has an obligation to make sure third party news outlets report on every holiday taken by every executive. I'm not saying it has to be private information, but why not announce it on their website? Why does the Wall Street Journal have to do it?

Public companies have to publicly report any "relevant facts" that could seriously impact the company and the investors. A Senior Vice President of Engineering taking a leave of absence of many weeks (or more, with no end announced) during a major engineering crisis in the company is by all means a relevant fact.

United Airlines passenger pulled off PR disaster stock was up 13% 3 months later.

Facebook cambridge analytica at lows at $160. Today $FB closed at $186.99.

Tesla report of death while car was in autopilot and public outrage over Elon's handling of investor quarterly call. May 3rd $TSLA trades down to $285. Today $TSLA closed at $301.

Apple, all analysts go bullish saying X is not selling, suppliers reporting down, consumers complaining about minor details, the end is near for Apple. Trades down to $160 April 27th. Instead Apple crushes quarter, huge $100B stock buyback, divy increase... up 15%. Cook praises Tax reform.

In nearly every circumstance where public outrage and news blasts a solid US company for some minor incident, it has been profitable to buy the dip. I can provide many more examples if so desired.

The market is still willing to shrug off news like that because we’re not in a recession or a bear market yet.

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 door handles didn't have mechanical options as a backup for safety.

Overall I don't particularly like flashy overcomplicated things which is what these door handles seem to me. I'm curious for any rebuttal though.

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.

The author of the article needs to be more humane.

I can't even read the news without rolling my eyes and thinking WTF?

An article about Trump or Elon Musk/Tesla even if it's completely uncalled for or factually incorrect seems to become "news".

Journalistic quality has definitely gone downhill in the last decade or two.

The news media covered the "furor" over Obama's tan suit. They're damn well going to cover any real scandal involving Trump. It's their job.

If this news doesn't interest you then don't read it.