Ford extends homework to 30,000 employees

Ford realized that, well, many of its employees are doing very well at home. All this and more in The morning shift for March 18, 2021.

1st gear: extended offer for white collar workers, not blue collar workers

The funny thing about all of this is that Ford is calling its plan a “hybrid” working model, which means that I will only think about the old Ford Escapes when I read about it. In Chicago Tribune:

It is a question that occupies the minds of millions of employees who worked from home last year: will they still be able to work remotely – at least a few days – once the pandemic has passed? On Wednesday, one of America’s corporate titans, Ford Motor Co., provided his own answer: She told about 30,000 of her employees around the world who worked from home that they can continue to do so indefinitely, flexible hours approved by their managers. Their schedules will become a work office “hybrid”: they will travel to work mainly for group meetings and projects more suitable for face-to-face interaction.

Part of this seems to be about making employees happy and part of corporate efficiency. Ford pointed out that he will not need the expense of cubicle farms, crushing or not, when he spoke to Bloomberg about the change:

“No more cubicle farms”, Jackie Shuk, global director of Ford’s real estate unit, said in an interview. “We are trying to make it as easy as possible to be a Ford employee.”

Bloomberg also pointed out that this will be for office workers, not factory workers:

Ford will have to manage perceptions carefully, as it is giving flexibility to some employees and not others. The pandemic revealed how society is dependent on the physical presence of workers in the factory floor to the grocery store counter. But the idea of ​​white-collar employees logging in safely at home, while lower-wage employees risk their health to appear in person, has been an additional source of resentment in an already stratified American economy.

I don’t know if I would necessarily care if other people were trapped in cubicles if I were working on the line, but it’s just me.

2nd gear: electric cars are doing great … things to share prices

EVs are still a slice of the automotive market, and no matter how much they promise for the future, what they are doing for automakers right now? The answer is that they are increasing stock values, as the Wall Street Journal reports:

After years of regretting that his shares were devalued, Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co., Volkswagen AG and other top-tier automakers are seeing sharp gains in share prices this year as they adopt the new technology.

Ford has soared 49% so far this year, while GM shares have soared 48%. VW shares rose 55% and even briefly rose 29% in intraday trade one day this week, when the company held a “Power Day” event, saying would build six EV battery factories in Europe alone over the next 10 years. VW this week also anticipated SAP SE to become the most valuable share in the German DAX index.

How much do automakers really value their EVs and how much do they value only what they do for stock prices? Who could tell the difference?

3rd gear: Tesla being sued for not appointing a lawyer to stop Elon’s tweet

Tesla likes to have a public figure like Elon to send out endless complaints on Twitter, so it’s no surprise that the company hasn’t really controlled his account, as a new lawsuit alleges. The case seems not to depend on people who are generally irritated by Elon’s bad memes, but who think their bad Twitter operations are undermining the company’s value, like Business Insider reports:

Elon Musk was able to post “erratic” tweets about Tesla that led to government investigations because the company’s board was unable to control its CEO, a lawsuit by a Tesla investor alleges.

The board “consistently failed” to appoint an independent attorney general, said investor Chase Gharrity in his lawsuit. The company lost three general boards in 2019, he added.

The lawsuit against Musk and the council focuses on how Musk’s comments on Twitter allegedly violated a 2018 agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who removed him from the company’s board and stipulated that his tweets should be previously approved by the company.

Shareholders deserve better!

4th gear: Teslas now too expensive for UK EV subsidy

What’s great about EVs is their quiet operation and complete freedom from gas stations. In addition, people talk a lot about how much money they can and cannot save with them. We will soon see how big an attraction it really is in the UK, as the government has just set the price for Teslas through a big subsidy, like Bloomberg Green reports:

UK transport authorities on Thursday cut a purchase bonus for electric cars, vans and trucks to 2,500 pounds ($ 3,491) from 3,000 pounds and reduced the price of qualified models to less than 35,000 pounds. Although the previous ceiling of less than £ 50,000 meant more Model 3 variants obtained the aid, none will qualify under the new rule.

The UK government has been under pressure to plug a hole in the country’s finances left by the pandemic. He argues that buyers of more expensive EVs can exchange combustion engine cars even without help, and that the number of battery-powered models costing less than £ 35,000 has increased by almost 50% since 2019.

I have a feeling that people are not always buying a Tesla for budgetary reasons, but it will be interesting to keep an eye on it.

5th gear: partner Nikola selling half of his bet

How are things going for Nikola after all that “the head of the company was exposed as a fraud” thing? Not good. Its strategic partner Hanwha, which intended to supply solar farms, sold half of its stake in the company, worth about $ 180 million, as Bloomberg reports:

Hanwha, who Nikola described as a key partner and strategic investor, plans to sell 11.05 million shares, or 50% of his current stake in the Phoenix-based company, according to a securities filing on Wednesday. Hanwha Corp. is the group’s publicly held holding company, a conglomerate that covers financial services, chemicals and solar energy.

The amount to be sold is about $ 180 million based on Nikola’s closing price of $ 16.39. Nikola’s shares fell 3.5 percent to $ 15.82 in the pre-market.

[…]

She said Hanwha will supply third-party solar farms with panels necessary to generate electricity for the production of “clean energy” hydrogen for a planned network of filling stations in the United States. Hanwha bought its stake in 2018, two years before Nikola won public listing in June through a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company.

I’m starting to wonder if this Nikola thing is going to work!

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