Ford expands work from home to 30,000 employees

Ford realized that, well, many of its employees worked very well from home. All this and much more in Morning change for March 18, 2021.

First step: Extended offer for white collar, not for blue collar workers

The funny part about all of this is that Ford calls his plan a “hybrid” work model, which means I’ll never think about the old Ford Escapes when I read about it. From Chicago Tribune:

It is a question that occupies the minds of millions of employees who worked from home last year: will they be allowed to work remotely – at least for a few days – once the pandemic has disappeared? On Wednesday, one of America’s corporate titans, Ford Motor Co., provided its own answer: it said about 30,000 of its employees around the world who worked from home could continue to do so indefinitely, with flexible hours approved by managers. their. Their programs will become a “hybrid” of office work: they will commute to work mainly for group meetings and projects best suited for face-to-face interaction.

Some of these seem to be about employee happiness, and others seem to be about corporate efficiency. Ford stressed that he will not need the expenses of cabin farms, heartbreaking or not, when he spoke to Bloomberg about switch:

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

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

Ford will have to manage its perceptions carefully, because it offers flexibility to some employees and not to others. The pandemic has revealed how dependent society is on the physical presence of blue-collar workers in the factory floor at the food counter. But the idea of ​​white-collar employees safely connecting at home, while lower-paid employees risk their health to appear in person, was an added source. resentment in an already stratified US economy.

I don’t know if I would care if other people were stuck in the cabins if I worked on the line, but that’s just me.

Second gear: Electric cars do great … Share Prices

Electric vehicles are still part of the car market and, no matter how many promises they make for the future, what do they do for car companies? right now? The answer is that it stimulates stock values ​​as well Wall Street Journal reports:

After years of fighting for their shares to be undervalued, Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co., Volkswagen AG and other blue-chip car manufacturers see sharp gains in stock prices this year as it embraces new technology.

Ford is up 49% this year, while GM shares are up 48%. VW shares rose 55% and even briefly rose 29% in intraday transactions one day this week, when the company hosted a Power Day event, saying that would build six EV battery factories in Europe alone in the next 10 years. And this week VW has advanced SAP SE to become the most valuable stock on the German DAX index.

How much do car companies value themselves, and how much do they appreciate what they do for stock prices? Who could make a difference?

Third step: Tesla is sued for not appointing a lawyer to stop Elon’s tweets

Tesla thrives on having a public figure like Elon to send endless praise on Twitter, so it’s no surprise that the company hasn’t closed its account, as a new lawsuit claims. The case doesn’t seem to depend on people generally upset with Elon’s bad memes, but that they think his bad choices on Twitter affect the value of the company, as Business Insider reports:

Elon Musk was able to post “irregular” tweets about Tesla that led to government investigations because the company’s board failed to control its CEO. claims a lawsuit from a Tesla investor.

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

The lawsuit against Musk and the council focuses on how Musk’s comments on Twitter violated a 2018 settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which removed him from the company’s board of directors and stipulated that his tweets should be approved in advance by the company.

Shareholders deserve better!

4th Gear: Teslas is now too expensive for the UK EV grant

What’s great about electric vehicles is their quiet operation and complete freedom from gas stations. People also talk a lot about how much money they can or cannot save with them. We will soon see how great the attraction really is in the UK, as the government has just priced Teslas out of a large grant, as Bloomberg Green reports:

British transport authorities on Thursday cut a purchase bonus for cars, vans and electric trucks at £ 2,500 ($ 3,491) from £ 3,000 and lowered the price of models that qualified to less than £ 35,000. While the previous ceiling of less than 50,000 pounds meant the most Model 3 variants received the aid, none will qualify according to the new rule.

The British government was under pressure clog a hole in the country’s finances left by the pandemic. He claims that buyers of electric vehicles at higher prices can afford to switch from combustion-powered cars even without help and that the number of battery-powered models costing less than £ 35,000 has increased by almost 50%. 2019.

I have a feeling that people never really buy a Tesla for budgetary reasons, but this will be interesting to watch.

Fifth speed: partner Nikola sells half of his stake

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

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

The amount to be sold is worth about $ 180 million, based on Nikola’s closing price of $ 16.39. Nikola shares fell 3.5% to $ 15.82 in premarket trading.

[…]

He said Hanwha will provide third-party solar farms with the panels needed to generate electricity to produce “clean energy” hydrogen for a planned network of US gas stations. Hanwha bought its stake in 2018, two years before Nikola earns a public stock. listing in June through a reverse merger with a special purpose procurement company.

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

Reverse: We have returned from the light of God