Tesla secures battery cell supply deal with CATL, report says - Electrek

Tesla has reportedly secured a battery supply deal with CATL, China’s biggest battery manufacturer, to supply cells for Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai and potentially expand to other production facilities.

As of now, Panasonic is the only approved battery cell supplier for Tesla’s vehicles, but things are changing fast.

Since Tesla’s inception, Panasonic has always been the automaker’s sole battery suppliers for vehicles with the very small exception of a short-lived Tesla Roadster 3.0 battery replacement program.

Panasonic made cells in Japan and exported them to California for Tesla’s Model S and Model X programs, while the two companies partnered to make the cells for Model 3 at Gigfactory 1 in Nevada.

Over the last few years, Tesla started using battery cells from Samsung SDI and LG Chem for its stationary energy storage products, but Panasonic always had the exclusive contract to supply the automaker with battery cells for its electric vehicles.

Now it’s apparently about to change.

Earlier this year, we heard that Tesla made a battery supply deal with LG Chem for the Model 3 produced at Gigafactory 3 and now it looks like they will split the capacity with CATL.

We have been hearing since March that Tesla was in talks with CATL, but Bloomberg is now reporting that the two companies have “reached a preliminary agreement.”

Bloomberg reports that the official agreement is not certain yet and it is not expected to go through until “mid-2020”:

“Following months of negotiations, the companies clinched a non-binding deal after Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk traveled to Shanghai in late August and met with CATL Chairman Zeng Yuqun for about 40 minutes, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing private deliberations. Though a final agreement is expected to be signed by mid 2020, there is no guarantee that will happen, the people said.”

The ‘preliminary agreement’ is for battery cells to be installed in Model 3 vehicles to be built at Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai, but they are reportedly also “separate discussions underway on a potential global supply contract.”

CATL has been expanding its reach lately and announced several new battery factories to support major automakers.

The Chinese company signed a supply contract with SAAB successor National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) in order to enable the production of hundreds of thousands of all-electric cars per year.

BMW also signed a $1 billion battery supply contract with them to support their future EV production.

They have also secured a battery supply agreement with Honda for about 1 million electric vehicles.

CATL reportedly has a current annual production of 17.5 GWh and they are planning a new factory with a capacity of 24 GWh to come online as soon as next year.

Electrek’s Take

It’s interesting that in the space of a few months to a year, Tesla could go from a single battery cell supplier for its cars to having 3 and even likely making its own cells.

I still think that Tesla is planning to move into the battery cell manufacturing space in a big way next year, but it makes sense for the company to still build a solid supply chain with other suppliers.

Tesla is going to need an incredible amount of battery cells over the next few years and while I think that long term most of those cells are going to be built internally, I think they will still be buying billions of dollars worth of battery cells in the next few years.

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https://electrek.co/2019/11/06/tesla-secures-battery-supply-deal-catl-report/

2019-11-06 10:01:00Z
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Tesla going all out in China - Seeking Alpha

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Tesla going all out in China  Seeking AlphaView full coverage on Google News
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3515072-tesla-going-china

2019-11-06 08:17:00Z
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SoftBank Takes a Financial Hit as Its WeWork Bet Sours - The New York Times

TOKYO — SoftBank Group of Japan on Wednesday said it took a multibillion-dollar write-down related to its stakes in WeWork and Uber, two flashy technology companies that have become the poster children for the excesses of start-up culture.

SoftBank Group is the world’s largest tech investor, and it has used its $100 billion Vision Fund — backed with its own money as well as major stakes from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and others — to become a kingmaker in the space by placing major bets on companies it believes have the potential to dominate entire industries.

But the company, and its chief executive, Masayoshi Son, have come under increasing pressure to rein in their stable of potential unicorns following the spectacular implosion of the initial public offering of WeWork, the tech-adjacent American real estate company, in late September.

On Wednesday, SoftBank said its profits for the six months that ended in September totaled 421 billion yen, or nearly $3.9 billion, about half the level of the same period a year ago. The figures imply SoftBank lost more than $6.4 billion in the most recent three-month period.

SoftBank cited a nearly $4.6 billion write-down in the value of its investment in WeWork, plus write-downs in other investments, including Uber, the American ride-hailing company.

SoftBank also owns Yahoo Japan, the chip design firm ARM, and the phone carrier Sprint in the United States.

But WeWork’s fall had the biggest impact on the Japanese company’s results. WeWork’s $47 billion valuation plummeted virtually overnight after its effort to sell shares to the public revealed deep governance issues, including questionable financial arrangements involving Adam Neumann, its leader and founder. SoftBank now values WeWork at $7.8 billion. Mr. Neumann resigned as the company’s chief executive at the end of September.

SoftBank Group bet big on Mr. Neumann’s vision even as cracks had begun to appear. While its partners in Vision Fund balked at throwing more money at the loss-making WeWork, Mr. Son’s company continued pouring funds into the venture, eventually investing $10.5 billion in the tech firm ahead of its planned offering.

The meltdown has forced SoftBank Group to pump an additional $9.5 billion into the company, leaving it with an 80 percent stake but no majority voting rights. Mr. Neumann walked away with more than a billion-dollar payout.

The WeWork fiasco has increased scrutiny of Mr. Son’s role in shaping the Vision Fund’s investment portfolio. The notoriously exuberant founder is famous for making snap decisions about companies based on intuition as much as overall strategy.

The missteps at WeWork have shaken investors’ confidence in Mr. Son, according to Mitsunobu Tsuruo, an analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Japan.

“He’s supposed to be a good judge for picking winning entrepreneurs, but Mr. Neumann was not the case,” he said, adding that Mr. Son would need to convince his shareholders that their interests will not be compromised by Softbank’s exposure to WeWork.

In some cases, Mr. Son’s bets have paid off spectacularly. An early gamble on Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce company, grew to more than $100 billion. But other investments have not fared as well. Large stakes in Uber and Slack have begun to look more nearsighted than visionary as their share prices have fallen in the months following their public offerings.

WeWork’s collapse comes as Mr. Son is trying to raise funds for a second $100 billion-plus fund aimed at making investments in artificial intelligence, which SoftBank announced in July. The company planned to finance the fund with $38 billion of its own money and said it expected backing from some of the tech industry’s top names, including Apple and Microsoft, as well as several major Japanese financial institutions.

At the time, it seemed that money would likely finance a strategy similar to the one Mr. Son has pursued with the first fund: pumping so much money into his chosen companies that they overwhelm their rivals with their sheer financial bulk, allowing them to establish near monopolies in key industries.

Critics of the strategy say it has undermined financial discipline at the companies that benefit from the fund’s largess, and the experience of companies like Uber — which spent billions on buying market share but has yet to turn a profit — has given investors second thoughts about that model.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/business/softbank-loss-wework.html

2019-11-06 07:12:00Z
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SoftBank Reveals $6.5 Billion Loss From Uber, WeWork Turmoil - Bloomberg

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SoftBank Reveals $6.5 Billion Loss From Uber, WeWork Turmoil  BloombergView full coverage on Google News
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-06/softbank-posts-6-5-billion-operating-loss-on-wework-and-uber

2019-11-06 06:05:00Z
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Fired McDonald's CEO steps down from Walmart board - Fox Business

Former Ted Cruz campaign pollster Chris Wilson, Stanford School of Business lecturer Dave Dodson and Politico congressional reporter Melanie Zanona discuss the firing of McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook and Chief People Officer David Fairhurst over Easterbrook’s romantic relationship with a subordinate.

Ousted McDonald’s CEO Stephen Easterbrook has stepped down as a member of Walmart's board of directors.

Continue Reading Below

According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Easterbrook informed the company Monday of his decision to resign effective immediately after joining the board in 2018.

Walmart declined to comment on the matter.

Steve Easterbook (Credit: McDonald's)

Easterbrook is one of a dozen board members currently listed on the company's website who ensure "Walmart operates with integrity and accountability."

He was fired from McDonald's after violating company policy by engaging in a consensual relationship with an employee, the company said.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
MCD	MCDONALD'S CORP.	188.66	-5.28	-2.72%

MCDONALD’S FIRES CEO FOR INAPPROPRIATE RELATIONSHIP WITH EMPLOYEE

The fast-food giant said Easterbrook demonstrated poor judgment, and that McDonald’s forbids managers from having romantic relationships with direct or indirect subordinates.

READ MORE ON FOX BUSINESS BY CLICKING HERE

In an email to employees, Easterbrook acknowledged he had a relationship with an employee and said it was a mistake.

According to Monday's filing, his decision to resign from Walmart was not due to "any disagreement with the company on any matter relating to its operations, policies or practice."

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/mcdonalds-ceo-steps-down-from-walmart-board

2019-11-05 11:37:42Z
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'We created a monster,' SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son reportedly said of WeWork - Business Insider UK

• Masayoshi Son, CEO of Japanese mega-investor SoftBank, told colleagues that "we created a monster" in WeWork, the Financial Times reported.
• SoftBank will on Wednesday impose stricter governance standards on dual-class share structures after the WeWork fiasco, the FT said.
• SoftBank is expected to take a multibillion dollar writedown on WeWork, the FT said. 
• View Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

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Masayoshi Son, CEO of Japanese mega-investor SoftBank, told colleagues that "we created a monster" in WeWork after investing billions into the firm only to later bail it out, the Financial Times reported.

SoftBank last month bailed out the cash-strapped real estate firm to the tune of just over $8 billion, with an accelerated payment of $1.5 billion just to ensure the company didn't run out of money. SoftBank being one of the company's main backers, is now under scrutiny for the way it invests.

The FT also separately reported, citing unnamed sources, that SoftBank will on Wednesday impose stricter governance standards on dual-class share structures after the WeWork fiasco — an about-face for Son who the newspaper says is "known as a risk-addicted dealmaker." 

SoftBank is expected to take a multibillion dollar writedown on WeWork, the FT said. 

Prior to the bailout, SoftBank had invested more than $10 billion in WeWork and the office-sharing firm was valued at $47 billion at its peak. The firm planned to IPO and backers dreamed of a valuation of more than $100 billion.

But intense scrutiny over WeWork's governance and business model resulted in the firm indefinitely delaying its IPO, and its idiosyncratic cofounder Adam Neumann stepping down as CEO in September, followed by the bail out last month.

Son, the Financial Times cited a person close to him as saying, has been shaken by the ordeal. The Japanese magnate has said little publicly about WeWork since the funding deal, although he has said that he is "embarrassed" in general by SoftBank's missteps.

"We created a monster," Son told colleagues, according to the paper. And in reference to Neumann: "We gave him all the capital."

This, along with Uber, which has lost more than a quarter in value since going public, and according to CNBC cost the Japanese firm $600 million so far, is leading to investors worrying about the real value of SoftBank's ventures. 

"If SoftBank says this is the value, how much of that should you believe?" the FT cited Kirk Boodry, a technology analyst at Redex Holdings who publishes on Smartkarma, a research platform, as saying. 

WeWork and SoftBank did not immediately respond to a Business Insider request for comment. 

Read the Financial Times' report here.

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https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/softbank-ceo-masayoshi-son-said-we-created-a-monster-in-wework-ft-says-2019-11-1028658863

2019-11-05 10:50:42Z
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Facebook changes product branding to FACEBOOK - BBC News

Facebook is introducing new branding for its products and services in an attempt to distinguish the company from its familiar app and website.

Instagram and WhatsApp are among the services that will carry the new FACEBOOK brand in the next few weeks.

The main Facebook app and website will retain its familiar blue branding.

The new logo, which is in capital letters, uses "custom typography" and "rounded corners" so the company's other products and app look different.

The branding also appears in different colours depending on which product it represents. So, for example, it will be green for WhatsApp.

"We wanted the brand to connect thoughtfully with the world and the people in it," Facebook said. "The dynamic colour system does this by taking on the colour of its environment."

Facebook's chief marketing officer Antonio Lucio said: "People should know which companies make the products they use. We started being clearer about the products and services that are part of Facebook years ago.

"This brand change is a way to better communicate our ownership structure to the people and businesses who use our services to connect, share, build community and grow their audiences."

US Senator Elizabeth Warren has said she wants to break up the big tech companies such as Facebook, Amazon and Google and put them under tougher regulation.

This plan may be seen as Facebook's way of hitting back, although Ms Warren - posting on Facebook - said: "Facebook can rebrand all they want, but they can't hide the fact that they are too big and powerful. It's time to break up Big Tech."

Does rebranding always work?

Several other big companies have tried rebranding in the past:

• In 2001, British Airways turned tail on its plans to remove the red, white and blue Union flag from its aircraft and replace it with "world images"
• In the same year, Royal Mail rebranded as Consignia, only to swap back again a year later
• Dunkin' Donuts dropped the "Donuts" from its name last year to try to move more into the coffee industry and its share price has continued to rise
• The parent company of Paddy Power and Betfair started trading under the new name Flutter Entertainment in May this year. It said the new name "better reflected the diversity of the group".

Facebook has come under criticism recently over a variety of issues.

Its boss Mark Zuckerberg had to face US lawmakers last month to explain the company's policy on not fact-checking political adverts.

He also had to defend plans for a digital currency, talk about the social network's failure to stop child exploitation on the network, and was quizzed over the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.

Earlier in the year, Mr Zuckerberg said the firm was going to make changes to its social platforms to enhance privacy.

These included messages sent via Messenger being end-to-end encrypted, and hiding the number of likes an Instagram post receives from everyone but the person who shared it.

'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'

Manfred Abraham, chief executive of consultancy Brandcap, told the BBC: "I'm sure this will be a successful move for Facebook. After all, the parent brand remains strong, despite recent troubles, and reminding consumers that Instagram etc are all Facebook companies will assist with cross-membership.

"The rebrand is unsurprising as it is following a trend - that of simplification. Many organisations are choosing a strong, but pared-back visual identify and are shrugging off 'flair' in favour of plain."

However, Mr Abraham thought Facebook was correct to leave the logo on its flagship social media platform as it is.

"Facebook's main site doesn't need a rebrand. The old adage is true: if it ain't broke don't fix it."

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https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50300142

2019-11-05 11:29:01Z
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