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"Alameda declares Telsa an 'essential business,' factory allowed to operate under cornavirus orders" https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Alameda-declared-Telsa-

by ____a 7y ago

"Alameda declares Telsa an 'essential business,' factory allowed to operate under cornavirus orders" https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Alameda-declared-Telsa-an-essential-business-is-15137716.php https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Alameda-declared-Telsa-a...

bdcravens 7y ago
How is an electric car factory an essential business? I hope someone follows the money and prosecutes Elon if he exercised any financial influence here.
- gambler 7y ago
  >How is an electric car factory an essential business? Because it's not like a restaurant that you can close and then open a month later with little consequence to the public. If you stop production of components or cars, you will not have them later on to restart the economy. Most of the world uses lean manufacturing. Closing down some factories will mean that entire production chains will shut down. All the companies that service those chains will shut down. And when the virus passes, you will have no cars, no components for cars, and no easy way to restart manufacturing. Even without shutdowns the entire system will take a huge hit dues to changes in demand. (Which will drop to nothing for some thing and skyrocket for others.)
  - lexs 7y ago
    VW is doing it [0] [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-results-2019/volkswagen-starts-shutting-down-production-in-europe-in-face-of-coronavirus-idUSKBN2140OF https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-results-2019/v...
    - stickfigure 7y ago
      VW is a much bigger company which can afford the slack. Tesla is a small upstart that's never turned a profit. From cold calculus it might be worth risking a few more lives to keep the concern going.
      - dekhn 7y ago
        thats not an argument for calling tesla an essential service.
      - new_realist 7y ago
        Tesla is a $100B, 17 year old company.
        bdcravens 7y ago
        It was. The recent damage to the price puts it closer to $80B today.
        jsight 7y ago
        I'm not sure of your point here? Presumably Tesla's capital position is still significantly smaller than VW? I do not know this, though, as I am not as familiar with VW's capital structure. TBH, I'm more worried about what will happen with Ford or GM if they have even a short outage. GM has massive ongoing obligations and a relatively weak balance sheet, afaik.
      - bdcravens 7y ago
        Strictly in terms of market cap (not the best metric, admittedly) Tesla is larger than VW. (both company's stocks have been devastated recently though)
        stickfigure 7y ago
        Market cap is a psychological construct. It will not help you when you're already bleeding cash and your cash flow suddenly goes sharply negative. It's entirely possible that this calamity will kill off some very large companies (by any metric) that have been operating in the margin.
        cjhopman 7y ago
        Sure, but it's a good argument against calling something a "small upstart".
  - nicoburns 7y ago
    > Because it's not like a restaurant that you can close and then open a month later with little consequence to the public. That hits a nerve. A lot of restaurants are going to close and never reopen again as a result of this lockdown.
    - falcolas 7y ago
      Yeah, the idea that all of these businesses shutting down has little consequence to the public (regardless of whether they open again) is incredibly tone deaf, with somewhere around 15% of the US population impacted by these closures. Worse, this population likely overlaps with the most at-risk when it comes to both health and financial standing.
      - jfkebwjsbx 7y ago
        HN is not US-only. In Europe, losing your job does not mean losing your health nor your finances.
        bdcravens 7y ago
        Sure, but we're discussing a shutdown in the Bay Area, so the American reality is the proper context.
        nicoburns 7y ago
        > In Europe, losing your job does not mean losing your health nor your finances. It does if you're freelance, which a lot of the events industry is. Or if you work for a small business that folds as soon as it has no business.
    - tssva 7y ago
      It sounds cold but the reality is that other restaurants will open to replace the ones that never reopen because a demand for them will exist thanks to places like Tesla staying open and pumping revenue into the local economy.
      - 7y ago
  - morelisp 7y ago
    > Most of the world uses lean manufacturing. This applies just as much to anything food-related (grocery or restaurant); maybe moreso because most of what a restaurant needs (or farm/ranch/fishery could produce) is not as shelf-stable as most car parts.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Still, restaurants are commodities. Even in normal market conditions, there's plenty of churn in gastronomy. It's harder to restart a factory, and consequences on the supply chain might be more profound.
      - miscPerson 7y ago
        Arguing that cars aren’t a commodity but social institutions are comes across as satire. At best.
  - rad_gruchalski 7y ago
    > Because it's not like a restaurant that you can close and then open a month later with little consequence to the public. If you stop production of components or cars, you will not have them later on to restart the economy. Interesting. VW, Daimler, Lamborghini, Ferrari, FCA, PSA all are stopping production.
- arawde 7y ago
  It probably employs a non-negligible amount of people in the area
  - thedance 7y ago
    Not negligible but not huge either. ~10k people at Fremont.
  - bdcravens 7y ago
    That's a double-edged sword. It means a lot of people will be working in the same factory, increasing risk of exposure. Easy answer if you're Musk: just pay them to stay home.
- newen 7y ago
  > if he exercised any financial influence here Pretty much a certainty given politics in the US.
  - dang 7y ago
    Please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments here.
- labcomputer 7y ago
  Without commenting on whether it is sound, the logic seems to be that transportation (particularly private transportation) is essential. Thus, auto repair and supply businesses have been exempted as "essential businesses" (they are specifically called out in all 6 Bay Area county orders). Taking this one step further, auto repair businesses can't very well repair cars if there are no parts available, and those parts come from Fremont. Therefore, the Tesla factory would (at least in part) theoretically already qualify for an exemption under the existing order. One could also make the argument that (given that private transportation has been deemed an "essential" service) replacing worn out or destroyed cars is essential, and thus manufacturing finished cars qualifies for an exemption.
  - mech1234 7y ago
    Your argument can be extended infinitely. It's pretty easy to understand that Tesla (and any other assembly plants that fit in this window) is simply getting special treatment here. The factory that makes hydraulic fluid for Tesla's presses that stamp out car parts is also part of the transportation supply chain, As is the oil refinery that supplies feedstock to the hydraulic oil vendor.
    - behringer 7y ago
      Are you sure they haven't been exempted already?
    - wayoutthere 7y ago
      You're absolutely right; our economy is far too interconnected to isolate specific industries. Right now it's a bit of a "tragedy of the commons" situation where the companies that are able to sustain operations (legally or illegally) will reap huge rewards when everything starts to go back to some version of normal. I honestly think the thing we will learn from this pandemic is that we can't stop a modern economy like this for a couple months without also incurring significant loss of life. If this shutdown extends more than a month we're going to see supplies start to run low and people will panic. Grocery stores around me (large northeastern city) are already having trouble restocking.
- throwGuardian 7y ago
  Yes, the only possible explanation here is corruption of the local Democrat government, that openly hates Elon/Theil. Also, since Elon, Theil et al. don't kowtow the leftist political line, they're demonstrably lacking ethics, presumed to favor profit over pandemic, unless proven otherwise. Guilty until proven innocent FTW
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- manicdee 7y ago
  The short version is: it’s not an inessential business and it poses little risk. So balancing the economic impact of shutting it down versus the economic impact of workers on social isolation orders possibly getting sick, the better option for everyone is to keep as close to BAU as possible. Shutting cities down is not going to make coronavirus go away — it is a last ditch effort of a failed nation that let its health infrastructure rot. Everywhere else we are taking sensible personal precautions, and retraining people for the six month fight ahead: social distancing, self-isolation, far more attention to hygiene. We can do that because our health care systems and pandemic response capabilities weren’t vandalised by vested interests.
heisenbit 7y ago
Mercedes and VW are shutting factories down on Friday, currently ramping down.
anthm1988 7y ago
Ridiculous. We do not need to be manufacturing luxury cars right now. Elon is murdering people for his own ego.
rolltiide 7y ago
404 corroborated here https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-tesla-factory/teslas-u-s-factory-to-stay-open-as-coronavirus-lockdown-begins-report-idUSKBN2140Q8 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-tesla-...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

by ____a 7y ago

bdcravens 7y ago

How is an electric car factory an essential business? I hope someone follows the money and prosecutes Elon if he exercised any financial influence here.

gambler 7y ago
>How is an electric car factory an essential business? Because it's not like a restaurant that you can close and then open a month later with little consequence to the public. If you stop production of components or cars, you will not have them later on to restart the economy. Most of the world uses lean manufacturing. Closing down some factories will mean that entire production chains will shut down. All the companies that service those chains will shut down. And when the virus passes, you will have no cars, no components for cars, and no easy way to restart manufacturing. Even without shutdowns the entire system will take a huge hit dues to changes in demand. (Which will drop to nothing for some thing and skyrocket for others.)
- lexs 7y ago
  VW is doing it [0] [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-results-2019/volkswagen-starts-shutting-down-production-in-europe-in-face-of-coronavirus-idUSKBN2140OF https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-results-2019/v...
  - stickfigure 7y ago
    VW is a much bigger company which can afford the slack. Tesla is a small upstart that's never turned a profit. From cold calculus it might be worth risking a few more lives to keep the concern going.
    - dekhn 7y ago
      thats not an argument for calling tesla an essential service.
    - new_realist 7y ago
      Tesla is a $100B, 17 year old company.
      - bdcravens 7y ago
        It was. The recent damage to the price puts it closer to $80B today.
      - jsight 7y ago
        I'm not sure of your point here? Presumably Tesla's capital position is still significantly smaller than VW? I do not know this, though, as I am not as familiar with VW's capital structure. TBH, I'm more worried about what will happen with Ford or GM if they have even a short outage. GM has massive ongoing obligations and a relatively weak balance sheet, afaik.
    - bdcravens 7y ago
      Strictly in terms of market cap (not the best metric, admittedly) Tesla is larger than VW. (both company's stocks have been devastated recently though)
      - stickfigure 7y ago
        Market cap is a psychological construct. It will not help you when you're already bleeding cash and your cash flow suddenly goes sharply negative. It's entirely possible that this calamity will kill off some very large companies (by any metric) that have been operating in the margin.
        cjhopman 7y ago
        Sure, but it's a good argument against calling something a "small upstart".
- nicoburns 7y ago
  > Because it's not like a restaurant that you can close and then open a month later with little consequence to the public. That hits a nerve. A lot of restaurants are going to close and never reopen again as a result of this lockdown.
  - falcolas 7y ago
    Yeah, the idea that all of these businesses shutting down has little consequence to the public (regardless of whether they open again) is incredibly tone deaf, with somewhere around 15% of the US population impacted by these closures. Worse, this population likely overlaps with the most at-risk when it comes to both health and financial standing.
    - jfkebwjsbx 7y ago
      HN is not US-only. In Europe, losing your job does not mean losing your health nor your finances.
      - bdcravens 7y ago
        Sure, but we're discussing a shutdown in the Bay Area, so the American reality is the proper context.
      - nicoburns 7y ago
        > In Europe, losing your job does not mean losing your health nor your finances. It does if you're freelance, which a lot of the events industry is. Or if you work for a small business that folds as soon as it has no business.
  - tssva 7y ago
    It sounds cold but the reality is that other restaurants will open to replace the ones that never reopen because a demand for them will exist thanks to places like Tesla staying open and pumping revenue into the local economy.
    - 7y ago
- morelisp 7y ago
  > Most of the world uses lean manufacturing. This applies just as much to anything food-related (grocery or restaurant); maybe moreso because most of what a restaurant needs (or farm/ranch/fishery could produce) is not as shelf-stable as most car parts.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Still, restaurants are commodities. Even in normal market conditions, there's plenty of churn in gastronomy. It's harder to restart a factory, and consequences on the supply chain might be more profound.
    - miscPerson 7y ago
      Arguing that cars aren’t a commodity but social institutions are comes across as satire. At best.
- rad_gruchalski 7y ago
  > Because it's not like a restaurant that you can close and then open a month later with little consequence to the public. If you stop production of components or cars, you will not have them later on to restart the economy. Interesting. VW, Daimler, Lamborghini, Ferrari, FCA, PSA all are stopping production.
arawde 7y ago
It probably employs a non-negligible amount of people in the area
- thedance 7y ago
  Not negligible but not huge either. ~10k people at Fremont.
- bdcravens 7y ago
  That's a double-edged sword. It means a lot of people will be working in the same factory, increasing risk of exposure. Easy answer if you're Musk: just pay them to stay home.
newen 7y ago
> if he exercised any financial influence here Pretty much a certainty given politics in the US.
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments here.
labcomputer 7y ago
Without commenting on whether it is sound, the logic seems to be that transportation (particularly private transportation) is essential. Thus, auto repair and supply businesses have been exempted as "essential businesses" (they are specifically called out in all 6 Bay Area county orders). Taking this one step further, auto repair businesses can't very well repair cars if there are no parts available, and those parts come from Fremont. Therefore, the Tesla factory would (at least in part) theoretically already qualify for an exemption under the existing order. One could also make the argument that (given that private transportation has been deemed an "essential" service) replacing worn out or destroyed cars is essential, and thus manufacturing finished cars qualifies for an exemption.
- mech1234 7y ago
  Your argument can be extended infinitely. It's pretty easy to understand that Tesla (and any other assembly plants that fit in this window) is simply getting special treatment here. The factory that makes hydraulic fluid for Tesla's presses that stamp out car parts is also part of the transportation supply chain, As is the oil refinery that supplies feedstock to the hydraulic oil vendor.
  - behringer 7y ago
    Are you sure they haven't been exempted already?
  - wayoutthere 7y ago
    You're absolutely right; our economy is far too interconnected to isolate specific industries. Right now it's a bit of a "tragedy of the commons" situation where the companies that are able to sustain operations (legally or illegally) will reap huge rewards when everything starts to go back to some version of normal. I honestly think the thing we will learn from this pandemic is that we can't stop a modern economy like this for a couple months without also incurring significant loss of life. If this shutdown extends more than a month we're going to see supplies start to run low and people will panic. Grocery stores around me (large northeastern city) are already having trouble restocking.
throwGuardian 7y ago
Yes, the only possible explanation here is corruption of the local Democrat government, that openly hates Elon/Theil. Also, since Elon, Theil et al. don't kowtow the leftist political line, they're demonstrably lacking ethics, presumed to favor profit over pandemic, unless proven otherwise. Guilty until proven innocent FTW
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
manicdee 7y ago
The short version is: it’s not an inessential business and it poses little risk. So balancing the economic impact of shutting it down versus the economic impact of workers on social isolation orders possibly getting sick, the better option for everyone is to keep as close to BAU as possible. Shutting cities down is not going to make coronavirus go away — it is a last ditch effort of a failed nation that let its health infrastructure rot. Everywhere else we are taking sensible personal precautions, and retraining people for the six month fight ahead: social distancing, self-isolation, far more attention to hygiene. We can do that because our health care systems and pandemic response capabilities weren’t vandalised by vested interests.

heisenbit 7y ago

Mercedes and VW are shutting factories down on Friday, currently ramping down.

anthm1988 7y ago

Ridiculous. We do not need to be manufacturing luxury cars right now. Elon is murdering people for his own ego.

rolltiide 7y ago

404 corroborated here https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-tesla-factory/teslas-u-s-factory-to-stay-open-as-coronavirus-lockdown-begins-report-idUSKBN2140Q8 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-tesla-...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]