No car company is making more headlines right now than Tesla. Can the electric vehicle company stay ahead in the battle for electric car dominance?
Mark Rechtin, Executive Editor at Motor Trend, says Tesla's competitors are quickly gaining ground. Motor Trend tested out the Tesla Model 3, Nissan Leaf, and Chevrolet Bolt. Rechtin says that the Leaf and Bolt offer the best options, especially if you don't have $60,000 to spend on a Tesla.
Rechtin also discusses the ongoing problems Tesla is having with its Model 3 production. The company continues to fall behind its original target numbers, while its CEO Elon Musk is tweeting about a possible Tesla pickup truck. Rechtin says Musk should focus more on the Model 3 and less on his dream projects.
The SEC has subpoenaed Tesla over CEO Elon Musk's tweets to take the company private, according to multiple media reports. John Reed Stark, President of John Reed Stark Consulting, and a former SEC enforcement attorney told Cheddar that there’s not enough information at this point to tell whether or not Musk intended to drive up the stock price by tweeting last week that he wanted to take Tesla private.
WOW! ー Wide Open West ー is a video, internet, and phone company that is a "challenger brand for every market," says the CEO Teresa Elder. Available in about 20 markets in the American South and Midwest, WOW! recently announced a content deal with Cheddar.
These are the headlines you Need2Know for Wednesday, Aug. 15.
Saudi Arabia's interest in funding a buyout of Tesla shareholders is far from certain, said Maureen Farrell of the Wall Street Journal. But it's unclear, she told Cheddar, if the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund would have the capital to secure such a deal for the electric carmaker's CEO, Elon Musk.
As users disengage with social media, advertisers would be wise to shift their focus to mobile games, where consumers may be more receptive, says Adam Cohen-Aslatei, vice president of marketing at Jun Group. "People report being more focused, relaxed and more engaged in a mobile game as compared to people on social media," Cohen-Aslatei says.
Disabling location history on your phone isn't enough to stop Google from tracking your whereabouts, the Associated Press revealed. To ensure your location is not being saved, Wired magazine's Emily Dreyfuss tells you how to turn off "web and app activity" tracking in your Google account.
As students prepare to go back to school, Google introduces new ways for parents to monitor their children's screen time and use mobile devices as learning resources. LaToya Drake, a Google spokesperson and media outreach lead, discusses the company's new tools and what students and educators are searching for online as they return to the classroom.
An investor with a sizable short position in Tesla said Elon Musk's most recent statement on taking the company private "was almost a confession that he committed securities fraud." The investor, Will Chamberlain, is part of a class-action lawsuit alleging the Tesla CEO didn't have sufficient basis for saying he'd take the company private at $420 a share. Chamberlain's lawyer, Reed Kathrein, says it's "pretty clear funding was not secured" before Musk's original tweet announcing his intentions.
The internet's largest platform and distributor of GIFs helps brands carve out a relevant place in online conversations, says the Giphy COO Adam Leibsohn. The company's goal is to help brands such as Absolut Vodka and Dunkin' Donuts "entertain, not advertise," he says.
Without its own supplies of fossil fuels, it makes economic and environmental sense for Hawaii to develop its own renewable sources of energy, says Connie Lau, president and CEO of Hawaiian Electric Industries and chairman of Hawaiian Electric Company. To do so, the state can use its natural advantages in solar and wind, she says.
