Monday, Part 2, -- February 9, 2015; Tesla Hires More Employees From Apple Than Any Other Company

Wow, that makes me feel better -- the market is down 100 points but according to Yahoo!Finance the market is reacting to Greece's insanity, not to the fact that Germany and France are on the brink of war with Russia over the Ukraine. Yes, that's a relief. Drudge, last night, certainly implied we were on the brink of war.

I think I saw somewhere that oil was rising again. I mentioned to someone over the weekend, oil prices can rise just as fast as they fell -- and sometimes faster.

Some interesting headlines -- WARNING! WARNING! SPOILER ALERT! -- This is NOT an investment site. See disclaimer -- as I was saying, there are some interesting headlines coming out of Apple. For starters:

• Apple may release a faster new MacBook Air this month
• Apple said to hire banks for first sale of Swiss Franc bonds
• Apple plans debut Swiss Franc bond sale

I'm holding out for Apple Greek bonds -- LOL.

For those who don't know, the MacBook Air is the laptop that is a) thinner than a sheet of paper; and b) faster than a speeding bullet because a) it has no hard drive; and, b) it has no fans. My wife has one of the early versions of the MacBook Air (I use the MacBook Pro). It is incredible how fast her Air is compared to my laptop. Amazing. I can't imagine it being faster.

But for me, the big story is the "Apple-Swiss-franc-bonds' story. Didn't the Swiss just "unpeg" their franc from the Euro? Yup. This tells me Tim Cook is reading The Economist.

On a completely different note, this was the first independent ad-free blog that predicted that Netanyahu would not shop in Washington (which reminds me, Lyin' Brian won't be showing up for his scheduled Letterman visit later this week) as planned -- yeah, I see the typo, "shop in Washington." Freudian. Actually that was not a typo. Netanyahu would have been going shopping: shopping for political support and shopping for military hardware, though the Israelis are pretty good at building their own. Actually, I think they are really, really good at modifying the F-16s they get from the US. Anyway, now this from the AP: Israeli leader faces pressure to cancel US Congress speech. An article last week suggested he might not come: his minders and press secretary whining that they were not aware that the DEMS in Congress did not like Mr Boehner. Hello! Spoiler Alert! No one likes Mr Boehner.

As long as we're not keeping to any theme this morning, let's take a look at this headline from BloombergBusiness: Mercedes Sets January U.S. Sales Record Adding Entry-Lux Buyers:

Mercedes-Benz, the top-selling luxury-auto brand in the U.S. in 2013, started out this year in the lead with record January sales as carmakers broaden their lineups to bring in younger buyers.

The Daimler AG unit sold 22,604 vehicles last month, 103 more than a year earlier, led by the new entry-level CLA car, according to a statement yesterday. Bayerische Motoren Werke AG’s BMW, surpassed by Mercedes in 2013, reported an 11 percent gain to 18,253.

Mercedes and BMW are among luxury-auto makers expanding with lower-cost models. Sales of entry-level cars and SUVs represent 67 percent of the U.S. luxury market and probably will keep growing this year, Bloomberg Industries forecasts.

Mercedes will benefit from a full year of its CLA, which starts at $29,900, a refreshed C-Class and a new GLA small sport-utility vehicle, while BMW is introducing a $33,025 2-Series coupe. 

I think our 2012 Honda Civic, base model with no extras, was $24,000, or thereabouts. A CLA at $29,000. I remember my boss getting excited with her new "Baby Benz" (C230?) back in the late 80's or 90's when we were stationed in Germany.

As good as Mercedes is, the story over at Audi, apparently, is even better. Reuters reports that Audi beat Mercedes with record January sales.

For the record, in January:

• Tesla: #1 in deliveries in US -- an estimate
• Volt: Chevrolet Volt Sales Plunge In January 2015 To Just 542 Units – Thanks Next Gen!; Volt has worst sales month since August, 2011; Nissan Leaf also down. 
• Leaf: Nissan Leaf Sales fall in January for first time in 2 years in US
• Prius: "on par with last year's results" -- in other words,  no growth despite a huge January for Toyota

But the EV folks never give up:

During the month, only Tesla and Nissan remained in “4 digits” for sales as the seasonal pullback (due to weather/tax implications of the $7,500 credit) and pressure from future EV offerings pushed the results lower compared to December.

Overall, an estimated 5,924 plug-ins were bought in January, as compared to the 5,550 sold a year ago. And while this is not a significant increase (6.7%) overall, and is certainly trailing the 23% improvement in 2014, this month’s [EV sales] number can only be considered a success.

"...this month's EV sales number can only be considered a success..." must have been written by the Agore/Brian Williams team.

We saw a Volt this morning, on the way to Starbucks, here in the DFW metroplex. Looked really, really nice. I understand they are really, really responsive and really, really fun to drive. I have nothing against EVs; it's the myth that coal-burning cars are better for the environment than oil-burning cars that bothers me. By the way, have we ever seen a story of a Hollywood celebrity getting into a big accident while driving an EV and being chased by Papa Razzi? I can't recall.

Oh, that reminds me. This is a big story. I've talked about this often but generally not connecting the dots. The dots were connected over the weekend. The dots: a) Apple's biggest challenge is the "battery issue; b) Tesla is a battery company disguised as an automobile company.

Connecting those two dots, I saw this story in Bloomberg Businessweek over the weekend:

Doug Field never considered leaving Apple. From the summer of 2008 to the fall of 2013, Field, a former chief technology officer for Segway and development engineer for Ford, oversaw product and hardware design, working on the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and the iMac. He earned a generous salary and was excited by the work. Then Elon Musk and Tesla Motors came calling, and Field agreed to become vice president of its vehicle program.

In the October 2013 announcement of his hiring, Field said joining Tesla was “an opportunity for me and many others to pursue the dream of building the best cars in the world—while being part of one of the most innovative companies in Silicon Valley.”

He likely won’t be the last Apple executive poached by Tesla. The company has hired at least 150 former Apple employees, more than from any other company, even carmakers.

The former Apple staffers work in many areas of the 6,000-employee automaker, including engineering and law. “From a design philosophy, [Apple] is relatively closely aligned,” says Musk, Tesla’s co-founder and chief executive officer. Apple declined to comment for this story.

Google tesla apple. One can lead horses to water but can't make them drink. See disclaimer. 

Of course, I have the story exactly backwards. But that's fine.