Trouble for Tesla: Why Consumer Reports Says Its Model S Was ‘Undriveable’

Trouble for Tesla: Why Consumer Reports Says Its Model S Was ‘Undriveable’

The Tesla logo is seen on a Tesla Model S P85D outside the company's headquarters in Palo Alto, California April 30, 2015. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage
© Elijah Nouvelage / Reuters
By Jonathan Berr

Consumer Reports in 2013 gave the Telsa Model S the highest rating of any vehicle in its history. This year’s review did not go as well for Elon Musk’s company.

The venerable magazine had to delay testing of the company’s newest model because its drivers couldn’t open the doors on the $127,000 sedan, temporarily making the car “undriveable.”

The door handles on the Model S P85 retract automatically and lay flush against the vehicle when they are not in use. Once the vehicle receives a signal from the key fob, the handles move to allow people to grip them. Unfortunately, the door handles stopped working after Consumer Reports testers had the vehicle for 27 days and had driven just over 2,300 miles.

That malfunction caused other problems, the magazine says: “[S]ignificantly, the car wouldn't stay in Drive, perhaps misinterpreting that the door was open due to the issue with the door handle.”

Consumer Reports’ troubles aren’t unique. The non-profit’s car reliability survey found that the Model S has had a far higher than average number of problems with doors, locks and latches, according to the organization’s website.

The testing experience wasn’t all bad, though, because the automaker’s customer service is top notch. A technician was sent to the Consumer Reports Auto Test Center the morning after the problem was reported and quickly diagnosed the problem.

“Our car needed a new door-handle control module — the part inside the door itself that includes the electronic sensors and motors to operate the door handle and open the door,” Consumer Reports says.  “The whole repair took about two hours and was covered under the warranty.”

Eric Lyman, vice president of industry insights at TrueCar, told The Fiscal Times that the speed in which Tesla addressed that issue will earn it more kudos from customers who have seen carmakers drag their feet in making needed repairs.  The door handle issue isn’t a big deal, he said.

“Telsa is still a relatively new automaker,” he said. “The reality is that we see this kind of thing happen all of the time. This is pretty normal in the course of business in the auto industry.”

The timing of the mishap comes as Telsa is struggling to repair its credibility with Wall Street after the electric vehicle maker’s disappointing earnings performance.  Bloomberg News reported last week that the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company might have to raise money because of what one analyst described as its “eye watering” cash burn rate, or else it might run out of money in the next three quarters.

The electric vehicle maker also is facing increased competition from more established rivals. General Motors (GM), for instance, recently unveiled a Chevrolet Bolt concept car that is set to hit the market in 2017 with a projected price of about $30,000 and a battery range of 200 miles. The next generation Nissan Leaf, another electric vehicle, will hit the market at about the same time.

For now, Tesla’s biggest challenge may in convincing consumers to buy electric vehicles while oil remains cheap.

Millennials Still Don’t Trust the Stock Market

Exclusive: NYSE in talks with SEC to settle data probe
Reuters
By Yuval Rosenberg

Goldman Sachs has released the latest in a long line of surveys about millennials and money. The findings won’t shock you if you’ve seen other such surveys: millennials get financial advice from their parents, they’re less concerned with privacy, they still want to own a home … someday.

But one familiar finding may be worth highlighting. Even as the stock market reaches record highs, millennials by and large remain wary of investing. Fewer than 20 percent of those surveyed by Goldman said that stocks are “the best way to save for the future.” Another 45 percent said they’re willing to dip a toe in the market or to put money into low-risk options. More than a third of those surveyed said they don’t know enough about stocks or felt that the market is too volatile or too stacked against small investors.

Part of that may because many millennials haven’t yet reached the life stage or the level of financial stability that would lead them to consider investing. But the lingering scars of the recession are evident in the results, too — and financial institutions clearly have a long way go to restore the public’s confidence in them. For example, Gallup just published a report called, “Why It’s Still Cool to Hate Banks.”

Related: The Rise of a New Economic Underclass—Millennial Men​

Goldman didn’t release the details about how many millennials it surveyed or when (and it hadn’t yet responded to an email asking for those details by the time of publication), but the results it got are broadly in line with those of earlier surveys. And they’re another reminder that not everyone is benefitting from the stock market’s record-setting rally. Millennials are still missing out.

Here is a chart produced by Goldman Sachs summarizing the results of their survey:

Go to Work, Ladies! Your Kids Will Be Grateful

iStockphoto
By Millie Dent

So what if you can’t have it all? Maybe your daughter can.

A new working paper by the Harvard Business School finds that daughters of working mothers are likely to be more successful in the workplace than their peers. Analyzing data on 50,000 people in 24 countries, researchers found these women are more likely to be employed, hold supervisory positions and earn more money than women who grew up with stay-at-home mothers.

A working mother was defined as being employed before their child turned 14 years old.

Daughters of employed moms are 4.5 percent more likely than daughters of stay-at-home moms have jobs, the study found -- small but statistically significant difference, the authors say, meaning it’s not just a coincidence. Daughters of working mothers also earn 23 percent more than daughters of women did not work outside the home.

Related: 10 Best States for Working Mothers

In addition, 33 percent of daughters of employed women hold supervisory roles, compared to 25 percent of daughters of stay-at-home mothers. And the daughters of working moms do fewer hours of housework each week, the study finds.

Sons of working mothers were found to spend 7.5 more hours on childcare per week and a longer amount of time on household chores. They spend more time caring for family members than sons of stay-at-home mothers.

The study hints at the neglected importance of gender attitudes that are shaped and refined within homes and in families, since policymakers usually focus on gender differences on the political and corporate levels. Parents who embody non-traditional gender roles are serving as role models and a resource for their children who might one day enact non-traditional gender roles in their own lives.

Working mothers are demonstrating to their children that traditional gender roles are not the only opportunities for their sons or daughters.  Even though many mothers worry that by working they’re neglecting their child, they could actually be helping them in the long-run by showing them they’re world might not be as limited as tradition suggests.

The study comes in the wake of a slight reversal in the decades-long trend of women joining the ranks of the employed. From 1999 to 2012, the number of mothers who were unemployed in the U.S. rose from 23 percent to 29 percent, a Pew study found. Causes of the rise are debatable, but a growing number of women cite their inability to find a job, largely as the result of the recession.

With the job market recovering, the new study’s message is clear: Lean in, women!

The New Spider-Man: Sony and Marvel Bet Big on Tom Holland

Amazing Fantasy #15
Marvel Comics
By Andrew Lumby

After much speculation and debate, Marvel has finally revealed who will play Peter Parker in its next Spider-Man reboot — and it’s not a name you’ll be likely to recognize: 19-year-old Tom Holland.

Who? Exactly.

Significantly more cherubic than the last two stars cast in the role — Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield — Holland appeared in the 2012 movie The Impossible and had a stint in the title role of the London production of Billy Elliott. Now he’ll be the web-slinging superhero, starting with a relatively small role in next year’s Captain America: Civil War and then in an as-yet-unnamed Spider-Man movie.

Marvel had said they would be casting someone more in line with Spidey’s actual age. In the comics and films, Parker is ostensibly an 18-year-old high school senior, but Maguire was 27 when he first donned the mask, while Garfield was 28.

Related: Sony Spins a New Spider-Man Strategy with Disney

The very fact that Marvel was able to cast anyone in the role at all was thanks to a protracted negotiations with Spider-Man’s cinematic rights-holder, Sony. Finally clinching this deal allows Marvel to bring have Spider-Man play his pivotal and necessary role in Civil War, a comic-book story arc adored by critics and fans alike.

But as much as fans might have riding on Holland’s Spider-Man, Marvel and Sony are counting on him even more: They’re effectively betting hundreds of millions of dollars on the little-known actor, and hoping he can breathe new life into a franchise that, while is generated $1.5 billion in U.S. box office sales and about $4 billion worldwide, has seen dwindling returns over time.

The first Spider-Man movie starring Holland is slated to be released on July 28, 2017.

Spider-Man (2002): $403,706,375

Spider-Man 2 (2004): $373,585,825

Spider-Man 3 (2007): $336,530,303

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012): $262,030,663

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014): $202,853,933

More Americans Struggling to Pay the Rent

Fro Rent
istockphoto
By Beth Braverman

As the portion of Americans renting rather than owning their homes has grown in recent years, so has the number of Americans for whom the monthly rent check has become a burden.

In 2013, almost half of all renters were spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing, with more than a quarter paying half their income to their landlord, according the "State of the Nation’s Housing 2015" report issued today by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Rising rents aren’t just impacting low-income consumers. One in five renters earning $45,000-$75,000 is paying at least a third of their income in rent.

Related: There’s Only One Way Rents Will Go: Sky High

The increase in rental rates represents a byproduct of the falling home ownership rate, which dropped to 63.7 percent in the first quarter of this year, the lowest level since 1989. The rate has fallen for the past eight years and appears poised to continue its decline.

That puts the 2010s on pace to be the strongest decade for rental growth in history, and the national vacancy rate fell to just 7.6 percent, its lowest level in 20 years, according to the Harvard report. The trend reflects increased demand from millennials, as well as a growing preference for renting in households aged 45-64 and higher-income households.

Rents rose 3.2 percent last year, twice the rate of overall inflation, spurring builders to begin construction on more multi-family units than in any years since 1989. “And if job growth continues to pick up, we could see even more demand, as young adults move out of their parents’ homes and into their own apartments,” Joint Center senior research associate Daniel McCue said in a statement.

Most Americans Are Still ‘Woefully Under-Saved’

iStockphoto
By Beth Braverman

Five years after the Great Recession, most Americans still haven’t established firm financial footing.

Only 22 percent of Americans have enough emergency savings to cover the recommended six months’ worth of expenses, according to a new report from Bankrate.com.

Of those surveyed, 21 percent had less than three months’ expenses saved.

Related: Americans Low Savings Rate a Bad Sign for Good Economy

“These results are further evidence that Americans remain woefully under-saved for unplanned expenses, and rather than progressing, are moving in the wrong direction,” Bankrate chief financial analyst Greg McBride said in a statement.

The number of Americans without any emergency savings reached a five-year high of 29 percent, up from 26 percent last year. Nearly a quarter of Americans said their savings had deteriorated in the past year.

Six months of emergency savings is the minimum amount recommended by many planners. Those with children or who have poor health or poor job security may need to an even larger emergency fund.

When an emergency hits those without an emergency fund, they often use credit cards or dip into retirement savings, both pricey options that can lead to further financial hardship.

A separate study released last month by BMO Harris Premier Services found that three quarters of consumers had dipped into their rainy day fund, with unexpected car and home repairs the most common reason cited.

Of those who had used emergency funds, about half replenished their savings within six months, while 20 percent never replaced the savings they had used.