By CAROLINA PEREZ

Tesla, a very well-known luxury vehicle company, has been exposed by the news media in much negative light the last few days. Apparently, a Tesla employee confessed to sabotaging the company by disclosing confidential information as well as making changes to the computer code of the company’s manufacturing operating system.

After reading this story, I decided to Google search more information about Tesla and the company only to find many reports of these cars catching on fire— specifically the new Model 3. These stories can be traced all the way back to January.

These fires are allegedly caused from the new model’s battery. According to an article on Digital Trends, employees claim some workers, who lack training, routinely install the lithium-ion cells in the battery pack too close to each other, which could cause the battery to short out or catch fire.

Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, sent Digital Trends an e-mail denying the allegations. On the other hand, Tesla’s projected manufacturing goal for September was 1,500 new Model 3 cars. In October, they were only able to produce 260. It is my opinion that this projection led Musk to do whatever he could to speed up the production process in order to reach the goal, but like most things in life, taking shortcuts will get you nowhere.

Now Musk is bashing journalists about their recent coverage even though Tesla admits most of its sales have come from the news media. After everything is said and done, this coverage has changed many people’s view on Tesla and their vehicles. Some on waiting lists have pulled out their investments and the companies shares dropped five percent on Tuesday.

These reports show the type of impact the news media has on a businesses success. Businesses rely heavily on news coverage of their products for sales and Tesla is currently suffering from its bad press.