23/02/2017 World Business Report

Tesla says it's on track to hit the mass market this year,

but is its surging share price becoming unplugged from reality?

Carlos Ghosn to step aside as boss of Nissan after 16 years

Also coming up, enabling talent - the job-seeking challenge faced

by South Africa's 2.8 million disabled people.

We start with electric car maker Tesla.

Its share price has been soaring in recent months,

and it was up again late on Wednesday after it reported

Tesla is still losing money, but less than expected.

More importantly, though, it has reassured investors it's

to expand beyond the niche luxury car market

and enter the big league in car production.

At $35,000, it's half the price of existing Tesla models

In a letter to shareholders Tesla says it's on schedule to start

Tesla has promised to be producing a total of 500,000 cars a year

In 2016 it delivered this many of its existing two luxury

models, just over 76,000, less than the 80-90,000

So it's still a small-scale operator.

But judging by the share price investors have high hopes

it could become the next Ford or General Motors.

Tesla shares have soared around 50% since

hiving it a stock market value of $44 billion.

To put that in context it's being valued almost as much

as Ford, which has been around more than a century and sold over six

The BBC's North America tech reporter Dave Lee reports

You may wonder why a company like Kaesler, which barely makes any cars

when you compare it to something like Ford, can be worth nearly as

much money. -- a company like Tesla. The reason is that investors are

very confident Tesla is going to meet its targets for the model

three, it's more budget electric car that has big ten shall to be a huge

hit if it can make as many cars as it needs. -- big potential. There

were some concerns the company was going to push back production of the

model three into next year, but Tesla insists initial production

will begin in July, just a few months from now, and full production

will get under way before the end of the year. At the beginning of this

month Tesla removed the word motors from its name, and it is becoming

obvious why. It seems that in the future Tesla's main business will be

more about producing power than about reducing cars. In January it

started making battery cells at its enormous new factory in Nevada. As

part of its latest earnings report we were told that Tesla will soon

announce their locations of three more factories just like it by the

end of the year. There is also competency in Elon Musk and how he

is acting politically. Last month he met with President Donald Trump.

While that close tie was not perhaps appreciated by all of his customers,

investors are seeing some value, at least, in having the year of the new

president. -- the ear. Let's stay with the car

industry but go to Asia now, confirmed Carlos Ghosn is stepping

aside from the role of Chief He has run Japan's second-biggest

car maker for 16 years as part of a group which

also includes Renault. He'll be replaced by a veteran

Japanese executive, Hiroto Saikawa. Rico Hizon has been following this

for us in Singapore. Nice to see you. This is

interesting. We knew that he was on the move, but it is becoming

official now? Yes, it is becoming official, but he will remain the

codriver of Nissan. He is basically refocusing his role, he is willing

pushing his chief executive position, but he will remain

chairman. Hiroto Saikawa is already the company's code chief executive

with Carlos Ghosn, so he will officially just takeover. So this

reshuffle will allow Carlos Ghosn to focus on their alliances with

Mitsubishi and Renault. Nissan bought a 34% stake in Mitsubishi

last year, in the wake of the carmaker's fuel efficiency scandal,

and Carlos Ghosn is its chairman. So he indeed has a big task in 2017,

bringing back the confidence of Mitsubishi and returning to

profitability. Nissan and mitts of the sheep will also be operating in

areas including purchasing, technology and sharing platforms. --

Mitsubishi. Looking all the way back to 2001, that is when Carlos Ghosn

became a star in the auto industry, when he was appointed Nissan's chief

executive, providing a brand in decline. So under his leadership,

Nissan achieved higher profit margins and expanded in many

countries, including China, which is now one of Nissan's key markets.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that he can turn around the fortunes of

Mitsubishi now that he is the chairman.

To South Africa now, where we continue our week-long

2.8 million South Africans are disabled,

Yet the unemployment rate among disabled people is very high,

partly because of inaccessible and unsupportive working environments.

The BBC visited a Johannesburg company that specializes in helping

We were founded on a vision of ensuring that her work force is

diverse. There is not a lack of talent among disabled people. But

there is nobody facilitating the relationship between the employers

and the talented disabled people. I think I have to be the person to

drive this challenge. There were not enough suppliers in this arena. So

from the minute a person with a disability comes across us, they

come in for an interview in our offices. I was unable to read and

write for 25 years. I learned last year. I have attempted suicide in

urban times. I have been through two rapes, locked up in a mental

institution. I have been discriminated against through and

through. But through all that, I said, no. That is what life said,

that is what life is. You find these situations on earth but I can be who

I want to be. I am 32 years old. I have been working on the graduate

training programme with Arsenal Mattel, going on two years.

I am a paraplegic. So basically what that means is there is no ability

from the waist down. I got injured at a young age, and growing up,

there was not that much access to information to think or to actually

know that you can be a doctor and still have a disability. So had I

known what I know now back then, I would have tried to pursue my dream

of being a paediatrician. I ended up studying office management. Not that

there is anything wrong with being a receptionist, of course. But that is

not what a person with a disability should be limited to. You can be an

accountant or whatever else that you want to be. There is always that

idea of, this is a person with a disability, you have to treat them

special. You can't give them a lot of work, and they are going to be

off sick all the time, and all that. That is not the case. I may be able

to do more work than you. So you have to prove yourself all the time.

You can find more on our special coverage of this issue and how

businesses are dealing with it at bbc.com/disability.

And on Twitter at the hashtag #disabilityworks.

Australia's top airline Qantas as profits fell 75% in 2015, blaming

tough competition. But the fall was less than expected. CEO Alan Joyce

has called market conditions challenging. Markets around the

world are picking a party Federal Reserve minutes released late

yesterday. That is the central bank in the US, which implies that

interest rates in the United States should be possibly going up fairly

soon. They are the first minutes to be released since Donald Trump took

office. That is how things are faring at the moment in Asia. See

you soon. Ministers are putting forward

legislation today for what they call the biggest reform of prisons in

England and Wales in a generation, aimed at dealing with