"Tesla’s Director of Battery Engineering has reportedly left the company" (TSLA)

Unlike some of the departures - CFO Jason Wheeler; Director of battery technology Kurt Kelty,* this adios may actually be a positive if it gets some fresh eyes to look at the gigafactory production problems. See after the jump.
In pre-maket trade the stock is down another couple bucks ($2.18) at $300.60.

From Teslarati:

Tesla’s Director of Battery Engineering, Jon Wagner, has reportedly left the company to focus on a new role at a battery and powertrain startup in Redwood City, CA. The report, first surfaced on Jalopnik, states that Wagner departed Tesla in October, despite his LinkedIn profile still showing that he’s currently employed by the Silicon Valley electric car maker.

Wagner, who’s been at Tesla since 2013, has served as Tesla’s Interim Director for Body Engineering, Computer Aided Engineering, Materials, and Battery Manufacturing Engineering throughout his near five-year term. During his time at Tesla, Wagner led the cost-down and product improvement effort for Model S and Model X’s battery pack. He also pushed research and development efforts that would ultimately translate into technological innovation for Tesla’s Powerwall and Model 3....MORE

From Business Insider:

Tesla might be having problems, but its latest acquisition shows it's pushing forward with robot manufacturing

• Tesla is buying Perbix, an automated-manufacturing company.
• The deal is the second Tesla has done to automate its systems.
• The goal, as CEO Elon Musk has said, is to improve the machine that builds the machine.

...MORE 

Perbix isn't battery-focused but one of the links relayed from the company:

"Perbix, which has been a Tesla supplier for nearly three years and has executed flawlessly on a number of extremely complex automation projects, will be fully integrated into Tesla."

As they say on the internet: "Big if true."

*Tesla's Former Battery Director Joins Farming Startup—UPDATED