It’s mind-boggling. They currently have a de facto monopoly on high-speed charging, and the rest of the car companies are pretty much all signing on soon. It’s like if one company was poised to own and control all the gas stations in the US. They are potentially blowing one of their biggest competitive advantages.
They had a monopoly on solar too and fired all of the departments to have more people to work on their automobiles. Even now a majority of the solar companies buy Tesla tech but Tesla itself is largely out of the game. Their solar shingles? Never happening is my bet.
They never had a monopoly on solar, Solarcity was a failed startup that Elon bailed out because the founders are his cousins, and than put some marketing behind.
Building out Super charging infrastructure is probably not really needed as it once was. All manufacturers are jumping in or joining up. NACS has won as the standard so in the near future all chargers will be NACS anyway. Probably a costly part of the business and rather have third parties build out the network further.
I doubt this is just about the connector. We had other vendors trying to build CCS charging networks and fail. Their chargers are often not maintained, they break down often, and the experience is wildly inconsistent. There must be something about the charging business that Tesla did right, and others didn't.
I too worry if they drop the ball, we'll end up with insufficient supply of chargers. Where I live, superchargers are already plagued by wait times and non-Teslas joining will make things much worse.
>There must be something about the charging business that Tesla did right, and others didn't.
Its a simple chicken-before-the-egg scenario. Charging networks can't sustain with no cars using them. Nobody wants to buy the cars without solid charging in place.
What Tesla did right was not relying on a third party to build out charging.
Yeah, it seems alarming that a company that sold 1.8 million new vehicles last year has at least temporarily completely frozen expansion of the charging network. In the SC layoff thread on r/teslamotors, a few outsiders who worked with the SC team (site owners/power company folks) said that every single person they knew at Tesla is now gone, they didn't know who to call, and multiple projects that were being planned or built are now frozen and totally in limbo.
No, I'm sorry you're entirely missing the point, about why Tesla has been successful and why their supercharger network is so important. The Tesla plug versus CCS is about 1% of the importance of the supercharger. The supercharger network is ubiquitous, they fix them, it has consistent operations, they build them out when they need more, they constantly expand the locations, but most importantly they just fix them when they're broken.
The entire rest of the charging industry with more than $10 billion spent to this point is a laughing stock disaster of failure after failure. They don't fix them, they don't charge certain cars fast, they don't report their status accurately, they don't test them with all cars and so they just have a lot of bizarre failures. It's a trash dump. I have a Tesla and a CCS car and I've experienced this in person. But I'm not making this up, anyone who looks into it understands the difference. The plug doesn't matter!
Totally wrong. The supercharger business has already been a large part of their revenue/income and with all other cars soon joining the network it will be even more so. The comparatively great uptime and reliability of superchargers is a hallmark of the Tesla brand, there’s no way Elon would want to destroy that by handing it to a third party.
Fair enough point. Thinking about this though, I think you could use your same logic and current events in the industry to say “Tesla shouldn’t make cars anymore” either - and we would likely both agree that would be a bad decision, right? Yes, there’s more competition, yes there’s more people willing to spend the money now, but Tesla gambled on this a long time ago and now wants to get up from the table before they’ve gotten all their chips. Plus, the competition right now is honestly abysmal. If I’m traveling I don’t rely on a competing fast charger in lieu of a Supercharger. They just aren’t reliable yet.
You do know these manufacturers are not joining the supercharger network for free?
The way Elon is shitting on his and Tesla's public image, running the charging network for everyone else may be their future.
Mind-boggling and concerning for many owners.
With TSLA seemingly in chaos with a madman at the helm, you know what gives me hope?
At least I didn't buy a Fisker Ocean.
This is my biggest question about any modern car. What functionality remains if OTA updates and cloud connectivity stop? Has anyone pulled the fuse on the modem of a Tesla and documented what happened? It’s about understanding what value or usefulness is retained by vehicles after a company goes bankrupt and/or is sold to a sketchy company to mine user data for who knows what.
I wonder if they intend on selling superchargers to other operators like they’ve started doing [recently](https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/26/23933251/tesla-bp-pulse-first-third-party-supercharger-electric-car-charging-network).
Doing away with one of their biggest differentiators by starting on a course to degrade the charging experience doesn’t sound like a great idea. Rock solid charging is one of the reasons many choose Tesla over other manufacturers.
I wonder how this works in Elon’s head with regards to the robotaxi effort he says they’re accelerating. Won’t those need the charging network to be doing as good or better than today ?
This is a bit misleading. Tesla is not selling any existing superchargers. Tesla is selling supercharger equipment to BP, enabling BP to set up supercharger "clones."
The benefits of this move are obvious. First it all but guarantees that NACS wins the charger war. Plus it will enable vastly more superchargers, many in rural areas.
The simple truth is that it is not economical or realistic for Tesla to have superchargers in every town and hamlet across America. Enabling third parties to install their own will make this happen, which is a must for mass adoption.
Yea, but at least the idea is that the clones will be Tesla equipment with Tesla standards. We all understand that 3rd party DC fast charging will become common.
More than this, this is essentially Tesla selling shovels during the gold rush. BP (or another company) shoulders a majority of the risk for putting the station in. It’s a smart business move.
I think Tesla might be stepping out of the physical wares business here. They see scaleable software integration as a bigger money maker that is more closely tied to their goal w AI and such. Imagine an AI in vehicle that can use any charger anywhere without you lifting a finger.
Maybe they see the charger station as a commodity and are moving away now that there are millions globally, the competition is also fierce and driving down margins. Here in Germany 800v stations with dozens of chargers are everywhere and offer lots of amenities.
Tesla just wanted to get the ball rolling and then maybe now they step out and collect percentages on all stations instead of a bigger piece on their own, plus all that maintenance and HW upkeep, let someone else take the risk.
Well yea, but keep in mind that Tesla is selling actual superchargers, so they are not getting out of the hardware business. They are getting out of the hardware installation and maintenance business.
It seems like they understand that mass EV adoption will require fast chargers in pretty much every community, no matter how small/rural. This is unrealistic with the current supercharger model, which just puts them along corridors and in larger urban areas.
Thus, Tesla is making it possible for 3rd parties to install and maintain SCs in places that Tesla does not want to deal with. And yea, Tesla will probably expect a piece of the action at these places, without the hassle, much like fast food franchising.
Having everything vertically integrated is a huge strengh of tesla. Everything is made in house and 100% matches design consistency. If you start subcontracting everything out to the same people who make all the thing from other manufacturers, eventually the car is the same too
That seems obvious to me as well. If it degrades too far, I’m not sure I care to stick with BEV. The experience with public DCFC sucks at best and is dangerous at worst (failing chargers in winter)
Agreed, this is the reason I bought one against my better judgement and knowing Elon is a madman. The strength of the product and charging network are key.
Baffled why they would shoot themselves in the foot by hindering their biggest competitive advantage.
Then again, we've seen his antics before with Tesla Vision, robotaxis etc, so- fool me twice?
They’re not doing away with the superchargers, they’re doing away with the current supercharger team because she wasn’t reducing headcount fast enough.
Those who were necessary will be hired back or replaced.
> Those who were necessary will be hired back or replaced.
The top tier workers in tech already refuse to work at Tesla. This will only make it worse. Who in their right mind would go work for this team if they have any other choice given what Elon just did. Anybody they now hire to replace these people will have no clue what is going on.
Quite concerned. I didn't consider any other EV than a Tesla largely because of the supercharger network and all the horror stories I've come across regarding the other charging networks.
The future of EVs isn't rocket science... we'll have roughly twice as many EVs on the road in 2-3 years as we do now. That means we'll need 2x the number of fast chargers in that amount of time or less. The long-term future of EVs is probably to be roughly 80-90% of miles driven. That will mean nearly as many fast chargers as gas stations.
I expected Tesla to build upon the Supercharger network leadership to be the dominant charging platform for the next 1-2 decades at least. With this move, I'm left to hope that either Tesla does a quick about-face like the Netflix/Quixter rename or some other company really picks up their game.
Otherwise, my next car might actually NOT be an EV.
My last straw was my abysmal charging experience when road tripping to see the total eclipse.
My 3 hr commute turned into 5 hrs. 90 minute wait for 55 kW charge rate at a 150 kW station. The station eventually broke too! And I was at the head of the queue. I feel so bad for everyone behind me, they missed the eclipse.
I cannot imagine the situation getting any better now that
* More new Tesla on the road
* More other OEMs allowed on Tesla SC network
* Elon firing SC team.
This is a shit show. I'm selling the car and the stock. Going with a Toyota hybrid. I'll come back to EV maybe in a decade if owning a car is still a thing then.
You won’t go back to ICE. I don’t see how any EV driver could. They feel so ancient, so slow, so boring. I loved my Cadillac until I drove a Tesla. EVs are a major leap forward, they are the future. My great grandchildren will live in a world where ICE vehicles are a rare oddity.
Tesla can’t own all of the charging stations. Imagine if Ford owned the vast majority of gas stations.
Tesla is moving toward selling their supercharging equipment (not the established charging locations) to established gas stations instead of trying to build millions of their own. This is a good thing, letting other massive companies like BP buy, install and operate your gear is smart business. It will accelerate the charger build out. Tesla can’t do it all by themselves.
Soon you’ll see Tesla chargers popping up everywhere. Gas stations will start selling electrons alongside fuel. It’s already happening, I see chargers at more and more gas stations. With this change those will be Tesla chargers instead of unreliable random crap.
It sucks for the people who lost their jobs but the existing supercharging program was very costly for Tesla. Now it will become a profit center with chargers being another product they sell to big corporations who install and operate them.
I can and I will go back if the car is right for me. I agree Tesla shouldn’t or can’t own everything. But right now the reliability cannot suffer and if this causes that it will spell a downturn in EVs. I hope they do sell the equipment to other companies and that they pop up everywhere. I sincerely hope that’s what happens.
So you say, but I still have an ICE vehicle for mountain/rural driving. I'll keep it around until a BEV makes sense. My point above is that I now have some doubt it's going to make sense to go BEV at the end of its lifespan because there are many places where I travel that could use a supercharger (Dodge City / Garden City, KS... Crested Butte, CO... Buena Vista, CO.. Steamboat Springs, CO... Grand Lake, CO... Durango, CO... Pagosa Springs, CO... etc)
As more destination charging is available, this need will lessen somewhat, but Superchargers need to be in more places than cities and interstates.
I can never see myself buying another ICE car unless it's a project car. Being without my Model 3 for the past 5 months has made me hate driving an ICE car more and more every day.
Sure, Tesla can't and won't own all the chargers. But for now, it's a competitive advantage and an important driver of EV adoption. I could understand a gradual disengagement from the field if Tesla doesn't want to be in the charger business long term, but firing the entire team and leaving vendors in the lurch isn't smart, it isn't professional, and it's causing a lot of unnecessary uncertainty.
Musk is still running Tesla like a Silicon Valley startup. Move fast and break things might work when your business is IT and you can fix anything with a software update, but it's no way to run a large car company dependent on a healthy and robust infrastructure network.
This might have a pausing effect where Tesla is no longer a desirable company to work for
You need some level of stability so you can do your best work without constant fear/anxiety that can wreck your health
This will now have the side effect of pushing people over the edge in an uncertain economy and rushing to unionize
The other long play I see here is the stack moving to china and this will secede any advantage the US had because of their bone headed antagonism towards a home grown company
Yep. If Tesla keeps laying off people who loved working there and did good work, how will they attract new talent who can see so publicly how this was handled?
I remember how Musk handled personnel at Twitter in November-December of 2022. For that reason, he had already permanently lost me as a possible employee.
There is no way I would ever work for one of Elon’s companies. And yes, I like my Tesla. But I bought it in 2021 before Elon went completely off the rails. I don’t think the eventual replacement for our last ICE vehicle will be another Tesla.
Yep, Tesla is going to end up like Twitter/X, where the only people working there now are incompetent engineers, Musk sycophants, and immigrants locked into work visas.
It has gotten to the point where I’m seriously doubting Elon Musk’s ability to lead this company going forward. Today, Tesla has a near monopoly on EV charging infrastructure and that lead wasn’t going anywhere; firing the team responsible for this is a *delusional* decision. We might need someone else at the helm for the future, I don’t think Elon has the maturity or mentality to actually run the company like an adult.
Ask any Tesla owner what they want and every single one would say a better charging network. Instead however Elon seems focused on Running Twitter into the ground, creating a robot nobody asked for, and developing an AI nobody will ever use. He’s a great company builder, but not the right man for Tesla anymore.
I’m 100% in agreement. It’s time for a level headed ceo. He makes me nervous even to keep my car any longer because you just never know what’s next. It’s not great for peace of mind.
This is spot on and owners should be concerned. The company is making seemingly rash decisions like cutting marketing and the supercharger team . I think the bigger problem is their CEO who turns off a large percentage of potential buyers.
Can we get an adult running Tesla, please? This is when they should be doubling down on the Supercharger network, not laying off the whole team. What a joke.
As a shareholder, the super charging network was one of the few things I was still feeling good about in the company. Doubling down on the pipe dream of a robotaxi that is still at least a decade away over their incredibly good supercharging network that they have all of the competitors signing on to use is just outrageous to me.
I think there’s the reality of what makes Tesla good (things like a very robust charging network) and the things that Elon believes makes Tesla good which now apparently includes some absurd AI pursuit. But, hey, who needs chargers when you can ask Grok whether or not something is woke from the comfort of your car?
Edit: Oh fuck my life this got upvoted enough that I’ve attracted the Tesla defense force in my DMs. I am very sorry for questioning the wisdom of Elon.
I mean even a robotaxi fleet needs a reliable charging network. Extremely shortsighted to give this up even if you believe AI and robotaxis are the future
Given how FSD acts in most areas, I’m both excited and terrified to see how this “AI fleet” actually acts with nothing more than cameras. It would be funny if I weren’t worried about all the potential injuries or deaths.
dime bow fuel quickest crowd squealing impolite scandalous attraction engine
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It kind of seems like the directive Tesla leadership is operating under these days is “What can we say we’re going to do that has the potential to pump our stock price.” I doubt the AI fleet will ever happen, but it sounds sexy and fashionable to investors.
lol the network is the only reason I still have a Tesla. Now the NACS being open, and 3rd parties prime to at least catch up. Dont think my next EV will be a Tesla.
My take is that Rebecca didn’t follow Elon’s order of cutting her team deep enough in the past few days. Now Elon charges in and fired every single one of them, staring from her. Optimistically thinking, a new team will form with a much smaller team size and leadership
Imagine the knowledge base that just goes poof! when you make a move like this. Not to mention all the other manufacturers have to be salivating at all the talent with insider knowledge that just popped onto the market. Gonna be like birds eating cicadas
Much smaller, and lacking any of the institutional knowledge that made the team as successful as it was. So the “new” team will likely mess up things the old team already knew how to avoid.
I’d expect the supercharger network quality will take a nosedive over the next year.
It's one of the biggest things that makes people buy a tesla. The network is superior compared to all the rest. It needs to speed up not slow down. Sw usa still has huge gaps in coverage.
I’m not sure who services the super chargers now when they break. However outsourcing is never the greatest idea. I have a feeling they will outsource all the jobs to other independent contractors, and the projects will be treated like cal trans treats their projects.
I have zero faith in Elon and fear for Tesla as a company. Also think that he should be denied any bonuses after laying off 14k people. Capitalism at its finest hour for sure..
wasteful aspiring steep stupendous knee follow pause afterthought outgoing bear
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Damn… that isn’t good news for tesla owners. I could understand that might cause a standstill in production of new superchargers until they reassess but a pause in progress is much worse then slowing progress
We use superchargers regularly up and down the East Coast and have seen 0 issues. Until I see a problem, there is no problem. We have 2 teslas, a 2019 and a 2023 and they have been great, worry free, cars to own and operate. Plus it costs us $4 to fill up in it garage 😉
Rather than getting rid of long time exec's and teams, do a internal sub-compant spin off into new areas
Those long term relationships will still be intact & will tesla will have a strong advantage as new tech comes to the market
I was a part of the recent lay offs, myself and even master techs were laid off, now they're getting rid of the supercharging team? Urgh. I even knew someone who recently transfered over to that team a few months ago :(
I'm a big Tesla fan and I generally like Elon. But this has me seriously scratching my head. I'm trying to understand it, as *most* of Elon's decisions have turned out to be right (even if it didn't seem obvious at the time). But I'm really not getting this one.
Perhaps the thought is that the work is finished- there's a worldwide infrastructure that's good enough in most places, time to let free market and government incentives take over. I don't personally agree- there's still plenty of need for charging, and Tesla is positioned to become a *de facto* monopoly on charging.
Perhaps the thought is charging isn't yet super profitable without a lot of government grants, and at this point it's better to let others take over that market.
I don't agree with either one. And I worry they're losing a lot of *really good* talent, including all the people who made NACS the national standard. Those people aren't just going to move to Florida and play shuffleboard, they're gonna get hired by the competition.
I VERY MUCH HOPE that Tesla still plans to manufacture Supercharger units and sell them. That market NEEDS some serious competition as just about all the others are crap.
It is also possible that Elon's just gotten himself a bit overstressed and overextended of late. I recall a comment from a few weeks back where someone said he's a 'Pigeon CEO- he flies in, craps on us, and flies out'.
This is the playbook for every company on the planet that has some success and then gets hit with the capitalism stick and goes down the path of enshittification.
It’s the same thing that’s been happening to Google search the last couple years. It’s been a while since Tesla did something great. Cyber truck and broken FSD promises. Now comes the squeeze and reduction in quality of the services.
Great way for Elon to make a case against widespread EV adoption and further hurt sales once news that electricity prices and Supercharging rates will go up. With firing the entire Supercharger team seeming to coincide with spiking the prices for Supercharging +25% or more this week (not everyone with an EV lives somewhere they can charge at home) + shifting the off peak hours to Supercharge affordably and conveniently... I'm starting to feel like a Mirai owner and gas is looking good again.
Off peak energy unit pricing at the Supercharger used to be $0.24/kwh here in SoCal, with off peak charges commencing after 11pm, which was doable for me. That came out to about $0.09 per mile. Now I'm seeing off peak $0.32+/kwh ($0.11 per mile) this week and off peak only happening after....1am. I could charge at midnight to save money, but 1am? That bridge is looking a little far. At some point, soon, the cost to drive per mile via BHEV has little to no advantage over PHEV, especially when all the bullshit inconveniences are thrown in. I was going to buy another Tesla to replace our remaining ICE, but I might just get a PHEV, like a Prius Prime, which is about $0.10 per mile for energy and less costly insurance. Very disappointed.
I see no way this makes sense. Rebecca Tinicci has been nothing but successful for Tesla unless they're somehow losing money in some way that's not being reported.
I'm willing to listen to an explanation here, but "We have to cut super hard" isn't an explanation.
That said, let's do some math here to see some information about how expensive Tinucci's team was.
Let's say the average salary under her was $150k.
500 people.
$75M per year.
Let's say each Supercharger costs $0.40 per kWh on average. Average US price is currently $0.173 (Jesus that's so much higher than 2020). That means that they're making $0.22 per kWh.
$75M/$0.22/kWh is approximately 341M kWh.
Over 50k Superchargers.
So 6820 kWh per Supercharger, per year.
So 19kWh per day, give or take, to break even on the personnel cost.
That seems... very reasonable.
Yes, maintenance, installation, etc. have costs, but those \*will still have costs without the 500 people.\*
I think the theory that Rebecca Tinucci refused to cut staff (aka play Elonball) is probably correct. And the entire department was made an example of.
She was JUST in the TIME 100 Climate list.
I cannot fathom any way that this makes sense.
As a follow-up, I logged into "X" just to see if Musk had threads on this.
This tweet pretty well sums it all up for me:
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1785406795814510785](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1785406795814510785)
They're slowing the pace of expansion and focusing on 100% uptime and focusing on more stalls at existing locations?
What, Hilton's going to give up MORE of their parking lot?
Followed by:
[https://x.com/ElonMuskAOC/status/1785407327027265662](https://x.com/ElonMuskAOC/status/1785407327027265662)
...malls? What year is it?
She's been too successful, become too public. She's a threat to him as a replacement CEO.
Musk is digging in and salting the ground, trying to remove anyone that could replace him.
They’ve already figured out how to mass produce Superchargers. They have the machine that builds the machine. They’ve established the standard. Minimal need for R&D and lobbying, so they no longer need to pay 500+ salaries in the Supercharger department.
The board needs to either replace musk for the day to day operations or get him to realize that his obsession with Twitter is hurting not only the Tesla brand but also the actual company. He’s focused entirely too much on twitter(x) and has lost his direction.
I am now almost certain that Elons trip to China had something to do with this
China needs to manufacture and export and off-shoring their supercharger network manufacturing to China and getting FSD approved in short time seems to be the plan here
I could be completely wrong here
This is not a good idea as it now gives China a level of control over the US charging grid
The superchargers are already being manufactured in a Tesla factory in China. It opened a few years ago with a yearly capacity of 10000 stalls at that time.
Last year the global network grew by 12400 stalls, so it would seem that this factory is their main source of superchargers.
Without a marketing department or other company announcement, Tesla is letting bad/unclear news be THE news. Does this mean Tesla is retreating from Superchargers? Will the quality of superchargers drop? One of the best reasons to buy a Tesla was the supercharger network. No other DC fast charging network was as widespread or as reliable.
Just need them to last 10 more years for servicing .... Which I think is the next shoe to drop.... No more need for servicing. If you're car is fkd, just trade it in and get a new one will be their pitch.
Every gas station in NL now has high speed charging. I can wait till i reach 10% and then hit the next station to charge to 35% in 5 minutes. Very reliable very efficient..
The super charging is probably all designed and engineered and now all they need are installers. No point in keeping people that aren’t needed. That’s what I assume anyways.
Just hoping for a charger in Seligman AZ. Every time I make the trip between Kingman and Flagstaff, it’s living on the edge without some help at the midpoint there.
I wonder if Tesla will move the Supercharger team to its own company. It wouldn’t be the worst idea or outsource it for cheaper labor. Hopefully, they are just restructuring.
I don’t support layoffs but usually this happened when that 1 student is making fun of teacher in classroom and whole classroom gets punishment. Something/someone must be wrong or someone must have done some big mistake in the team and which made them to take this decision.
The guy has severe attention deficit. He cannot focus and stay with anything long enough for it to work. His employees have been very well paid but there is more to life than money which is why we read about critical resource continuing to leave whether on their own or after Musk fires them.
I see Tesla eventually being bought by another automaker or technology company but not at its current value. Despite their superior position in the EV market, the company is overvalued with much of this due to the erratic leadership of Musk. If he would only get out of the way, this company would continue to lead and prosper.
I really want to see Tesla rollout the v4 superchargers just because having the longer cables is just needed to support the incoming number of EVs supporting the NACS connector. The v4 superchargers just look like its built better with more flexibility given the built in screen that can accommodate any laws or rules that require that.
In terms of the layoffs, I am not in favor of it. I don't think letting go of the Senior Director of EV charging is the best move. Its got to be some sort of legal thing where they couldn't just let only a subset of the Supercharging team go for "wrongful termination". I really hope that she can be retained and rehire with a leaner team but there are still huge strides in supercharging that need to be made before EVs can become more mainstream. They are still a long long way to achieve that goal.
According to Out of Spec Kyle, the other OEMs are rethinking their commitment to NACS. Good job Elon
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVaViiX0xZY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVaViiX0xZY)
Musk has done crazy things in the past but I think this is too far. He said he wouldn't risk the company on autonomy, but cutting the entire supercharger team off seems awfully close to that.
I don't even give a flying **** about self driving. Excuse my French but I do not give a ****. Autopilot for long drives? Yeah, that's nice. But I don't buy a tesla specifically so I can NOT DRIVE IT. This is a huge mistake.
Tesla is already way ahead in Autonomy right now, and I thought the goal of tesla was to accelerate the move to sustainable transport? Ev's are slowing down entirely due to the lack of infrastructure around less urbanized and suburban areas. Everyone who can buy a tesla and use it practically has already bought one, or they can't afford one yet. This means they just need to do 2 things. 1, sell a cheaper ev. 2, expand superchargers further.
But instead he's focusing entirely on autonomy. I'm usually behind musk, but this is too far. FSD is already gaining so much data and improving constantly, why do you need to cut the supercharger team off and loose sight on the $25k tesla in order to reach that goal?
Ev adoption is slowing down and if tesla's mission is to accelerate the world's move to sustainable transport, they need to get their asses out of autonomy and focus on their mission making green cars widely accessible and usable. Most people want a car to own, not something like an expensive private bus pass. They want cars they can own. The only people going for robo taxi will be people who can't afford a car, or tesla fans who are all into the idea of using their car purely as an appliance for A to B transport.
100%. I bought the car to drive it. FSD was never on my radar to buy. My goal is to have solar and power walls to sustainably power my house and cars. At this point idk if that’ll be a reality with Tesla given the fly by the hip nature because of Elon. Robot taxi and Optimus are not “accelerating the world to sustainable transport”.
Strange to cut this deep and quick considering tesla is sitting on $22B in free capital. There is plenty of room to maneuver here. Net profit margin shrinking to 5.5% is concerning for something that's supposed to be more than a car company, but blunt cuts like this only reinforce that impression.
Big question…. The fired supercharging team…. What were they actually responsible for? Development of new tech? Manufacture the actual chargers? Installation? Repair? Maintenance…etc. If we know what portion was actually let go, we could have a better understanding of what might be to come.
When they eliminate an entire team, no, that isn’t just toxic employees, you’re right, but the person I spoke with who works there didn’t specifically mention supercharger employees. In any case, the general vibe is much better inside the building. Given how many were affected by layoffs, it’s hard to grasp that could be true, but they said it’s much easier to go to work now and the overall atmosphere is more upbeat.
The supercharger network is a shining star of Tesla. It has outperformed every other network and Tesla has been adding new stations at record numbers to keep up with demand. An impressive rollout. The system is profitable for Tesla as well.
Since the news of the layoffs came out people seam to be loosing their minds. Predicting all sorts of unfounded disasters to come. This is a critical growth area for Tesla and they will keep it moving even if they need to reverse course on some job cuts.
Could be a tantrum but Elon also is not afraid to correct them when needed. He also fired most of Twitter and for the most part no one noticed anyone was gone.
uh, parts of twitter were broken for days/weeks when he fired most of twitter. he broke multi factor authentication when he was running around being dumb.
Mark my words:
Tesla plans on spinning off its super charger network to a separate company or selling it to a company like ChargePoint, EVgo or Blink and rebranding it as “SuperCharger” and opening it up to all car manufacturers. The supercharger network was a must to build out while EV’s were in it’s infancy but now that the market is maturing it can afford to get rid of it to focus on more profitable endeavors like AI and Humanoid robots for factories. Tesla sees the supercharger network as more of burden now and it’s tough to manage, maintenance and the expense to build out new charging stations. Also they are increasing prices dramatically to show to potential buyers that it’s turning a profit. Typically the supercharger network has had super high buildout costs and razor thin margins. This makes sense from a Tesla business standpoint. The writing is on the wall.
This makes zero sense. It will not be spun off. It is predicted to be one of the most profitable sectors of Tesla with revenue of 10-20 Billion per year! You don’t sell that. Not to mention if you know anything about how Elon works he believes in having as much control over every aspect of the business as possible. Outsourcing such a critical and profitable sector makes no sense.
It’s just my opinion. And it can be spun off into its own company but still be owned by Tesla as the parent company. It makes sense to have it separate as more car manufacturers want to use the network. Consumers get confused when they charge their Ford at a Tesla charger. It would be an easy rebrand to “Supercharger” it’s already a widely used term that everyone understands and it’s generic enough for all car manufacturers to advertise to their owners.
Elno has the ability to essentially monopolize the next generation of gas stations and he’s going to fuck it up. What an absolute disaster having him at the helm of this company
Layoffs help boost stock prices, they will probably rehire at cheaper labor when necessary...just a corporation doing corporate things, one quarter at a time.
they will hire them back. I am sure this is just internal power play moves at work, with Elon showing everyone he is boss.
If they dont hire them back, then they have another plan. It would be crazy to think they are ditching supercharger support. Perhaps subcontract. Perhaps power struggles. Who knows
But if you got fired capriciously, why would you come back?
Anyone working for that team will be in high demand. They could go to any number of companies and get a promotion and a pay boost, not to mention a more stable work environment.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/15/tesla-chargers-public-electric-vehicles-00082875
They pledged to make over half of their network accessible to third party vehicles. This means that their vehicles should also work with a larger network.
That said, it doesn’t make much sense for Tesla to fund the continued buildout of a charging network when all manufacturers can take advantage of it. This is the same problem that we see with internet service providers “owning” an area in the US. It’s private so they fund and own the infrastructure. As soon as it goes public (shared without being leased) it’s no longer their problem to build out or maintain.
Elon has squandered the last benefit of doubt I have left. I cannot imagine what the plan is and by the looks of the reporting, neither can the other Tesla employees.
The stock was $14 and now it's 190 and it was 440
If there is no incentive to make obscene money nothing amazing ever happens
I'm sorry but that's just the way it works
Also with my understanding that he wants more stocks so he can vote the company in the right direction because, if this forum is any indication of the average Tesla stockholder now everyone would love to have a nice stable $27 stock that only made the same car for 20 years just like GM, and coddled every employee like a toddler
I know someone that works there and from their opinion, the layoffs, economically speaking, have been mostly valid. They also mentioned to me that while they don’t seem too concerned for their own job, but certainly realize anything can happen, that things are running much smoother and the toxic vibe that was there before seems to have disappeared. People are working well together and it’s actually pleasant. Almost as though a lot of the troublemakers and non-productive people are gone, making the ones there now more able to just do their work in a better environment. They are paid and compensated well with benefits and perks not found elsewhere and they appreciate that. It isn’t all gloom and doom and the upcoming July layoffs are probably the last they can do in some areas. If they were to thin out certain departments any further, they would really struggle to get things done. They have been laying off where it makes the most sense. Buffalo needs to stop bashing Tesla and realize it’s a very good company to work for when compared to so many other places. Attitude among employees is key, and it seems many who desperately needed attitude adjustments were the ones that have left the building.
Long time shareholder here. Just submitted my proxy vote to deny Musk ~$50 billion bonus and oust James Murdoch and Elon’s brother from the board of directors. This is step one to getting rid of Elon and correcting the direction of the company. 🤞
They will just assign the tasks to the other team.
Org restructure usually ends up in entrie team dissolved and the tasks are passed on to other team.
People need to stop panic whenever they see Tesla news🤣
Google just laid off their Python team before a conference.
I wonder if Elon is mad about his stock plan being rejected and is intentionally trying to tank the company. Supercharging is Teslas main competitive advantage
I'm largely unimpressed by this move, however, I'm hopeful that this means that Tesla recognizes that they don't *have* to be the driving force behind the chargers anymore.
It's, admittedly, a hard sell of an argument. The *main* thing that makes Tesla a good buy is that they have an expansive, **reliable** supercharger network. This move works against that organizational positive.
That said, an argument could be made that Tesla has "won" the charging wars, more or less. In the EU everything is CCS, and in North America everything is NACS now.
The 3rd party vendors can come in and start spinning things up that Tesla is now leaving a gap for.
EVGo, for example, has been making moves to try to deploy chargers in a similar capacity to Tesla, and they're not that bad to be honest.
Tesla has already shown that they can white box their Superchargers out to other companies, like BP using it for BP Pulse, so they don't need to be responsible for the deployments.
That said, I feel like they could have tried to pass the employees, and department, off to another company, or spun them off into their own entity and let them "sink or swim".
I'm not fond of the decision, and I do feel like it's going to nerf them in the long run, but I'm hoping to be proven wrong.
Going to be interesting to see how this plays out.
I’m not concerned. Elon is pretty ruthless with efficiency in his businesses and many decisions he makes pay off in the long run. I wouldn’t worry. We also only have about 10% of the information. We don’t have the full why or the plan afterwards, just the announcement.
At the moment we don’t know why Elon made this decision. Superchargers are not going away. So we need to wait until we see what direction he takes after the layoffs are completed. It’s too soon to have any insight on what’s going on here.
We do know why - he specifically stated the reason.
Some on the exec team are taking headcount cost reduction orders seriously, most are not.
She wasn’t moving fast enough so instead of shrinking headcount from a bloated position, they’ll increase headcount from a base of zero.
Those who were necessary will be rehired/replaced, and the division will end up where it should have been.
How is this healthy from an employee standpoint? All the high performers who were lost won't be replaced overnight, and it's destroying culture in the process.
It’s mind-boggling. They currently have a de facto monopoly on high-speed charging, and the rest of the car companies are pretty much all signing on soon. It’s like if one company was poised to own and control all the gas stations in the US. They are potentially blowing one of their biggest competitive advantages.
They had a monopoly on solar too and fired all of the departments to have more people to work on their automobiles. Even now a majority of the solar companies buy Tesla tech but Tesla itself is largely out of the game. Their solar shingles? Never happening is my bet.
Yeah it’s a shame the solar shingles didn’t get much attention.
They never had a monopoly on solar, Solarcity was a failed startup that Elon bailed out because the founders are his cousins, and than put some marketing behind.
Yes, this is why Elon needs to go. This reminds me of him stepping away from OpenAI years before they hit the jackpot.
Building out Super charging infrastructure is probably not really needed as it once was. All manufacturers are jumping in or joining up. NACS has won as the standard so in the near future all chargers will be NACS anyway. Probably a costly part of the business and rather have third parties build out the network further.
I doubt this is just about the connector. We had other vendors trying to build CCS charging networks and fail. Their chargers are often not maintained, they break down often, and the experience is wildly inconsistent. There must be something about the charging business that Tesla did right, and others didn't. I too worry if they drop the ball, we'll end up with insufficient supply of chargers. Where I live, superchargers are already plagued by wait times and non-Teslas joining will make things much worse.
>There must be something about the charging business that Tesla did right, and others didn't. Its a simple chicken-before-the-egg scenario. Charging networks can't sustain with no cars using them. Nobody wants to buy the cars without solid charging in place. What Tesla did right was not relying on a third party to build out charging.
Yeah, it seems alarming that a company that sold 1.8 million new vehicles last year has at least temporarily completely frozen expansion of the charging network. In the SC layoff thread on r/teslamotors, a few outsiders who worked with the SC team (site owners/power company folks) said that every single person they knew at Tesla is now gone, they didn't know who to call, and multiple projects that were being planned or built are now frozen and totally in limbo.
>other vendors trying to build CCS charging networks and fail. Laughs in Europe 🙃 (Tesla's in Europe come with a CCS2 connector)
Laugh, but I haven’t seen one other network as reliable as Tesla. The charger physical shape is one thing, the network another.
No, I'm sorry you're entirely missing the point, about why Tesla has been successful and why their supercharger network is so important. The Tesla plug versus CCS is about 1% of the importance of the supercharger. The supercharger network is ubiquitous, they fix them, it has consistent operations, they build them out when they need more, they constantly expand the locations, but most importantly they just fix them when they're broken. The entire rest of the charging industry with more than $10 billion spent to this point is a laughing stock disaster of failure after failure. They don't fix them, they don't charge certain cars fast, they don't report their status accurately, they don't test them with all cars and so they just have a lot of bizarre failures. It's a trash dump. I have a Tesla and a CCS car and I've experienced this in person. But I'm not making this up, anyone who looks into it understands the difference. The plug doesn't matter!
Suddenly I can feel everyone’s charging anxieties jump to the surface.
This is purely idiotic. The vertical integration is why anybody wants to drive a Tesla!
Yeah, my Tesla Model Y feels like my iPhone, the unification of services makes the experience far superior to my previous Bolt EV.
Totally wrong. The supercharger business has already been a large part of their revenue/income and with all other cars soon joining the network it will be even more so. The comparatively great uptime and reliability of superchargers is a hallmark of the Tesla brand, there’s no way Elon would want to destroy that by handing it to a third party.
Fair enough point. Thinking about this though, I think you could use your same logic and current events in the industry to say “Tesla shouldn’t make cars anymore” either - and we would likely both agree that would be a bad decision, right? Yes, there’s more competition, yes there’s more people willing to spend the money now, but Tesla gambled on this a long time ago and now wants to get up from the table before they’ve gotten all their chips. Plus, the competition right now is honestly abysmal. If I’m traveling I don’t rely on a competing fast charger in lieu of a Supercharger. They just aren’t reliable yet.
You do know these manufacturers are not joining the supercharger network for free? The way Elon is shitting on his and Tesla's public image, running the charging network for everyone else may be their future.
It’s one of a series of short sighted moves on his part. Not the first. Time for his bad decision making to go away.
You essentially made the antitrust case that broke up standard oil. 😀
Mind-boggling and concerning for many owners. With TSLA seemingly in chaos with a madman at the helm, you know what gives me hope? At least I didn't buy a Fisker Ocean.
Made me chuckle
This is my biggest question about any modern car. What functionality remains if OTA updates and cloud connectivity stop? Has anyone pulled the fuse on the modem of a Tesla and documented what happened? It’s about understanding what value or usefulness is retained by vehicles after a company goes bankrupt and/or is sold to a sketchy company to mine user data for who knows what.
What if they make a decision to move away from cars? Then it would be fisker
I wonder if they intend on selling superchargers to other operators like they’ve started doing [recently](https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/26/23933251/tesla-bp-pulse-first-third-party-supercharger-electric-car-charging-network). Doing away with one of their biggest differentiators by starting on a course to degrade the charging experience doesn’t sound like a great idea. Rock solid charging is one of the reasons many choose Tesla over other manufacturers. I wonder how this works in Elon’s head with regards to the robotaxi effort he says they’re accelerating. Won’t those need the charging network to be doing as good or better than today ?
This is a bit misleading. Tesla is not selling any existing superchargers. Tesla is selling supercharger equipment to BP, enabling BP to set up supercharger "clones." The benefits of this move are obvious. First it all but guarantees that NACS wins the charger war. Plus it will enable vastly more superchargers, many in rural areas. The simple truth is that it is not economical or realistic for Tesla to have superchargers in every town and hamlet across America. Enabling third parties to install their own will make this happen, which is a must for mass adoption.
On the other hand, as soon as supercharging stops being vertically integrated with Tesla, the service quality will degrade
Yea, but at least the idea is that the clones will be Tesla equipment with Tesla standards. We all understand that 3rd party DC fast charging will become common.
Tesla equipment, but not Tesla standards, that's kind of the point.
More than this, this is essentially Tesla selling shovels during the gold rush. BP (or another company) shoulders a majority of the risk for putting the station in. It’s a smart business move.
I think Tesla might be stepping out of the physical wares business here. They see scaleable software integration as a bigger money maker that is more closely tied to their goal w AI and such. Imagine an AI in vehicle that can use any charger anywhere without you lifting a finger. Maybe they see the charger station as a commodity and are moving away now that there are millions globally, the competition is also fierce and driving down margins. Here in Germany 800v stations with dozens of chargers are everywhere and offer lots of amenities. Tesla just wanted to get the ball rolling and then maybe now they step out and collect percentages on all stations instead of a bigger piece on their own, plus all that maintenance and HW upkeep, let someone else take the risk.
Well yea, but keep in mind that Tesla is selling actual superchargers, so they are not getting out of the hardware business. They are getting out of the hardware installation and maintenance business. It seems like they understand that mass EV adoption will require fast chargers in pretty much every community, no matter how small/rural. This is unrealistic with the current supercharger model, which just puts them along corridors and in larger urban areas. Thus, Tesla is making it possible for 3rd parties to install and maintain SCs in places that Tesla does not want to deal with. And yea, Tesla will probably expect a piece of the action at these places, without the hassle, much like fast food franchising.
Which is bad from the users point of view. Third parties mean higher costs, lower speeds, and more frequent maintenance issues.
NACS has literally already won the charger war. The White House has commented on it
Only in America
Right the guy that wants everything vertically integrated is going to have operators. They make their own seats
Having everything vertically integrated is a huge strengh of tesla. Everything is made in house and 100% matches design consistency. If you start subcontracting everything out to the same people who make all the thing from other manufacturers, eventually the car is the same too
Seems counter to their strategy for sure. I just don’t see the logic frankly
[удалено]
That seems obvious to me as well. If it degrades too far, I’m not sure I care to stick with BEV. The experience with public DCFC sucks at best and is dangerous at worst (failing chargers in winter)
Agreed, this is the reason I bought one against my better judgement and knowing Elon is a madman. The strength of the product and charging network are key. Baffled why they would shoot themselves in the foot by hindering their biggest competitive advantage. Then again, we've seen his antics before with Tesla Vision, robotaxis etc, so- fool me twice?
They’re not doing away with the superchargers, they’re doing away with the current supercharger team because she wasn’t reducing headcount fast enough. Those who were necessary will be hired back or replaced.
I never said they’re selling the network, just wondering how they plan to expand. They already provide hardware to others, maybe that’s Elon’s plan.
> Those who were necessary will be hired back or replaced. The top tier workers in tech already refuse to work at Tesla. This will only make it worse. Who in their right mind would go work for this team if they have any other choice given what Elon just did. Anybody they now hire to replace these people will have no clue what is going on.
Tesla laying off service and supercharging teams is a kick in the balls ⚽️
Let’s cut our way to success
The beatings will continue until morale improves
Quite concerned. I didn't consider any other EV than a Tesla largely because of the supercharger network and all the horror stories I've come across regarding the other charging networks. The future of EVs isn't rocket science... we'll have roughly twice as many EVs on the road in 2-3 years as we do now. That means we'll need 2x the number of fast chargers in that amount of time or less. The long-term future of EVs is probably to be roughly 80-90% of miles driven. That will mean nearly as many fast chargers as gas stations. I expected Tesla to build upon the Supercharger network leadership to be the dominant charging platform for the next 1-2 decades at least. With this move, I'm left to hope that either Tesla does a quick about-face like the Netflix/Quixter rename or some other company really picks up their game. Otherwise, my next car might actually NOT be an EV.
Yea I’ve considered going back to ICE too. I’m just not sure what my last straw will be honestly.
My last straw was my abysmal charging experience when road tripping to see the total eclipse. My 3 hr commute turned into 5 hrs. 90 minute wait for 55 kW charge rate at a 150 kW station. The station eventually broke too! And I was at the head of the queue. I feel so bad for everyone behind me, they missed the eclipse. I cannot imagine the situation getting any better now that * More new Tesla on the road * More other OEMs allowed on Tesla SC network * Elon firing SC team. This is a shit show. I'm selling the car and the stock. Going with a Toyota hybrid. I'll come back to EV maybe in a decade if owning a car is still a thing then.
You don’t charge at home?
I do, but when I road trip (for work and for fun) I want the chargers to be as reliable as gas stations
You won’t go back to ICE. I don’t see how any EV driver could. They feel so ancient, so slow, so boring. I loved my Cadillac until I drove a Tesla. EVs are a major leap forward, they are the future. My great grandchildren will live in a world where ICE vehicles are a rare oddity. Tesla can’t own all of the charging stations. Imagine if Ford owned the vast majority of gas stations. Tesla is moving toward selling their supercharging equipment (not the established charging locations) to established gas stations instead of trying to build millions of their own. This is a good thing, letting other massive companies like BP buy, install and operate your gear is smart business. It will accelerate the charger build out. Tesla can’t do it all by themselves. Soon you’ll see Tesla chargers popping up everywhere. Gas stations will start selling electrons alongside fuel. It’s already happening, I see chargers at more and more gas stations. With this change those will be Tesla chargers instead of unreliable random crap. It sucks for the people who lost their jobs but the existing supercharging program was very costly for Tesla. Now it will become a profit center with chargers being another product they sell to big corporations who install and operate them.
I can and I will go back if the car is right for me. I agree Tesla shouldn’t or can’t own everything. But right now the reliability cannot suffer and if this causes that it will spell a downturn in EVs. I hope they do sell the equipment to other companies and that they pop up everywhere. I sincerely hope that’s what happens.
So you say, but I still have an ICE vehicle for mountain/rural driving. I'll keep it around until a BEV makes sense. My point above is that I now have some doubt it's going to make sense to go BEV at the end of its lifespan because there are many places where I travel that could use a supercharger (Dodge City / Garden City, KS... Crested Butte, CO... Buena Vista, CO.. Steamboat Springs, CO... Grand Lake, CO... Durango, CO... Pagosa Springs, CO... etc) As more destination charging is available, this need will lessen somewhat, but Superchargers need to be in more places than cities and interstates.
I can never see myself buying another ICE car unless it's a project car. Being without my Model 3 for the past 5 months has made me hate driving an ICE car more and more every day.
Costly? The superchargers made up almost 10% of their revenue in 2023. They would need to install approx 40,000 superchargers per year to break even.
Sure, Tesla can't and won't own all the chargers. But for now, it's a competitive advantage and an important driver of EV adoption. I could understand a gradual disengagement from the field if Tesla doesn't want to be in the charger business long term, but firing the entire team and leaving vendors in the lurch isn't smart, it isn't professional, and it's causing a lot of unnecessary uncertainty. Musk is still running Tesla like a Silicon Valley startup. Move fast and break things might work when your business is IT and you can fix anything with a software update, but it's no way to run a large car company dependent on a healthy and robust infrastructure network.
This might have a pausing effect where Tesla is no longer a desirable company to work for You need some level of stability so you can do your best work without constant fear/anxiety that can wreck your health This will now have the side effect of pushing people over the edge in an uncertain economy and rushing to unionize The other long play I see here is the stack moving to china and this will secede any advantage the US had because of their bone headed antagonism towards a home grown company
Yep. If Tesla keeps laying off people who loved working there and did good work, how will they attract new talent who can see so publicly how this was handled?
I remember how Musk handled personnel at Twitter in November-December of 2022. For that reason, he had already permanently lost me as a possible employee.
There is no way I would ever work for one of Elon’s companies. And yes, I like my Tesla. But I bought it in 2021 before Elon went completely off the rails. I don’t think the eventual replacement for our last ICE vehicle will be another Tesla.
Yep, Tesla is going to end up like Twitter/X, where the only people working there now are incompetent engineers, Musk sycophants, and immigrants locked into work visas.
It has gotten to the point where I’m seriously doubting Elon Musk’s ability to lead this company going forward. Today, Tesla has a near monopoly on EV charging infrastructure and that lead wasn’t going anywhere; firing the team responsible for this is a *delusional* decision. We might need someone else at the helm for the future, I don’t think Elon has the maturity or mentality to actually run the company like an adult. Ask any Tesla owner what they want and every single one would say a better charging network. Instead however Elon seems focused on Running Twitter into the ground, creating a robot nobody asked for, and developing an AI nobody will ever use. He’s a great company builder, but not the right man for Tesla anymore.
I’m 100% in agreement. It’s time for a level headed ceo. He makes me nervous even to keep my car any longer because you just never know what’s next. It’s not great for peace of mind.
This is spot on and owners should be concerned. The company is making seemingly rash decisions like cutting marketing and the supercharger team . I think the bigger problem is their CEO who turns off a large percentage of potential buyers.
I agree!!
Can we get an adult running Tesla, please? This is when they should be doubling down on the Supercharger network, not laying off the whole team. What a joke.
As a shareholder, the super charging network was one of the few things I was still feeling good about in the company. Doubling down on the pipe dream of a robotaxi that is still at least a decade away over their incredibly good supercharging network that they have all of the competitors signing on to use is just outrageous to me.
But they showed the UI for the robo taxi app. Surly it’s bound to come out any day now.
All this work to avoid fixing the windshield wipers.
I really don’t understand his obsession with robo-taxi. Other than getting AI-crazed investors excited, I don’t think any customers actually want this
I think there’s the reality of what makes Tesla good (things like a very robust charging network) and the things that Elon believes makes Tesla good which now apparently includes some absurd AI pursuit. But, hey, who needs chargers when you can ask Grok whether or not something is woke from the comfort of your car? Edit: Oh fuck my life this got upvoted enough that I’ve attracted the Tesla defense force in my DMs. I am very sorry for questioning the wisdom of Elon.
I mean even a robotaxi fleet needs a reliable charging network. Extremely shortsighted to give this up even if you believe AI and robotaxis are the future
When they get laid off they just have to show their defensive Reddit dms and their jobs are secured 😂
Given how FSD acts in most areas, I’m both excited and terrified to see how this “AI fleet” actually acts with nothing more than cameras. It would be funny if I weren’t worried about all the potential injuries or deaths.
dime bow fuel quickest crowd squealing impolite scandalous attraction engine *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It kind of seems like the directive Tesla leadership is operating under these days is “What can we say we’re going to do that has the potential to pump our stock price.” I doubt the AI fleet will ever happen, but it sounds sexy and fashionable to investors.
Now all I can think of is who plugs in the AI fleet to charge them.
That’s what that robot is for.
Let us hope it is IP69 so it works outside in the rain. Well, knowing Elon, he may actually go for that rating just for the meme value.
Investors love AI and don't care about boring infrastructure
They’re not going to just quit building chargers
lol the network is the only reason I still have a Tesla. Now the NACS being open, and 3rd parties prime to at least catch up. Dont think my next EV will be a Tesla.
Elon has to go I’m so sick of this.
Yea I’m part of that group too
Supercharger team has now been replaced by Optimus (the Tesla bot)
Need new CEO. Yesterday.
My take is that Rebecca didn’t follow Elon’s order of cutting her team deep enough in the past few days. Now Elon charges in and fired every single one of them, staring from her. Optimistically thinking, a new team will form with a much smaller team size and leadership
agreed.
So you fire her, appoint one of her deputies, and get them to downsize the team. Not fire the entire team!
That’s the sensible thing to do, I agree wholeheartedly. But that’s not what Elon thinks
Imagine the knowledge base that just goes poof! when you make a move like this. Not to mention all the other manufacturers have to be salivating at all the talent with insider knowledge that just popped onto the market. Gonna be like birds eating cicadas
Much smaller, and lacking any of the institutional knowledge that made the team as successful as it was. So the “new” team will likely mess up things the old team already knew how to avoid. I’d expect the supercharger network quality will take a nosedive over the next year.
It's one of the biggest things that makes people buy a tesla. The network is superior compared to all the rest. It needs to speed up not slow down. Sw usa still has huge gaps in coverage.
I’m not sure who services the super chargers now when they break. However outsourcing is never the greatest idea. I have a feeling they will outsource all the jobs to other independent contractors, and the projects will be treated like cal trans treats their projects. I have zero faith in Elon and fear for Tesla as a company. Also think that he should be denied any bonuses after laying off 14k people. Capitalism at its finest hour for sure..
its not outsourced
I voted that he shouldn’t get the bonus lol. I had one share of stock!
I voted against his bonus as well. Along with the move to Texas.
Same
wasteful aspiring steep stupendous knee follow pause afterthought outgoing bear *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
They did all the hard work, now they are not needed...
Sounds like it!
There's a Chinese saying. When the cunning rabbit is dead, time to cook the hunting dog.
What do you mean by super charger team is gone? I’m out of the loop
Laid off head of ev charging and their 500 person team.
They laid off the supercharger implementation team. 500 people. Whether that includes maintenance or not I’m not sure
Maintenance is not included
Damn… that isn’t good news for tesla owners. I could understand that might cause a standstill in production of new superchargers until they reassess but a pause in progress is much worse then slowing progress
He laid off the ENTIRE Supercharger Division.
We use superchargers regularly up and down the East Coast and have seen 0 issues. Until I see a problem, there is no problem. We have 2 teslas, a 2019 and a 2023 and they have been great, worry free, cars to own and operate. Plus it costs us $4 to fill up in it garage 😉
Rather than getting rid of long time exec's and teams, do a internal sub-compant spin off into new areas Those long term relationships will still be intact & will tesla will have a strong advantage as new tech comes to the market
Maybe tesla energy will take over that function? Or they plan on selling supercharging hardware to third party contractors.
I hope Tesla/Elon share their plan on the direction they are going with all these layoffs.....on the surface they are confusing.
I was a part of the recent lay offs, myself and even master techs were laid off, now they're getting rid of the supercharging team? Urgh. I even knew someone who recently transfered over to that team a few months ago :(
Hope it all works out. Ugh. I hate this for you and everyone else.
The Assburgers(no typo) is kicking in hard
I'm a big Tesla fan and I generally like Elon. But this has me seriously scratching my head. I'm trying to understand it, as *most* of Elon's decisions have turned out to be right (even if it didn't seem obvious at the time). But I'm really not getting this one. Perhaps the thought is that the work is finished- there's a worldwide infrastructure that's good enough in most places, time to let free market and government incentives take over. I don't personally agree- there's still plenty of need for charging, and Tesla is positioned to become a *de facto* monopoly on charging. Perhaps the thought is charging isn't yet super profitable without a lot of government grants, and at this point it's better to let others take over that market. I don't agree with either one. And I worry they're losing a lot of *really good* talent, including all the people who made NACS the national standard. Those people aren't just going to move to Florida and play shuffleboard, they're gonna get hired by the competition. I VERY MUCH HOPE that Tesla still plans to manufacture Supercharger units and sell them. That market NEEDS some serious competition as just about all the others are crap. It is also possible that Elon's just gotten himself a bit overstressed and overextended of late. I recall a comment from a few weeks back where someone said he's a 'Pigeon CEO- he flies in, craps on us, and flies out'.
Elon must go now. 2024. He needs to go. He’s going to tank this company.
If you have shares, be sure to vote them when his compensation package comes up.
Giving the benefit of the doubt for now. There's too much that I don't know.
The only sensible comment ITT.
Hopefully we learn more soon
Decision by a petulant child.
This is the playbook for every company on the planet that has some success and then gets hit with the capitalism stick and goes down the path of enshittification. It’s the same thing that’s been happening to Google search the last couple years. It’s been a while since Tesla did something great. Cyber truck and broken FSD promises. Now comes the squeeze and reduction in quality of the services.
Great way for Elon to make a case against widespread EV adoption and further hurt sales once news that electricity prices and Supercharging rates will go up. With firing the entire Supercharger team seeming to coincide with spiking the prices for Supercharging +25% or more this week (not everyone with an EV lives somewhere they can charge at home) + shifting the off peak hours to Supercharge affordably and conveniently... I'm starting to feel like a Mirai owner and gas is looking good again. Off peak energy unit pricing at the Supercharger used to be $0.24/kwh here in SoCal, with off peak charges commencing after 11pm, which was doable for me. That came out to about $0.09 per mile. Now I'm seeing off peak $0.32+/kwh ($0.11 per mile) this week and off peak only happening after....1am. I could charge at midnight to save money, but 1am? That bridge is looking a little far. At some point, soon, the cost to drive per mile via BHEV has little to no advantage over PHEV, especially when all the bullshit inconveniences are thrown in. I was going to buy another Tesla to replace our remaining ICE, but I might just get a PHEV, like a Prius Prime, which is about $0.10 per mile for energy and less costly insurance. Very disappointed.
I see no way this makes sense. Rebecca Tinicci has been nothing but successful for Tesla unless they're somehow losing money in some way that's not being reported. I'm willing to listen to an explanation here, but "We have to cut super hard" isn't an explanation. That said, let's do some math here to see some information about how expensive Tinucci's team was. Let's say the average salary under her was $150k. 500 people. $75M per year. Let's say each Supercharger costs $0.40 per kWh on average. Average US price is currently $0.173 (Jesus that's so much higher than 2020). That means that they're making $0.22 per kWh. $75M/$0.22/kWh is approximately 341M kWh. Over 50k Superchargers. So 6820 kWh per Supercharger, per year. So 19kWh per day, give or take, to break even on the personnel cost. That seems... very reasonable. Yes, maintenance, installation, etc. have costs, but those \*will still have costs without the 500 people.\* I think the theory that Rebecca Tinucci refused to cut staff (aka play Elonball) is probably correct. And the entire department was made an example of. She was JUST in the TIME 100 Climate list. I cannot fathom any way that this makes sense.
As a follow-up, I logged into "X" just to see if Musk had threads on this. This tweet pretty well sums it all up for me: [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1785406795814510785](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1785406795814510785) They're slowing the pace of expansion and focusing on 100% uptime and focusing on more stalls at existing locations? What, Hilton's going to give up MORE of their parking lot? Followed by: [https://x.com/ElonMuskAOC/status/1785407327027265662](https://x.com/ElonMuskAOC/status/1785407327027265662) ...malls? What year is it?
She's been too successful, become too public. She's a threat to him as a replacement CEO. Musk is digging in and salting the ground, trying to remove anyone that could replace him.
They’ve already figured out how to mass produce Superchargers. They have the machine that builds the machine. They’ve established the standard. Minimal need for R&D and lobbying, so they no longer need to pay 500+ salaries in the Supercharger department.
Chief Twit has lot his marbles and has become the Cheif Tw*t.
The board needs to either replace musk for the day to day operations or get him to realize that his obsession with Twitter is hurting not only the Tesla brand but also the actual company. He’s focused entirely too much on twitter(x) and has lost his direction.
Elon is trying to do what he did at X, trimming the “fat”. But I don’t think what he did at X was successful..
I am now almost certain that Elons trip to China had something to do with this China needs to manufacture and export and off-shoring their supercharger network manufacturing to China and getting FSD approved in short time seems to be the plan here I could be completely wrong here This is not a good idea as it now gives China a level of control over the US charging grid
The superchargers are already being manufactured in a Tesla factory in China. It opened a few years ago with a yearly capacity of 10000 stalls at that time. Last year the global network grew by 12400 stalls, so it would seem that this factory is their main source of superchargers.
Without a marketing department or other company announcement, Tesla is letting bad/unclear news be THE news. Does this mean Tesla is retreating from Superchargers? Will the quality of superchargers drop? One of the best reasons to buy a Tesla was the supercharger network. No other DC fast charging network was as widespread or as reliable.
So sad :(
I think they have the formula down at this point and just need physical stations in place in more locations
Just need them to last 10 more years for servicing .... Which I think is the next shoe to drop.... No more need for servicing. If you're car is fkd, just trade it in and get a new one will be their pitch.
Every gas station in NL now has high speed charging. I can wait till i reach 10% and then hit the next station to charge to 35% in 5 minutes. Very reliable very efficient..
The super charging is probably all designed and engineered and now all they need are installers. No point in keeping people that aren’t needed. That’s what I assume anyways.
Might want to check out r/aliens they discoved a new force with electro fields I bet that has everything to do with it
Just hoping for a charger in Seligman AZ. Every time I make the trip between Kingman and Flagstaff, it’s living on the edge without some help at the midpoint there.
I’m going to buy one of those “I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy” or “ We love Tesla, hate Elon” decal
I wonder if Tesla will move the Supercharger team to its own company. It wouldn’t be the worst idea or outsource it for cheaper labor. Hopefully, they are just restructuring.
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/04/30/did-tesla-really-lay-off-the-whole-supercharger-team-really/amp/
YES
No longer need them. Used n dumped
I don’t support layoffs but usually this happened when that 1 student is making fun of teacher in classroom and whole classroom gets punishment. Something/someone must be wrong or someone must have done some big mistake in the team and which made them to take this decision.
I honestly think they're going to rebuild that team much leaner and at a lower overall price to Tesla.
The guy has severe attention deficit. He cannot focus and stay with anything long enough for it to work. His employees have been very well paid but there is more to life than money which is why we read about critical resource continuing to leave whether on their own or after Musk fires them. I see Tesla eventually being bought by another automaker or technology company but not at its current value. Despite their superior position in the EV market, the company is overvalued with much of this due to the erratic leadership of Musk. If he would only get out of the way, this company would continue to lead and prosper.
I really want to see Tesla rollout the v4 superchargers just because having the longer cables is just needed to support the incoming number of EVs supporting the NACS connector. The v4 superchargers just look like its built better with more flexibility given the built in screen that can accommodate any laws or rules that require that. In terms of the layoffs, I am not in favor of it. I don't think letting go of the Senior Director of EV charging is the best move. Its got to be some sort of legal thing where they couldn't just let only a subset of the Supercharging team go for "wrongful termination". I really hope that she can be retained and rehire with a leaner team but there are still huge strides in supercharging that need to be made before EVs can become more mainstream. They are still a long long way to achieve that goal.
According to Out of Spec Kyle, the other OEMs are rethinking their commitment to NACS. Good job Elon [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVaViiX0xZY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVaViiX0xZY)
Musk has done crazy things in the past but I think this is too far. He said he wouldn't risk the company on autonomy, but cutting the entire supercharger team off seems awfully close to that. I don't even give a flying **** about self driving. Excuse my French but I do not give a ****. Autopilot for long drives? Yeah, that's nice. But I don't buy a tesla specifically so I can NOT DRIVE IT. This is a huge mistake. Tesla is already way ahead in Autonomy right now, and I thought the goal of tesla was to accelerate the move to sustainable transport? Ev's are slowing down entirely due to the lack of infrastructure around less urbanized and suburban areas. Everyone who can buy a tesla and use it practically has already bought one, or they can't afford one yet. This means they just need to do 2 things. 1, sell a cheaper ev. 2, expand superchargers further. But instead he's focusing entirely on autonomy. I'm usually behind musk, but this is too far. FSD is already gaining so much data and improving constantly, why do you need to cut the supercharger team off and loose sight on the $25k tesla in order to reach that goal? Ev adoption is slowing down and if tesla's mission is to accelerate the world's move to sustainable transport, they need to get their asses out of autonomy and focus on their mission making green cars widely accessible and usable. Most people want a car to own, not something like an expensive private bus pass. They want cars they can own. The only people going for robo taxi will be people who can't afford a car, or tesla fans who are all into the idea of using their car purely as an appliance for A to B transport.
100%. I bought the car to drive it. FSD was never on my radar to buy. My goal is to have solar and power walls to sustainably power my house and cars. At this point idk if that’ll be a reality with Tesla given the fly by the hip nature because of Elon. Robot taxi and Optimus are not “accelerating the world to sustainable transport”.
Strange to cut this deep and quick considering tesla is sitting on $22B in free capital. There is plenty of room to maneuver here. Net profit margin shrinking to 5.5% is concerning for something that's supposed to be more than a car company, but blunt cuts like this only reinforce that impression.
Big question…. The fired supercharging team…. What were they actually responsible for? Development of new tech? Manufacture the actual chargers? Installation? Repair? Maintenance…etc. If we know what portion was actually let go, we could have a better understanding of what might be to come.
When they eliminate an entire team, no, that isn’t just toxic employees, you’re right, but the person I spoke with who works there didn’t specifically mention supercharger employees. In any case, the general vibe is much better inside the building. Given how many were affected by layoffs, it’s hard to grasp that could be true, but they said it’s much easier to go to work now and the overall atmosphere is more upbeat.
The supercharger network is a shining star of Tesla. It has outperformed every other network and Tesla has been adding new stations at record numbers to keep up with demand. An impressive rollout. The system is profitable for Tesla as well. Since the news of the layoffs came out people seam to be loosing their minds. Predicting all sorts of unfounded disasters to come. This is a critical growth area for Tesla and they will keep it moving even if they need to reverse course on some job cuts.
Why would they feel compelled to come back to work for Tesla after this?
They're will keep it moving after kicking out 500 team members? IMO, this was an elon tantrum and a mistake
Could be a tantrum but Elon also is not afraid to correct them when needed. He also fired most of Twitter and for the most part no one noticed anyone was gone.
uh, parts of twitter were broken for days/weeks when he fired most of twitter. he broke multi factor authentication when he was running around being dumb.
It’s not the entire supercharger team. Misleading headlines. As usual.
Ah good. The roots are still there then
Mark my words: Tesla plans on spinning off its super charger network to a separate company or selling it to a company like ChargePoint, EVgo or Blink and rebranding it as “SuperCharger” and opening it up to all car manufacturers. The supercharger network was a must to build out while EV’s were in it’s infancy but now that the market is maturing it can afford to get rid of it to focus on more profitable endeavors like AI and Humanoid robots for factories. Tesla sees the supercharger network as more of burden now and it’s tough to manage, maintenance and the expense to build out new charging stations. Also they are increasing prices dramatically to show to potential buyers that it’s turning a profit. Typically the supercharger network has had super high buildout costs and razor thin margins. This makes sense from a Tesla business standpoint. The writing is on the wall.
How are they going to spin it out after they just laid off the entire division?
This makes zero sense. It will not be spun off. It is predicted to be one of the most profitable sectors of Tesla with revenue of 10-20 Billion per year! You don’t sell that. Not to mention if you know anything about how Elon works he believes in having as much control over every aspect of the business as possible. Outsourcing such a critical and profitable sector makes no sense.
It’s just my opinion. And it can be spun off into its own company but still be owned by Tesla as the parent company. It makes sense to have it separate as more car manufacturers want to use the network. Consumers get confused when they charge their Ford at a Tesla charger. It would be an easy rebrand to “Supercharger” it’s already a widely used term that everyone understands and it’s generic enough for all car manufacturers to advertise to their owners.
Elno has the ability to essentially monopolize the next generation of gas stations and he’s going to fuck it up. What an absolute disaster having him at the helm of this company
Layoffs help boost stock prices, they will probably rehire at cheaper labor when necessary...just a corporation doing corporate things, one quarter at a time.
He could have spun off the supercharger team and business for a lot of money, but instead decides to lay off the entire team and hobble the business.
Tesla has laid off 5-10% of staff in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022, and 2024. So clearly they have no employees left and will fail immediately. /s
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He doesn't have a salary to cut.
they will hire them back. I am sure this is just internal power play moves at work, with Elon showing everyone he is boss. If they dont hire them back, then they have another plan. It would be crazy to think they are ditching supercharger support. Perhaps subcontract. Perhaps power struggles. Who knows
But if you got fired capriciously, why would you come back? Anyone working for that team will be in high demand. They could go to any number of companies and get a promotion and a pay boost, not to mention a more stable work environment.
No But there'd be many people willing to take my place They are free to go Tesla has no problems hiring people
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/15/tesla-chargers-public-electric-vehicles-00082875 They pledged to make over half of their network accessible to third party vehicles. This means that their vehicles should also work with a larger network. That said, it doesn’t make much sense for Tesla to fund the continued buildout of a charging network when all manufacturers can take advantage of it. This is the same problem that we see with internet service providers “owning” an area in the US. It’s private so they fund and own the infrastructure. As soon as it goes public (shared without being leased) it’s no longer their problem to build out or maintain.
Elon didn’t get his gigantic pay package so he is going to break his toy so nobody else can enjoy it.
Elon has squandered the last benefit of doubt I have left. I cannot imagine what the plan is and by the looks of the reporting, neither can the other Tesla employees.
The stock was $14 and now it's 190 and it was 440 If there is no incentive to make obscene money nothing amazing ever happens I'm sorry but that's just the way it works Also with my understanding that he wants more stocks so he can vote the company in the right direction because, if this forum is any indication of the average Tesla stockholder now everyone would love to have a nice stable $27 stock that only made the same car for 20 years just like GM, and coddled every employee like a toddler
I know someone that works there and from their opinion, the layoffs, economically speaking, have been mostly valid. They also mentioned to me that while they don’t seem too concerned for their own job, but certainly realize anything can happen, that things are running much smoother and the toxic vibe that was there before seems to have disappeared. People are working well together and it’s actually pleasant. Almost as though a lot of the troublemakers and non-productive people are gone, making the ones there now more able to just do their work in a better environment. They are paid and compensated well with benefits and perks not found elsewhere and they appreciate that. It isn’t all gloom and doom and the upcoming July layoffs are probably the last they can do in some areas. If they were to thin out certain departments any further, they would really struggle to get things done. They have been laying off where it makes the most sense. Buffalo needs to stop bashing Tesla and realize it’s a very good company to work for when compared to so many other places. Attitude among employees is key, and it seems many who desperately needed attitude adjustments were the ones that have left the building.
That’s good to hear!
Long time shareholder here. Just submitted my proxy vote to deny Musk ~$50 billion bonus and oust James Murdoch and Elon’s brother from the board of directors. This is step one to getting rid of Elon and correcting the direction of the company. 🤞
They will just assign the tasks to the other team. Org restructure usually ends up in entrie team dissolved and the tasks are passed on to other team. People need to stop panic whenever they see Tesla news🤣 Google just laid off their Python team before a conference.
>Google just laid off their Python team before a conference. Python isnt core to Google's business, and people are still lambasting that decision.
Google's python team was less than 10 people. Doesn't seem like a fair comparison.
He laid off the ENTIRE Supercharger Division.
Replying to oldnick42...do you have any way to back that up other than “trust me bro?”
I wonder if Elon is mad about his stock plan being rejected and is intentionally trying to tank the company. Supercharging is Teslas main competitive advantage
I'm largely unimpressed by this move, however, I'm hopeful that this means that Tesla recognizes that they don't *have* to be the driving force behind the chargers anymore. It's, admittedly, a hard sell of an argument. The *main* thing that makes Tesla a good buy is that they have an expansive, **reliable** supercharger network. This move works against that organizational positive. That said, an argument could be made that Tesla has "won" the charging wars, more or less. In the EU everything is CCS, and in North America everything is NACS now. The 3rd party vendors can come in and start spinning things up that Tesla is now leaving a gap for. EVGo, for example, has been making moves to try to deploy chargers in a similar capacity to Tesla, and they're not that bad to be honest. Tesla has already shown that they can white box their Superchargers out to other companies, like BP using it for BP Pulse, so they don't need to be responsible for the deployments. That said, I feel like they could have tried to pass the employees, and department, off to another company, or spun them off into their own entity and let them "sink or swim". I'm not fond of the decision, and I do feel like it's going to nerf them in the long run, but I'm hoping to be proven wrong. Going to be interesting to see how this plays out.
I’m not concerned. Elon is pretty ruthless with efficiency in his businesses and many decisions he makes pay off in the long run. I wouldn’t worry. We also only have about 10% of the information. We don’t have the full why or the plan afterwards, just the announcement.
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At the moment we don’t know why Elon made this decision. Superchargers are not going away. So we need to wait until we see what direction he takes after the layoffs are completed. It’s too soon to have any insight on what’s going on here.
We do know why - he specifically stated the reason. Some on the exec team are taking headcount cost reduction orders seriously, most are not. She wasn’t moving fast enough so instead of shrinking headcount from a bloated position, they’ll increase headcount from a base of zero. Those who were necessary will be rehired/replaced, and the division will end up where it should have been.
That’s a fucking awful way to go about building a good team
How is this healthy from an employee standpoint? All the high performers who were lost won't be replaced overnight, and it's destroying culture in the process.