Tesla fires entire Supercharger team. Elon Musk says Supercharger growth will continue however

[d00d]

Admittedly not well understood by me as well, and I do wish him luck.

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[daveo4EV]

I'm lost as to what to make of this - I think Elon is spying $25k Chinese EV's coming and wants to lower Tesla's costs as much as possible to compete

this is not good new for North American EV fast charging IMHO

but Elon is also increasingly detached from reality and has lost his passion for EV's "changing" the world IMHO…

it's a clear cost cutting maneuver and no one is there to pick up the ball…

 

[gnop1950]

I'm lost as to what to make of this - I think Elon is spying $25k Chinese EV's coming and wants to lower Tesla's costs as much as possible to compete

this is not good new for North American EV fast charging IMHO

but Elon is also increasingly detached from reality and has lost his passion for EV's "changing" the world IMHO…

it's a clear cost cutting maneuver and no one is there to pick up the ball…

It wouldn't surprise me if Elon was looking to divest from Tesla at some point to focus on his "more interesting" projects. Were that to be the case he'd likely squeeze as much as he can out of the company first Nothing Elon does would really surprise me.

 

[snstevens]

Elon is also increasingly detached from reality and has lost his passion for EV's "changing" the world IMHO…

Nicely put.

“Detached from reality” and “lost his passion” are the two things that make me think Musk doesn’t really have a strategy here. Absent those, I don’t see how this turns out well for Tesla, and by extension, for those companies that moved to the NACS standard and got Tesla’s permission to use the SUC network in 2024 or 2025.

 

[whitex]

but Elon is also increasingly detached from reality and has lost his passion for EV's "changing" the world IMHO…

it's a clear cost cutting maneuver and no one is there to pick up the ball…

His latest move is having some auto manufacturers reconsider the move to NACS.
https://electrek.co/2024/05/03/read...sending-to-suppliers-amid-supercharger-chaos/

While him losing grip on reality might me one theory, I'm wondering if he's not trying to crater Tesla as a retaliatory move for losing him $56bn bonus which he earned per original terms of his deals. He was earlier this year tweeting that he will require 25% of voting shares of TSLA (which I think means 25% of TSLA as they don't have non-voting shares AFAIK) if they want him to continue running it.

 

[whitex]

Nicely put.

“Detached from reality” and “lost his passion” are the two things that make me think Musk doesn’t really have a strategy here. Absent those, I don’t see how this turns out well for Tesla, and by extension, for those companies that moved to the NACS standard and got Tesla’s permission to use the SUC network in 2024 or 2025.

This latest chaotic move could actually mean Tesla will just open the network to anyone with an adapter - easier that way, less staff needed to onboard each manufacturer, starts producing revenue immediately, quite possible if Elon no longer cares and their primary goal is more revenue.

 

[d00d]

According to Kyle Conner, the v4 team is still there.
Could it have been disagreement between CEO and VP regarding whether to keep going on v3 deployment, or to jump all in on v4?

 

[Tooney]

His latest move is having some auto manufacturers reconsider the move to NACS.
https://electrek.co/2024/05/03/read...sending-to-suppliers-amid-supercharger-chaos/

Good article - thanks. Particularly for it including letter to suppliers:

And Tesla has also sent out an email to all of its suppliers, which leaked to the internet. Here it is in full, but with contact information redacted:​

​

To all concerned:​

​

You may be aware that there has been a recent adjustment with the Supercharger organization which is presently undergoing a sudden and thorough restructuring. If you have already received this email, please disregard it as we are attempting to connect with our suppliers and contractors. As part of this process, we are in the midst of establishing new leadership roles, prioritizing projects, and streamlining our payment procedures. Due to the transitional nature of this phase, we are asking for your patience with our response time.​

​

I understand that this period of change may be challenging and that patience is not easy when expecting to be paid, however, I want to express my sincere appreciation for your understanding and support as we navigate through this transition. At this time, please hold on breaking ground on any newly awarded construction projects and planned pre-construction walks. If currently working on an active Supercharging construction site, please continue. Contact [email redacted] for further questions, comments, and concerns. Additionally, hold on working on any new material orders. Contact [email redacted] for further questions, comments, and concerns. If waiting on delayed payment, please contact [email redacted] for a status update. Thank you for your cooperation and patience.​

 

[whitex]

According to Kyle Conner, the v4 team is still there.
Could it have been disagreement between CEO and VP regarding whether to keep going on v3 deployment, or to jump all in on v4?

The rumored disagreement was between the senior director of EV charging and Elon. She supposedly refused Elon to lay off some large percentage of her team, so he fired her and the entire team in retaliation. It is consistent with his email announcing the layoffs, in which Elon mentioned that some senior management is not taking his orders to reduce staff seriously enough.

Do you have a link of what exactly Kyle said and based on what sources? It could be just the V4 engineering team. The team that got fired was the operations team.

 

[snstevens]

And also this recent news about excess Tesla inventory --

• Hundreds Of Teslas Are Piling Up In A Vacant Mall Parking Lot
• Neuhardenberg suffers from traffic noise caused by Tesla transports (translate from German)

Of course there are Chinese manufacturers also filling lots with EVs to obtain government subsidies, but unsold inventory at Tesla doesn't bode well the EV transition in general.

 

[d00d]

I think it was in the first one, something about keeping the maintenance and v4 teams;

 

[Jonathan S.]

This latest chaotic move could actually mean Tesla will just open the network to anyone with an adapter - easier that way, less staff needed to onboard each manufacturer, starts producing revenue immediately, quite possible if Elon no longer cares and their primary goal is more revenue.

YES!
Elon could lay off all the employees working on marque identification and authorization for the pending waves of different car manufacturers.
In return, Tesla gets lots more revenue in the short-term.
Longer-term repercussions of Tesla drivers enraged by the influx of CCS1 refugees (especially with two chargers blocked by some drivers struggling with the short cable)? Of course!
Would Elon care about that? Or course not!

 

[Tooney]

 

[feye]

And also this recent news about excess Tesla inventory --

• Hundreds Of Teslas Are Piling Up In A Vacant Mall Parking Lot
• Neuhardenberg suffers from traffic noise caused by Tesla transports (translate from German)

Of course there are Chinese manufacturers also filling lots with EVs to obtain government subsidies, but unsold inventory at Tesla doesn't bode well the EV transition in general.

T junk has nowhere to go. The junk is too expensive in most markets and the brand is not desirable. The sales in China collapsed as well as in other developed markets, because with higher interest rates buying expensive cars on credit is not flying anymore. Therefore new car buyers go for either plugin hybrids (a bit more expensive but still perceived better for the environment) or much cheaper ICEs.

All these crazy fanboys need to be very very strong now.

 

[feye]

a rational person would think that they would need to provide the service to the hundreds of thousands of current owners.
maybe in communinst china where the government is heavily subsidizing their domestic auto industry tesla is unable to sell many cars but in the rest of the world tesla is still selling many vehicles.

You miss the point!

The T junk charging network in Europe is badly underutilised. Even after opening up, charging stations are empty, other high-powered charging stations next to it are busy with queues. There is no plug/socket compatibility issue:

1. Cannot make payment with charging cards or credit cards.
2. Cannot plug in the cable because why too heavy and way too short.

In China T junk chargers are often in shopping mall basements on locked down parking spaces and only accessible with a code from inside the car. On the other hand there are millions of chargers from grid companies, other charging network companies and lots of other car brands. The T junk charging network in China is totally irrelevant. They will never ever be able to compete.

All these crazy fanboys need to be very very strong now.

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