Entire Tesla Supercharger team fired (Update: Elon Musk says supercharger network growth will continue). ** ⚠️ ADMIN WARNING: NO POLITICS **

[Autolycus]

Subway tunnels but somehow significantly more useless.

Have they ever even improved the boring machine to beat their snail mascot? There was a LOT of talk about how Elon's genius would single-handedly revolution boring technology. At the end of it all, they have a gimmick tunnel in Vegas and sold a bunch of flamethrowers (WHAT?!).

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[Cycliste]

$500 million -> longer cables???

 

[Dark-Fx]

$500 million -> longer cables???

"Will spend ... this year". Maybe they've already spent the $500 million? He doesn't say "more".

 

[COdogman]

Hold your horses, Elcon changing course again: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...tune-on-tesla-superchargers-after-mass-firing

Elon Musk Changes Tune on Tesla Superchargers After Mass Firing

• CEO says company will spend ‘well over’ $500 million this year

3D chess champion

 

[Jayhawkeye]

Some people read this as bad news for EVs in general as well, as there are well documented issues with adoption.

 

[Zoidz]

It is pretty funny to me how quickly the Elon stans have gone from touting the SC network as one of Tesla’s biggest assets, to complimenting Elon on his decision to tear it apart.

Delusion is a hell of a drug…

It simply doesn't matter what he does, they will shift to "it's a genius move."

If Musk said we're doubling investment into SCing. They would say how brilliant it was. These people are in a cult.

Here it comes!


Elmo Cult Bros "BRILLIANT! DID YOU SEE THIS! $500m!"

 

[Grabs10]

Isn’t BP using Tesla hardware for its chargers?

 

[trez63]

BP Pulse was looking to aggressively expand before Musk's Tesla Temper Tantrum.

Also, I don't know why they need to chase real estate when they have thousands of BP-branded gas stations in the USA . Many of them are corporate owned and would easily accommodate charging stations.

As EvGo, EA, CP and many others have already proven, real estate isn't the real problem. Having good chargers and software is. To me, this means that BP will be in charge of building new sites but with Tesla hardware and software running it all. BP will perhaps own the real estate and then pay Tesla royalties for use of the network. That way Tesla doesn't have to make the huge capital investment it takes to open new locations.
With that said, it still seems really premature to lay off the entire team before the deal is announced. Unless there's something we don't know. Like the people who were laid off were perhaps told that they will be offered a job from BP? And perhaps this move was necessary to show BP that they don't intend to compete with BP going forward.

And correct me if I'm wrong. The team that was let go was in charge of building new Super chargers only. Not the team that maintains current ones. So it's entirely possible that Tesla will maintain the ones they own and only assign rights to BP for opening new ones.
This can also be looked at strategically as a way to avoid an eventual antitrust situation. Europe has been fierce about going after big companies forming monopolies. And it's hard to argue that Tesla has a substantial market share of actually functioning chargers.

Anyway, just my two cents. Probably wrong about a few of the underlying assumptions.

 

[vandy1981]

As EvGo, EA, CP and many others have already proven, real estate isn't the real problem. Having good chargers and software is. To me, this means that BP will be in charge of building new sites but with Tesla hardware and software running it all. BP will perhaps own the real estate and then pay Tesla royalties for use of the network. That way Tesla doesn't have to make the huge capital investment it takes to open new locations.
With that said, it still seems really premature to lay off the entire team before the deal is announced. Unless there's something we don't know. Like the people who were laid off were perhaps told that they will be offered a job from BP? And perhaps this move was necessary to show BP that they don't intend to compete with BP going forward.

And correct me if I'm wrong. The team that was let go was in charge of building new Super chargers only. Not the team that maintains current ones. So it's entirely possible that Tesla will maintain the ones they own and only assign rights to BP for opening new ones.
This can also be looked at strategically as a way to avoid an eventual antitrust situation. Europe has been fierce about going after big companies forming monopolies. And it's hard to argue that Tesla has a substantial market share of actually functioning chargers.

Anyway, just my two cents. Probably wrong about a few of the underlying assumptions.

Some of this may end up coming to fruition but the statement that everyone is referencing does not imply any of that. They're making a mountain out of a molehill in order to rationalize what is going on at Tesla.

We've known that BP is buying Tesla hardware for their sites since past fall and I can't imagine that some sort of service contract is not part of the deal.

Edit: And negotiating leases is not that easy, especially when the sites need to have capacity for MW+ power and available parking spaces near highways.

 

[Autolycus]

And correct me if I'm wrong. The team that was let go was in charge of building new Super chargers only. Not the team that maintains current ones. So it's entirely possible that Tesla will maintain the ones they own and only assign rights to BP for opening new ones.
This can also be looked at strategically as a way to avoid an eventual antitrust situation. Europe has been fierce about going after big companies forming monopolies. And it's hard to argue that Tesla has a substantial market share of actually functioning chargers.

As best I have been able to get from social media posts tied to affected employees (including LinkedIn): Much of the maintenance is done by contractors. Some of the internal Tesla team that is responsible for those has been let go. Not all of it.

The team that designs the hardware was let go. The team that manufactures the hardware was not -- or at least not entirely, there may have some layoffs.

The team that does the real estate side, manages construction contracts, and pays people for leases and construction has been 100% laid off.

 

[SASSquatch]

At this point, why on God's green earth would you willingly work for EM if you had any options?

Logic would dictate that working on any aspect of the Tesla SC network was as safe a job as you could have at Tesla and then "Me"-lon Musk decides to decimate that entire division.

The reality is, Tesla sales plummeted far worse than expected last quarter and Musk is starting to feel the heat of increased competition and lowered demand for EVs in general.

He understands that growing the SC network actually incentivizes sales of competing vehicles because the Tesla network is second to none, has been such a huge selling point for Tesla vehicles and now all of a sudden is looking like a complete sh*t show.

The struggle is that the mission statement for Tesla was to accelerate adoption of EVs. Jim Farley made an absolutely brilliant move going to Musk and saying, hey - we are willing to adopt your standard if you let us in. It boxed Musk into a corner. He couldn't say "no" without looking like a fraud but I don't think even he appreciated how quickly other OEMs would do the same.

Now he is faced with the reality that if he continues to devote resources to growing a network that now benefits EVERYONE, he won't be able to use those resources to develop new, cheaper Teslas to compete with the slew of cheap Chinese EVs that are eating his lunch abroad, and domestic competitors at home.

So what does he do? He takes his ball and goes home.

If you didn't think he was going to do that all along when he was boxed into a corner, then I have a Fisker Ocean to sell you...

 

[ryunited]

At this point, why on God's green earth would you willingly work for EM if you had any options?

Logic would dictate that working on any aspect of the Tesla SC network was as safe a job as you could have at Tesla and then "Me"-lon Musk decides to decimate that entire division.

The reality is, Tesla sales plummeted far worse than expected last quarter and Musk is starting to feel the heat of increased competition and lowered demand for EVs in general.

He understands that growing the SC network actually incentivizes sales of competing vehicles because the Tesla network is second to none, has been such a huge selling point for Tesla vehicles and now all of a sudden is looking like a complete sh*t show.

The struggle is that the mission statement for Tesla was to accelerate adoption of EVs. Jim Farley made an absolutely brilliant move going to Musk and saying, hey - we are willing to adopt your standard if you let us in. It boxed Musk into a corner. He couldn't say "no" without looking like a fraud but I don't think even he appreciated how quickly other OEMs would do the same.

Now he is faced with the reality that if he continues to devote resources to growing a network that now benefits EVERYONE, he won't be able to use those resources to develop new, cheaper Teslas to compete with the slew of cheap Chinese EVs that are eating his lunch abroad, and domestic competitors at home.

So what does he do? He takes his ball and goes home.

If you didn't think he was going to do that all along when he was boxed into a corner, then I have a Fisker Ocean to sell you...

Agree with most of this but I think it's important to distinguish between the stock market (where Musk's devoted followers have propelled the Tesla stock) and the retail market where his actions have done material damage to the Tesla brand.

It's not just that competition has risen - it's that his behavior has alienated significant portions of the shopping audience for his product AND that rather than develop innovation that would appeal back to that group he has tried to obscure that demand drop with massive price decreases (that have not covered the revenue loss of the demand drop) triggering a vicious cycle that devalues the perception of the brand and crushed resale values (further alienating existing owners).

The charging network was (maybe is) the one thing Tesla maintained over competitors in the short/mid term and it's encouraging that someone must have explained to him this week that he risked losing that with his impulsive decisions on the layoffs. It's just that for share holders his flipping back now will imply the most expensive and likely lowest quality way of protecting it as he just fired the best people in the world at running the charging biz.

 

[Riviaenz]

I just don't buy that philosophy. I could get a job at a Musk company if I wanted to but I have no desire to. I think he does well at start up companies and when those companies are young and growing. But he tends to ruin established companies (see Twitter) due to his nature of treating it like a startup. Tesla is next, and then it will be SpaceX if he gets fully control there.

NASA agrees…
https://apple.news/AKJHUtNfeQ32OGNpDNS4qYw

 

[emoore]

NASA agrees…
https://apple.news/AKJHUtNfeQ32OGNpDNS4qYw

100% agree. If Elon removes Shotwell then there would be a mass exodus of government customers leaving.

 

[Rivian Head]

Irrational hate mongers’s speculation abounds here

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