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Superchargers in Australia
- Thread starter JOH
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RichardV
Member
For an objective measure on how Tesla is going to manage existing charger maintenance in Australia it may be worth tracking the Tamworth Supercharger,
There is currently only one of four stalls working. This is confirmed by plugshare entries. Over the last 2 weeks the site has gotten progressively worse. It started off with reports of 2B not working then 2A as well then last week 1B failed and 1A is working at a reduced rate. According to the plugshare entries.
There are a few other sites with 1 stall out,
Bowen, Heatherbrae, Yass and Mornington. So will be interesting to monitor if anything changes there.
The other site of note is Kilmore,
It has 3 stalls reported working and has so since it was commissioned last December. The site itself has 6 stalls with the second cabinet never having been activated, presumably waiting for a site power upgrade from the local utility.
There is currently only one of four stalls working. This is confirmed by plugshare entries. Over the last 2 weeks the site has gotten progressively worse. It started off with reports of 2B not working then 2A as well then last week 1B failed and 1A is working at a reduced rate. According to the plugshare entries.
There are a few other sites with 1 stall out,
Bowen, Heatherbrae, Yass and Mornington. So will be interesting to monitor if anything changes there.
The other site of note is Kilmore,
It has 3 stalls reported working and has so since it was commissioned last December. The site itself has 6 stalls with the second cabinet never having been activated, presumably waiting for a site power upgrade from the local utility.
Meanwhile .......
Supercharging in Australia won't be impacted today. It won't be impacted tomorrow. But all of us who have invested $60K plus in a Tesla will be impacted as an additional 50,000 Teslas join Australian roads each year, whilst infrastructure to support it, stops growing. Sure it will take 12 months before we notice the longer queues at superchargers. But unless Tesla restarts the SC network, it's coming. And restarting will be difficult, when everyone will move on, and invest elsewhere.
The number 1 complaint from EV opponents is Charging and Range. It seems extraordinary that Tesla handed opponents the ammunition to further sow seeds of doubt, into the transition to Electric Vehicles.
My greatest advocacy for Tesla was that is wasn't just an automotive manufacturer, but a Software and Technology company. It now seems that is proving a downfall as Tesla focus shifts away from supporting Tesla Vehicle Owners, to supporting products that give the greatest profit.
Nobody is denying a company CEO's right to make staffing cuts. But just dismissing an entire division immediately, that had so many works, both in construction, and negotiated with suppliers, just seems reckless. And certainly gives me pause to think about the commitment I made in Tesla. And also to the advice I gave others to follow suit.
Read the wild email Tesla is sending to suppliers amid Supercharger chaos
After firing its Supercharger team, Tesla is unsurprisingly finding it hard to manage contractors who previously worked with the team.
electrek.co
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Chuq
Active Member
I've been persistently a glass-half-full person over all of the Tesla (and by extension, Elon, Twitter/X) happenings over the last couple of years. At first it was "I guess he was having a bad day when he said that". Then it was "OK he has an opinion, I guess he's entitled to do so". Then it was streams of misinformation, and I was then "Ok, he's off the show, but at least it's not affecting Tesla". Given the benefit of the doubt time and time again.
At the same time there was a constant stream of misinformation (about EVs, Tesla, Elon). So I'd still call out misinformation when it happened, but occasionally just shrug as some stuff you just can't defend, and I still thought Elon was a net positive for Tesla.
But this sacking the entire supercharger team in one swoop, followed by the fake charade of why he did it - it's just nutty, arrogant behaviour and I find it's impossible to defend him from now on. The supercharger network in Australia is in a much more rudimentary state than the supercharger network in North America. I doubt he even thought about that, but you can't even reply to him on X without paying him $8 as he won't read anything that isn't from a verified account. He basically surrounds himself (on X) with sycophants so he thinks he's right all the time.
[Having said all that, I'm still in support of reinstating his compensation package - that was for work between 2018-2022, targets were set, investors agreed to them, he reached them, he should get paid]
At the same time there was a constant stream of misinformation (about EVs, Tesla, Elon). So I'd still call out misinformation when it happened, but occasionally just shrug as some stuff you just can't defend, and I still thought Elon was a net positive for Tesla.
But this sacking the entire supercharger team in one swoop, followed by the fake charade of why he did it - it's just nutty, arrogant behaviour and I find it's impossible to defend him from now on. The supercharger network in Australia is in a much more rudimentary state than the supercharger network in North America. I doubt he even thought about that, but you can't even reply to him on X without paying him $8 as he won't read anything that isn't from a verified account. He basically surrounds himself (on X) with sycophants so he thinks he's right all the time.
[Having said all that, I'm still in support of reinstating his compensation package - that was for work between 2018-2022, targets were set, investors agreed to them, he reached them, he should get paid]
Oh boy, I have had this out with Plugshare a few times and they’ve done nothing about it.
First, they should use different icons for the “Tesla” and “Tesla (Fast)” plugs in the App for markets that don’t use NACS - which is most markets. It is really confusing for EV-newbies who wonder what plug that is. They should show Type 2 and CCS2 plug icons respectively.
Second, the naming is confusing and sites are often tagged incorrectly. First, I suggested to Plugshare they should be called “Tesla Supercharger” and “Tesla AC Charger” or “Tesla Destination Charger” respectively. Then, there are plenty of Tesla destination chargers incorrectly tagged in Plugshare as “Tesla (Fast)”.
The data integrity in that App is a mess and they do nothing to fix it even when you bring it to their attention. Hopeless.
So yes, you need to turn all the plugs on then use your brain to do the correct filtering.
Gee, who would have thought that Elon’s
But no worry, we just need to suspend all judgment until “the dust has settled”
Probably in a few weeks Elon will make some lame announcement about rehiring some people in the SC team to reinstate this kind of work, because he didn’t understand what they did or that sacking them would have that effect (even when it’s the bl**dy job of the CEO and his executives to know these things and what the consequences of any decision would be).
As always, no-one can warn or advise Elon, he has to find out for himself that something was dumb by actually doing it. He’s one giant Taguchi Method, but not in a good way.
I'm still waiting on more information before I make any judgement (and aware that full picture may never emerge from credible sources unfortunately).
He's done similar before and the outcome has been a net positive to progress in the area concerned. I really don't want to get into speculation, but if I was to make a guess based on the little pieces of real information that we have, there was an issue with the leadership and their reluctance to trim staff/improve productivity, so it finally came to a head and he decided to shut it all down and re-structure. Definitely a drastic move, but without all of the background and details, it's hard to know how irrational or rational it might have been. It certainly sends a message to the rest of the organisation and executives or are unwilling or unable to make the hard decisions necessary when they are bleeding billions of dollars in the current climate. There are already whispers that certain members of he team are being re-hired, so it's quite possible he lost faith in the leadership of the team and needed to clean house and bring in new leadership to evaluate who is needed and who is not.
Again all of this is pure speculation based on the very little we know from reputable sources, if it's anywhere close to the reality then sure it could have been handled better but again this has happened before and resulted in a short term delay followed by a much leaner and more efficient team that has eclipsed everything that the previous team would have accomplished.
I worked at NRMA during the whole demutualisation process.
Everyone had to reapply for their job and in my case I was unsuccessful and was the reason I left.
P.S. If anyone received an NRMA car insurance renewal with a zero agreed value, I know exactly why and it was despite my attempts to transfer my knowledge to the new person who took on my job responsibilities.
So these sorts of wholesale staffing changes are not unprecedented.
Everyone had to reapply for their job and in my case I was unsuccessful and was the reason I left.
P.S. If anyone received an NRMA car insurance renewal with a zero agreed value, I know exactly why and it was despite my attempts to transfer my knowledge to the new person who took on my job responsibilities.
So these sorts of wholesale staffing changes are not unprecedented.
For sure, especially in the scenario where the leadership team are unwilling or unable to make the decisions on where and how to cut.
yes, they could have taken more time and gradually replaced the leadership team and then try to figure everything out piece by piece, might have saved some short term pain, but I believe in the long term (again all based on assumptions) the approach they have taken will again lead to better results, quicker.
There is no universe in which sacking an entire Division is remotely responsible and acceptable business practice without working out, beforehand, the transitional arrangements and the communications plan. Never. No matter what the business is or who runs it.
Businesses can, and do, sometimes take drastic steps like this. They have the right to do it. I once worked for a business which made a similar scale decision. But they do it respectfully and properly, by having a transition plan ready to roll out, proper communications over why the decision was made and full detail on what happens next - with timelines, dates, people to contact etc.
Impacted people, customers and businesses are proactively contacted once the announcement is made and the communications plan is then executed to provide them with the information they need - they don’t get the middle finger with bounced emails.
Then no-one needs to guess or speculate. No-one needs to wait until “we have more information”. No-one needs to wait until “the dust settles” to see what happens next. Because that has already been worked out, and the information is provided at the time of the announcement. And comms channels are opened for subsequent questions and issues to be professionally handled.
Any business that doesn’t do that in my view is not well run and doesn’t know how to conduct itself in a responsible manner. What happened here, in my view, showed nothing but contempt for the people who were sacked and the businesses Tesla deals with. You can’t treat people, customers and business partners like disposable
and defend it as a perfectly OK way to go about things.
Ethics, propriety, and responsible conduct are touchstone values for me, and is why this riled me up so much.
I’ll try to say nothing further on the manner in which this was done. Time to move on.
Businesses can, and do, sometimes take drastic steps like this. They have the right to do it. I once worked for a business which made a similar scale decision. But they do it respectfully and properly, by having a transition plan ready to roll out, proper communications over why the decision was made and full detail on what happens next - with timelines, dates, people to contact etc.
Impacted people, customers and businesses are proactively contacted once the announcement is made and the communications plan is then executed to provide them with the information they need - they don’t get the middle finger with bounced emails.
Then no-one needs to guess or speculate. No-one needs to wait until “we have more information”. No-one needs to wait until “the dust settles” to see what happens next. Because that has already been worked out, and the information is provided at the time of the announcement. And comms channels are opened for subsequent questions and issues to be professionally handled.
Any business that doesn’t do that in my view is not well run and doesn’t know how to conduct itself in a responsible manner. What happened here, in my view, showed nothing but contempt for the people who were sacked and the businesses Tesla deals with. You can’t treat people, customers and business partners like disposable
and defend it as a perfectly OK way to go about things.Ethics, propriety, and responsible conduct are touchstone values for me, and is why this riled me up so much.
I’ll try to say nothing further on the manner in which this was done. Time to move on.
I've referred to that a number of times when people have misinterpreted on hold as cancelled.
That would fit with the scenario which best fits known factual information that we may be in for a period of lower progress followed by a significant increase in productivity and progress once the new team are fully in place and back up to speed. That would gel with all of the official and unofficial comments.
At least in Australia, most Supercharger sites (the exception are some of those at large shopping centres) required a new distribution sub as part of the build, which were sized to accomodate the site as built with little additional capacity. So expanding those sites is going to need a new transformer anyway.
Maybe Tesla should get into the power transformer biz.
Interesting way to put a division "on hold", by sacking the entire 500 staff global team.
But sure. Hopefully Tesla will let us know what this means for Australian Tesla drivers, who are already having to plan trips around congested SC installations. What's it going to be like in another 12 months ? Exerter and Majura ..... I'm talking about you ......
If you're travelling to/from the snow, go via Tuggeranong instead. It's not very far off the route and it's a much faster V3 site.
Midnight Man
Member
You touch on one fact that I have mulled over during the past couple of days. Most certainly, there will be different rules and regulations for each country/continent the SC team deal with, but that should be documented in a manual somewhere, along with relevant contact information and contractor information.
There may well be the involvement of a "local" person in each country to suggest charging locations, or to scout suggested ones - though we haven't (to my knowledge) heard if that is the case or not, and if it is, whether those folks are counted in the 500 head count in this division.
I also recognise I'm looking from the "outside in", and things *always* lok a lot simpler than they might be from that perspective... but...
How on earth does it take 500 people to liaise with/negotiate/arrange to subcontract the installation of superchargers to build a network? I may be very wrong here, but that seems an inordinately large number of people (and henceforth, cost) to support SC build out, particularly when (to my knowledge), the actual build is done by subcontractors (as we have seen for many recent installs here in Australia).
Smells a bit "top heavy" to me, and may be some of the metrics being looked at in the overall decision to "start again", if that's what it was. Sometimes it is better to throw it all out and start over - departments, like companies as a whole, develop "fat" over time, and trimming it out can be difficult.
Chuq
Active Member
I don't know how long ago this changed (some time in the last few weeks) but the Hobart pin on the Tesla map now says "coming 2024" instead of "coming 2023".
As if that helps at the moment :-/
As if that helps at the moment :-/
Not 'fat". It can actually be "lean" but lacks dynamic or productive energy. In other words: Corporate entropy.
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I have been. But it is about 5-6 mins slower than going to Majura, if there is less than 3 charging at Majura.
I've also started doing a 12 mins stop at Exerter and going through to Cooma. But once again, only if Exerter is not busy.
To be fair, it was worldwide, though some of the people responsible for Australia were based in Austin. That seems sub-optimal.
Speaking of entropy, Andrej Karpathy is one of the leading AI scientists and a former Tesla employee in charge of the FSD Vision AI team.
