Entire Supercharging Team Fired?

News yesterday is that the entire 500+ person word-wide SC team has been let go. That is alarming. Why would Elon sack the execs and all the employees of this important part of Tesla's business? Could Tesla be selling the SC network off to a third party? Opinions? Other theories?

 

[DuncanM]

Tesla needs to have an option to include Public DCFC chargers in the Navigation.

They are in the Nav, but navigating to one will not cause the car to precondition the battery on-route.

 

[804son]

They are in the Nav, but navigating to one will not cause the car to precondition the battery on-route.

We need both preconditioning for public DCFC and the option to automatically include them in the route plan if desired. I should have been clearer in my post

 

[gearchruncher]

Tesla Lays Off Entire Team Behind Brakes

AUSTIN, TX—In the latest round of layoffs for the company’s struggling automotive division, electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla fired the entire team behind brakes, sources confirmed Wednesday. “As we continue to rightsize the Tesla workforce, we have come to the decision that stopping the car...

www.theonion.com

 

[Unclepaul]

Imagine that Elon took a hard look at how the SuperCharger team was running, and was not pleased.
Instead of working through all the unacceptable employees, management and proceedures, he decided to start fresh, with a different approach. Supercharging is one of the Crown Jewels of Tesla. It needs to be better than what the current team was accomplishing.

 

[gglockner]

Imagine that Elon took a hard look at how the SuperCharger team was running, and was not pleased.
Instead of working through all the unacceptable employees, management and proceedures, he decided to start fresh, with a different approach. Supercharging is one of the Crown Jewels of Tesla. It needs to be better than what the current team was accomplishing.

That would be a perfect example of "throwing out the baby with the bathwater".

 

[gearchruncher]

Supercharging is one of the Crown Jewels of Tesla. It needs to be better than what the current team was accomplishing.

So, the team that accomplished the best, most reliable, largest DC fast charging network on the earth simultaneously created "a crown jewel" of Tesla and also "needs to be better?"

The enemy is both weak and strong.

If Supercharging s a crown jewel of Tesla, why is Elon now saying that only "critical" new superchargers will be built? Why has he not said that "Supercharging is critical to Tesla, and we need a faster, more efficient team to build even quicker than before"? Nope, just "critical" sites will be considered.

Are you sure the best way to get a better team after 12 years of experience is to just go scorched earth, and hire all new people? People that are OK with working for a CEO like Elon whose management style is just to fire everyone anytime he's not 100% happy? You think the best people on earth to build out a DCFC network want to work under that environment and will come running to Texas to work for Elon?

 

[ucmndd]

Imagine that Elon took a hard look

Yeah dawg, you lost me there.

 

[EatsShoots]

Imagine that Elon took a hard look at how the SuperCharger team was running, and was not pleased.
Instead of working through all the unacceptable employees, management and proceedures, he decided to start fresh, with a different approach. Supercharging is one of the Crown Jewels of Tesla. It needs to be better than what the current team was accomplishing.

How can he possibly find the time for that, when he needs to suck down a couple hours/day of trash online, and then miss sleep while s***posting on twitter?

 

[GeoX750]

84% of my charging this year has been in "random parking lots" for about 1.5 hours per day.

16% has been at home.

0% has been at Superchargers.

- Nobody

View attachment 1043737

How, do you use an ICE for road trips ?

 

[zroger73]

How, do you use an ICE for road trips ?

What's a "road trip"?

Just kidding.

I rarely travel farther than 100 miles from home in one day. When I do, I use DC fast chargers. The last time I used a Supercharger was last November.

 

[804son]

What's a "road trip"?

Just kidding.

I rarely travel farther than 100 miles from home in one day. When I do, I use DC fast chargers. The last time I used a Supercharger was last November.

How do you manage to spend that much time at "Random Parking Lots" charging?

 

[HitchHiker71]

Growth is slow af compared to car sales, keep in mind, they need to keep up with ALL car manufacturers, not just their own car sales since everyone has pretty much committed to NACS. Graph looks near linear and should be more exponential as they got more experience and streamlined the process as they hired more people.

The reasons for slower growth have nothing to do with the Tesla team. Utilities don't move fast - never have and never will - since they are all highly regulated core infrastructure businesses where reliability is king - utilities could care less about innovation and moving fast. Tesla SC is slave to how fast the utilities can provide the required underlying infrastructure - and there's no way around these delays and limitations.

 

[Milan Djabirov]

Probably the next move is to eliminate the HR department. Sounds like one of those useless entities like PR, communications, investor relations, real estate development for superchargers, new product development, software engineering etc. Robo HR, Robo taxis, Robo FSD and Robo product design FTW!

 

[Milan Djabirov]

In the meantime my model X is at service visit appointment number 9 since delivery last November. I’m glad he didn’t can the service centers org yet, but perhaps he should based on their track record.

 

[terranx]

The reasons for slower growth have nothing to do with the Tesla team. Utilities don't move fast - never have and never will - since they are all highly regulated core infrastructure businesses where reliability is king - utilities could care less about innovation and moving fast. Tesla SC is slave to how fast the utilities can provide the required underlying infrastructure - and there's no way around these delays and limitations.

Yeah honestly it’s a miracle they were able to deploy them as quickly as they were. Between the utilities and various local governments, there’s an absurd amount of red tape.

 

[ucmndd]

In the meantime my model X is at service visit appointment number 9 since delivery last November. I’m glad he didn’t can the service centers org yet, but perhaps he should based on their track record.

My understanding is that service center staff were hit pretty hard in the first round.

 

[DrChaos]

What changed is with the network opening to all the other automakers, superchargers are no longer a moat. If it is like other charge networks, it's actually a net money loser.

It probably isn't like other charge networks. It has much more use, much more efficient capital expenditure and lower maintenance costs.

That wasn't a problem in the past given it was a unique selling point for Teslas, so any losses served as a form of advertising. This is no longer the case,

9 months of expenditures in return for decades of revenue from the chargers.

so it makes far less sense to focus as much investment into expanding the network, especially given the deal that was eventually worked out didn't require any of the other automakers to invest upfront to pay for their share of demand.

That's short sighted thinking---the demand will continue to increase. How did Standard Oil get so big?

Other automakers using your product is long term future recurring revenue. And their drivers are going to stations with big "Tesla" signs on them. The next step is to have minimarts near the big chargers---how the gasoline stations make money.

If Tesla needed financial partners the electric utilities are the natural ones---but this takes local negotiations.

 

[Milan Djabirov]

My understanding is that service center staff were hit pretty hard in the first round.

i can tell based on how they tried to glue a new rear quarter window to my car using some black gunky substance that leaked around the perimeter and chipped the paint behind the trim since the budget for masking tape must have been chopped too.

Probably the work of unpaid tech service intern.

 

[ucmndd]

Probably the work of unpaid tech service intern.

Ahem, Tesla calls those "shift leads"

 

[texas_star_TM3]

Imagine that Elon took a hard look at how the SuperCharger team was running, and was not pleased.
Instead of working through all the unacceptable employees, management and proceedures, he decided to start fresh, with a different approach. Supercharging is one of the Crown Jewels of Tesla. It needs to be better than what the current team was accomplishing.

Imagine making stuff up or assuming Elon acts rational