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?

 

[gearchruncher]

I think he meant the newly rehired team is focused on this task.

If that is true, the contractors actually building all the new sites are all new and weren't doing this before? Who is managing them?

The point here is that 500 people were fired (and I say fired, because they were let go for "cause" of working for a manager that "needed" to be punished). It's been widely reported that the team consisted of all sorts of people, such as land acquisition people, but also engineers working on actual supercharger hardware designs., as well as regulatory and political efforts.

What we have here is one guy, who is a "Fan of Elon" swearing he has a friend that loves his re-hire job at Tesla, and that job is land acquisition, and that's all Tesla ever did with the SC team, as everything else was contracted. That contradicts a lot of other stories that the fired team did a lot more than that, and if that's all the new team does, that means the world has to spin up the other functions, not that they were already up and running.

 

[stopcrazypp]

What we have here is one guy, who is a "Fan of Elon" swearing he has a friend that loves his re-hire job at Tesla, and that job is land acquisition, and that's all Tesla ever did with the SC team, as everything else was contracted. That contradicts a lot of other stories that the fired team did a lot more than that, and if that's all the new team does, that means the world has to spin up the other functions, not that they were already up and running.

Not sure where you got this? My reading of the original comment is the friend's job was to do land acquisition, not that all 500 people fired were only doing land acquistion.

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

Not sure where you got this? My reading of the original comment is the friend's job was to do land acquisition, not that all 500 people fired were only doing land acquistion.

Thin air under a bridge.

 

[RandyS]

If that is true, the contractors actually building all the new sites are all new and weren't doing this before? Who is managing them?

The point here is that 500 people were fired (and I say fired, because they were let go for "cause" of working for a manager that "needed" to be punished). It's been widely reported that the team consisted of all sorts of people, such as land acquisition people, but also engineers working on actual supercharger hardware designs., as well as regulatory and political efforts.

What we have here is one guy, who is a "Fan of Elon" swearing he has a friend that loves his re-hire job at Tesla, and that job is land acquisition, and that's all Tesla ever did with the SC team, as everything else was contracted. That contradicts a lot of other stories that the fired team did a lot more than that, and if that's all the new team does, that means the world has to spin up the other functions, not that they were already up and running.

Wow...I think you're reading too much into my comments...

 

[gearchruncher]

Wow...I think you're reading too much into my comments...

Well, the actual design of the supercharger sites is farmed out to a third party engineering company and the construction is done by local firms. So the job of the Tesla folks is to acquire high-value sites and manage the process.

Want to explain what you meant by the above? You said the only job of the "Tesla folks" is to acquire "high-value sites." You didn't say this was only your friend's job. Was this what all 500 people did?

 

[zoomer0056]

Was this what all 500 people did?

Nobody knows. It's all widely reported guessing pieced together with other tidbits of speculation and inflammatory language.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Want to explain what you meant by the above? You said the only job of the "Tesla folks" is to acquire "high-value sites." You didn't say this was only your friend's job. Was this what all 500 people did?

That's the problem with selective quotes, you left out "and manage the process". There's a lot of other potential jobs involved in that. Plus he never said his description of the job duty covered all 500 people. He only pointed out which parts are explicitly farmed out (and having been involved in construction projects, what is farmed out makes complete sense).

As noted, the original comment says their friend was in land acquisition, they never claimed that was the only job duty of all 500 people:

For a bit of a data point to this discussion, a good friend of mine that was let go as part of the SC team layoff/firing was recently rehired. Their job is to acquire high value SC sites and interact with and get lease agreements signed with potential site hosts / property owners. They are delighted to be back on the job...

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

Want to explain what you meant by the above? You said the only job of the "Tesla folks" is to acquire "high-value sites." You didn't say this was only your friend's job. Was this what all 500 people did?

AND MANAGE THE PROCESS. All the magical elves that turn a piece of acquired land into functional supercharging site require MANAGEMENT!!!!!!

 

[texas_star_TM3]

for what it's worth.... drove back from Taos / NM to DFW yesterday and experienced a "dead" stall in Henrietta and Vernon. Not a huge deal but also not 99% uptime.

 

[gearchruncher]

for what it's worth.... drove back from Taos / NM to DFW yesterday and experienced a "dead" stall in Henrietta and Vernon. Not a huge deal but also not 99% uptime.

I've charged at 5+ superchargers in WA and CA over the last 3 weeks and have encountered 3 dead or very slow stalls. Very odd for a network that supposedly has 99.95% uptime. Unless you are measuring uptime as "at least one stall at that location can charge a car"

(I still find the supercharger network to be pretty amazing and reliable overall however)

 

[MP3Mike]

Unless you are measuring uptime as "at least one stall at that location can charge a car"

Here is how they define uptime, from: https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/2023-tesla-impact-report.pdf

So as long as half of the site is up, they consider it good to go.

 

[texas_star_TM3]

Here is how they define uptime, from: https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/2023-tesla-impact-report.pdf

View attachment 1051388

So as long as half of the site is up, they consider it good to go.

lol. so theoretically a 8 stall installation could have 4 duds and it's still "100% up" ?

 

[MP3Mike]

lol. so theoretically a 8 stall installation could have 4 duds and it's still "100% up" ?

Yes, that site would still be considered to have 100% uptime. (I think EA likes to use the same method, and both proposed that NEVI calculate uptime that way, but for NEVI purposes I think the final rules say that it has to be counted at the individual stall level.)

 

[CyberGus]

The grocery store is still open, even if only half the registers are manned.

It's a little weird with the way they do the stats, but if you counted every disabled stall against the whole site, larger sites would get penalized, since a 4-stall site is "more up" than an 8-stall site with 1 disabled.

I just wish they had a better way of marking the slow/disabled stalls, since I hate moving in the middle of a Beach Buggy run

 

[Rocky_H]

lol. so theoretically a 8 stall installation could have 4 duds and it's still "100% up" ?

Yes, that site would still be considered to have 100% uptime. (I think EA likes to use the same method, and both proposed that NEVI calculate uptime that way, but for NEVI purposes I think the final rules say that it has to be counted at the individual stall level.)

Having some charging available at the site is what matters, though, right? That's why a large stall count and a redundant design matters for good reliability. My worst charging problem experience was one time when I was having to try to make a very long stretch from Redmond, OR all the way 214 miles to Baker City in my S85. The 1 of 1 station in Redmond, OR was broken, so a single device failure made it no charging available at all. I had to backtrack to Sisters, OR and charge up there, making it 234 miles to get to Baker City. There should never be single station sites like that.

 

[Ben W]

So as long as half of the site is up, they consider it good to go.

I’d like to see ED pills marketed this way… “If it’s half-up, it’s good to go.”

 

[Rocky_H]

I’d like to see ED pills marketed this way…

Speaking of, I've always thought Mercedes failed in their marketing department when they decided to call their small electric car the "Smart ED". Really? Do you WANT to make people too ashamed to buy it?

 

[gearchruncher]

@RandyS - Is George Bahadue your friend?

Rehired Tesla Supercharger manager beautifully explains why he came back

A recently rehired Tesla Supercharger team member beautifully explained why he came back and gave a respectful nod to his...

electrek.co

 

[wws]

Speaking of, I've always thought Mercedes failed in their marketing department when they decided to call their small electric car the "Smart ED". Really? Do you WANT to make people too ashamed to buy it?

They did the same with their B Class California compliance car. (The one with the Tesla drivetrain.). What self-respecting guy would want to drive a "ED"?

 

[Unclepaul]

If you owned a company and one of your managers refused your direction, would you keep her?