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?

 

[SalisburySam]

I know, no one else will say this, good job Elon, I know this was a tough decision of many you make everyday. Keep up the cost cutting and you will survive, this next year is going to suck. Between us; I would move the Fremont factory too, but not to Austin, I would move it East (SC,TN, or South Western VA).

I worked in and around Black and Veatch overseas, they are an impressive engineering/ design outfit that has done work in some pretty dicey places around the globe. I bet a some of the Tesla team gets picked due to B&V's expanding electrification strategy, if that is in fact accurate information. I wish I could buy their stock, but they are employee owned. They bought Bird Electric last May to help expand the growing demand for infrastructure and resiliency in electrification which is an expanding market. They also have another firm called Diode Ventures, which does data center infrastructure, another massive electrification market.

To the employees impacted, you worked for Tesla, you can pretty much write your ticket to any job you want, we all know it's a challenging environment, the experience on your resume will carry you a long way in industry. I've been through multiple layoffs and it sucks emotionally, but in the end it advanced my career and made me an MVP in expanding roles.

I would apply directly with B&V and DV and others in this space, you will probably get hired as electrification is a rapidly expanding field 13% YoY and they need your expertise and damn you worked for one of the fastest growing, disruptive, electrification firms in the world.

Advice, stay away from bad mouthing your old company and leadership, unlike some of the low emotional quotient (EQ) posts here, do forgive us we are on a car forum, both the company and the leadership are highly respected and have a brand cachet that will survive well into the future. You guys are the future wherever you go, best strong, be bold and lead, keeping the naysayers out of your circle, they will just bring you down. We are all cheering for what you have done and what you will do in the future. Peace out...

Given their accomplishments, especially against many many hurdles to overcome, I don’t think any of the folks let go will have difficulty with finding broader/better jobs. For the more senior people and especially Rebecca, they are a headhunter’s wet dream and have likely been courted by many all along. I would imagine her and others’ unemployment to be measured in seconds, not months.

 

[zroger73]

I am one-year Tesla owner, not an investor, don't know Musk personally, and very rarely rely on public chargers.

From the outside, it's funny seeing such strong overreactions to Tesla's decisions.

I am surprised more people don't realize that Musk is more robot than human when it comes to emotions - he calculates and makes moves that most people aren't capable of understanding at the moment, but will make sense later.

I just want my auto wipers to stop wiping a dry windshield.

Otherwise, I enjoy my Tesla very much. The price or capability of full self-driving or what Musk says and does don't change that.

 

[yessuz]

I am one-year Tesla owner, not an investor, don't know Musk personally, and very rarely rely on public chargers.

From the outside, it's funny seeing such strong overreactions to Tesla's decisions.

I am surprised more people don't realize that Musk is more robot than human when it comes to emotions - he calculates and make moves that most people aren't capable of understanding at the moment, but will make sense later.

I just want my auto wipers to stop wiping a dry windshield.

Otherwise, I enjoy my Tesla very much. The price or capability of full self-driving or what Musk says and does don't change that.

yeah. that one..
together with robotaxis, fsd anywhere outside USA, model 2, 40k costing cybertruck which does 500 miles, roadster and so on. All is well calculated. we just cannot see his genius.

I just hope he will never ever see his 50B paycheck, lmao

 

[SalisburySam]

How will any of these events remediate phantom braking?

 

[boulder.dude]

How will any of these events remediate phantom braking?

The robotaxi launch will necessitate true level 5 (unsupervised) near-flawless FSD. This will hopefully trickle down to all other models and resolve phantom braking once and for all!

 

[terranx]

I am surprised more people don't realize that Musk is more robot than human when it comes to emotions - he calculates and makes moves that most people aren't capable of understanding at the moment, but will make sense later.

Man I needed a laugh this morning, thanks.

 

[yessuz]

The robotaxi launch will necessitate true level 5 (unsupervised) near-flawless FSD. This will hopefully trickle down to all other models and resolve phantom braking once and for all!

when? by end of the year?

 

[tls]

It kinda blows my mind that there are still people vehemently defending this as calculated and logical.

 

[fholbert]

In 2001 I worked at a Fortune 500 company. One day the CIO has a mandatory meeting for all IT staff. It’s standing room only, but the CIO is no where to be found, a couple minutes later the conference room phone rang. The CIO didn’t have the balls to show up.

First words out of his mouth:

“The IT department is being outsourced. In 60 days no one will have a job except me.” Soon after that statement he hung up.

The lady sitting next to me started crying. Others had a shocked look on their faces. I’m thinking, he just fired and pissed off the only people with passwords to all the IT systems. My department headed out to a very long lunch, some might call it a no holiday, holiday weekend. Monday a lot of talented people called in sick, in reality they had found other jobs and were double dipping on paychecks.

Thirty days later the CIO, VP’s and some Directors were terminated, no one else. I went to work for the outsourcing company, as did everyone remaining. Due to some creative paper work from my boss I got a $20k pay raise and an additional weeks vacation.

Sometimes Often these things work out for the employees.

 

[Nack]

Yeah we know that.

But the original assumption was that Tesla worked on making NACS a standard so they would be getting MORE revenue by having their supercharger network support NACS, allowing them to collect revenue from non-Tesla vehicles. That charging would be one of their revenue sources, and one of the ways they supported their mission statement of advancing sustainable transportation no matter what vendor made the car.

Now it appears that their goal was actually to get other chargers to support NACS so that they could just wash their hands of charging completely while at least having their cars supported by future commercial chargers.

View attachment 1043299

Just making sure as the way NACS is talked about is generally different from what it actually is.

When pushing for NACS started I initially assumed Elon was bored with chargers and wanted to rely on others to provide them moving forward.

Not the rosy view many fans take, but I also don’t think Elon gives a flying F about sustainable transport. Hes more into trolling and making silly things like Cybertruck as none of the recent decisions are aimed at bringing mass adoption unfortunately.

Seems like Elon pushed away the adults in the room who were able to mitigate his worst impulses, now we see the real deal unfortunately IMO.

 

[HitchHiker71]

I keep seeing references to the J3400/NACS connector. I don't think people realize this does not really have much to do with Tesla anymore. They allowed others to use the plug shape/connection interface in North America (Europe still uses CCS2 as they have 3 phase). Even if there were no superchargers tomorrow for some reason, the whole thing could still exist without Tesla. Its just a plug interface. The communication interface is essentially the same as CCS.

A lot of the media and people get this confused, but NACS/J3400 is not referring to Tesla's Superchargers. You can basically get the same chitty service you get now from the other brands, now with a smaller connector . It works better for people who have non-Teslas though as they get access to more chargers.

That's not my point. I am fully aware that the J3400 CCS based SAE standard that is based on the NACS connector stands apart from the native NACS connector standard that Tesla has always used for their own vehicles. The reason that it took almost a year from the day of Ford's announcement around this time last year to actually allow non-Tesla vehicles on their network was because Tesla had to swap out control boards on roughly 16000 V3 stalls to enable compatibility with the J3400 CCS based protocols that the third party vehicles are using - as opposed to the native Tesla NACS protocols. The reason no V2 stalls support third party BEVs is because these board swaps didn't occur in comparison (there may also be other reasons - but that is one reason for sure).

My bigger picture point was that most of the manufacturers signed legal contracts with Tesla last year to take advantage of the best SC network that exists here in the US - along with moving to the NACS ports on their vehicles starting in 2025/2026 timeframe. If the SC network is no longer going to be maintained and won't be growing to meet future public charging demand, some of those manufacturers may revisit their decision to move to NACS ports on their vehicles especially if the Tesla SC network becomes over saturated due to lack of SC network growth over time to keep up with sales volumes and third parties coming onto the SC network in larger volumes starting this year and increasing into 2025/2026. Some of the third party charger networks may also revisit their plans to move to NACS connectors. This is the type of change that could have many downstream impacts basically - only time will tell of course.

 

[SO16]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1785370293344899429

 

[wnholt01]

I hope Tesla service centers aren’t the next cost saving opportunity on the chopping block.

 

[texas_star_TM3]

The diagnosis here is also Ballmer syndrome. Pure, raving jealousy of something else that's hot and he's not. Back in the 2000s when Apple and Google and Facebook were taking off and Ballmer's Microsoft was always leaping to try to copy something else poorly, but with horrible internal policies and cutthroat politics and no leadership. (someone from that era of MSFT interviwed with us and described him as a "stage 5 cancer")

Musk is pissed off with all the hype in Silicon Valley being around AI happening without him, incensed that another, smarter, sociopath tech bro (Sam Altman) pilfered out OpenAI out from under him before he could, and gone off the rails because they became stupendously successful after Musk bailed. (There's no way they would succeed with someone like Elon running it)

Notice how much he talks about Tesla not being a "car" company and how much he pontificates about "AI" (with juvenile hot takes). Take that seriously.

He's nuts with AI fever and delusions. I seriously think he may shut Fremont factory with no replacement, sell Shanghai to BYD, and give up on manufacturing entirely because it's not "AI" and not interesting any more.

Superchargers and cars aren't the hot thing in the Valley any more, and he isn't on the hot 100 executive lists any more. He needs his hit of fame and adulation and feeling he is leading the Cool.

well stated.

reliable charging infrastructure, spare parts availability, repair times, service center network > "AI" and robotaxis or whatever pipe dream Elon has at the moment

manufacturing cars isn't sexy but that's the industry Tesla is in from the consumer perspective.

 

[texas_star_TM3]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1785370293344899429

that is nonsensical and not how you operate a large company like Tesla and something as crucial as charging infrastructure....

 

[HitchHiker71]

I get what you are saying, but after looking at their filings for clues on what Tesla gains from these contracts, honestly I do not see any. If Tesla is truly giving away the keys to SC and getting nothing in return, then I am not sure how other parties can sue Tesla.

My original thought that I posted when Tesla announced the Ford deal was that these automakers would build out their own charging networks, perhaps at their dealerships because they are everywhere and open to everyone. Since then I haven't seen Ford build anything, but Rivian is opening up their chargers to all EVs. Yes it is a measly 400 chargers, but it is a start. So with the firing, Tesla may be done with their network and it is up to the rest of the automakers to contribute.

So from a product management standpoint, the SC network is what is known as a competitive differentiator or a distinctive competency. Whether we want to realize it or not, MANY people bought Tesla's because of the SC network itself, not because they particularly love the vehicle itself. We fell into this bucket. I actually "like" the look of other BEVs better than Tesla vehicles, but when it came to ease of use and public charging infrastructure, at least last year, I would not have considered buying any other BEV for this reason alone.

Specific to the contract clauses and verbiage - it all depends on the clauses whether there are violations of terms and conditions. This is speculation on my part and hopefully legal reviewed these decisions prior to Musk announcing them, but we've seen a pattern in the past of Musk making personnel decisions without following proper legal protocols (WARN anyone?) for example, so I won't be surprised if there are downstream impacts to what occurred yesterday along this line.

My bigger picture concern is that, for people like me, who bought their Tesla with the SC network as a primary key differentiator, if this changes, then I'm more likely to consider other BEVs. I get that it's likely a commodity business now - the SC network - and therefore not attractive to continue to grow it out - but if Tesla cannibalizes future demand in the process - when the fact is that Musk clearly posted that these layoffs were due to falling sales volume and cost cutting resulting from lower demand - and then you go and eliminate an entire department that may turn off both existing early adopter Tesla owners who may not buy another Tesla, along with traditional buyers who already clearly indicate that the two biggest concerns are range anxiety and public charging network availability - why cut the one department that directly addresses the two biggest concerns prospective buyers have? The logic escapes me with this in mind.

 

[texas_star_TM3]

I hope Tesla service centers aren’t the next cost saving opportunity on the chopping block.

they have barely expanded the Service center network where i live and wait times are horrendous. Not adding more Service centers is de-facto cutting it as millions of more cars are being sold but the Service center network ressembles 2022 ....

 

[terranx]

I hope Tesla service centers aren’t the next cost saving opportunity on the chopping block.

The layoffs already hit the service centers pretty hard.

 

[ProfessorZoom]

The only option I wont consider is another Tesla as long as Musk is running the show.

So u don't want the safest car in history bc of some stuff the CEO is doing?
That's some protest right there
I hope you follow the CEO of every other brand you are considering as closely as you are Elon

 

[ucmndd]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1785370293344899429

Are we sharing this example as rationale? Firing *everyone* in a rage fit because a woman manager pushed back to protect her staff tells me just about everything I need to know about the guy.