- Tesla has dismissed the entire EV charging team that helped develop its vast network of charging stations across the country
- Other automakers who use its charging technology are worried about the impact of this on their business but Tesla has assured that business will go on as usual
- Cost-cutting and restructuring are believed to be the main reasons behind this decision
A fresh round of layoffs have hit Tesla under which the company’s entire EV charging team has been dismissed.
More than 500 people have been asked to leave which includes senior director, Rebecca Tinucci. This team was responsible for creating the vast network of charging stations that pan across the country.
It was their efforts that helped Tesla beat companies like Ford and General Motors. Today, virtually every major automaker uses the charging stations built by this team.
Will Jameson, one of the charging team leads shared a post on X confirming this news.
The move was both unexpected and surprising to all. According to a source close to the company, the decision was made last week, right after the company ordered layoffs of 10% of its workforce in mid-April.
Slowing Down Future Growth
The job cuts will not impact the employees alone. Tesla’s charging station network will take a hit. Musk himself has confirmed that growth will slow down.
In fact, the inside source has confirmed that the company is contemplating rehiring some of the employees in order to run the current network and expand it at a much slower rate.
Other businesses that rely on Tesla’s chargers will also be affected.
- Previously, most automakers used a Combined Charging System (CCS).
- However, there are very few CCS chargers in the US and Tesla’s Superchargers are just faster, reliable, and better in every way so they had all moved to Tesla.
But now, automakers like Rivian and Ford worry that they have lost their primary point of contact with the company, especially because Tinucci was let go. She was the one in charge of partnerships.
At the same time, other sources from the company have confirmed that some of the teams that looked after third-party access remain intact, so these companies will have no trouble using Tesla’s technology.
Along with the charging team, the public policy team has been fired as well. At the time when the mid-April layoffs were announced, VP Rohan Patel was also let go.
Rohan had said that Tesla’s public policy team is truly one of the best in the industry. And he’s quite right:
- This team helped the company win 13% of the funding available from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
- The team was also working on helping the company get another federal grant worth $100 million.
Why Is Musk Making These Job Cuts?
The reason is pretty simple – restructuring and cost-cutting. He wants the leaders of his company to be “absolutely hardcore about headcount and cost reduction”. Hence, he had asked them to either remove the employees who didn’t pass the excellent, necessary, and trustworthy test or resign.
Falling profits could be another reason behind the job cuts. Owing to poor EV sales, the company’s profits dropped by 55% this quarter.
At a time when the board is trying to reinstate Musk’s $56 billion pay package that was dismissed by the court, this certainly isn’t good news.
The company has also gotten in trouble with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which found it responsible for 467 collisions and at least 13 major crashes that led to death. Its autopilot feature in the FDS software was found to be at fault.
This isn’t the first time Tesla’s FDS software has gotten in trouble. Last year, the company had to recall over 2 million vehicles to update the car’s driver monitoring system when running on autopilot. A fresh investigation has also been launched to check how effective the update was.
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