Entire Tesla Supercharger team fired (Update: Elon Musk says supercharger network growth will continue). ** ⚠️ ADMIN WARNING: NO POLITICS **

[Zoidz]

That is for a facilities person, not someone that updates superchargers. Those positions have all been put on hold as well and are being paired back as construction projects get cancelled or put on hold.

These types of facilities positions can be assigned the management tasks for SuperCharger installations. We know that subs are being used to do the installs. From a project management viewpoint, managing a Supercharger installation or update done by a subcontractor is no different from installation or upgrading switchgear, motor control centers, robots, etc. It's not rocket science at all. We have project managers at our company that have no idea how the equipment they are managing the installation of actually works. They don't need to. Our company does contract projects for our customers' facility managers who have no clue what the equipment/system does.

Rest assured, this was not part of a big plan in a 10 step ahead of everyone game Elon is playing. This was pure spite against an exec that didn't want to play ball.

I agree, in fact, I stated it in another post - the distinct passibility that Elon did this out of knee jerk vengence.

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[scottf200]

Can someone objectively explain if this will have any impact on their charging network or their ability to rollout and install chargers? If not, isn't this just trimming fat? Similar to rivian cutting out guides?

These 3 post touch on how wide of a problem this is.

Twitter post:
Tesla Supercharging layoffs seem to be across all functions - site acquisition, project development, site design, construction management and hardware development. We likely won’t see impacts for 6-12 months due to a loaded pipeline, but they’ll be felt. Insane.

Twitter post:
The idea that you’d invest 100s of millions of dollars over a decade into a public policy team to build relationships with regulators around the world and then overnight fire them and lose all of those relationships and institutional knowledge just seems incredibly shortsighted.

Twitter post: Don Burke
It's not just the supercharger team. The firings included the entire team that runs the commercial destination charger program. We are right in the middle of deploying four @Tesla Universal HPWCs at our condominium. All emails are bouncing. WTF are we supposed to do? Will @tesla_nabe honoring this contract? Will they be supporting this charging platform going forward? Who is our POC now? How do we commission the HPWCs? I assume every business and hotel with Tesla destination chargers is similarly affected.
@elonmusk , how will Tesla make this right for folks businesses, apartments, and condos that put their trust in Tesla for their destination charging needs?

 

[Rad_ry]

Musk said, in his typical bluster, that he wants Tesla to be “absolutely hard core” about headcount reduction, saying that executives whose subordinates “don’t obviously pass the excellent, necessary and trustworthy test” would find themselves relieved of duty as well – suggesting that he wants those executives to fire more employees or be fired themselves.

This ain't authoritarian [insert Not-America here], we're in a low unemployment economy with all the talent sticking to their good jobs. You gotta train and improve your existing workforce, not all over them and fire folks. Organizational Leadership 101: be happy with the folks that show up every day, regardless of output. You'll spend more training new staff than correcting course of existing.

I think it’s a little hilarious Elon was recently doom and gloom about Rivian’s future, hinting at its demise. While Rivian has made some adjustments, Tesla in comparison comes off as manic and desperate.

 

[BigSkies]

Here in Colorado, Tesla won 17 out of 45ish NEVI grants.

I guess those stations won’t be built and all government communication to Tesla about them will just get an email bounce?

I hope the government has the right to either rapidly enforce performance or re-award the contracts on a short timeline.

 

[emoore]

Here in Colorado, Tesla won 17 out of 45ish NEVI grants.

I guess those stations won’t be built and all government communication to Tesla about them will just get an email bounce?

I hope the government has the right to either rapidly enforce performance or re-award the contracts on a short timeline.

This exactly. I'm sure they won more NEVI grants from other states too. This is going to be a huge mess and entirely caused by Elon and Elon alone because he acts like a child. I hope all the NEVI sites that were awarded to Tesla are revoked and Tesla is banned from any future locations.

 

[White Shadow]

Who is going to want to work on that team now? There can't be that big of a pool of talented people that have experience building a charging network. Most talented employees want to work somewhere that they feel they can make a difference in the world and have backing from the boss/management team. Musk just burned up what little credibility he had by doing to those employees exactly what he did at Twitter. Not treating employees this way is management 101.

I can't answer that because I don't know. But I bet the team will be rebuilt and will be just fine. Without inside knowledge, everything here is just speculation as to why this happened. My guess is that the supercharger network will be improved after the dust settles. That's just my opinion and it's speculation as well.

 

[emoore]

I can't answer that because I don't know. But I bet the team will be rebuilt and will be just fine. Without inside knowledge, everything here is just speculation as to why this happened. My guess is that the supercharger network will be improved after the dust settles. That's just my opinion and it's speculation as well.

Not a chance a brand new team will pick up where the other team left off. This will setback the supercharger network years and will give competitors the opportunity to catch up which is probably a good thing so that the US charging network isn't at the whim of Elon.

 

[White Shadow]

I don't care if you don't like Kyle. He's knowledgeable on this topic and this video is only 20 mins

What I don't like about Kyle is the fact that he uses his "Jesus" pose in 95% of his video thumbnails. So stupid....lol

But if you listen to him talk about this whole debacle, he says repeatedly that nobody really knows why this happened and what the outcome will be. He mentioned this in at least two podcasts so far. The panic here is just silly as far as I'm concerned.

 

[White Shadow]

Not a chance a brand new team will pick up where the other team left off. This will setback the supercharger network years and will give competitors the opportunity to catch up.

We'll see. I'm far from a Musk far (I can't stand the guy tbh), but I doubt what you're saying will end up accurate.

 

[Redline]

What I don't like about Kyle is the fact that he uses his "Jesus" pose in 95% of his video thumbnails. So stupid....lol

But if you listen to him talk about this whole debacle, he says repeatedly that nobody really knows why this happened and what the outcome will be. He mentioned this in at least two podcasts so far. The panic here is just silly as far as I'm concerned.

Nobody is panicking. Just stating the obvious. Many of us have said similar things to Kyle.

 

[White Shadow]

Nobody is panicking. Just stating the obvious. Many of us have said similar things to Kyle.

20 pages so far, mostly with "this will set the EV industry back for years" type of posts sure makes it seem like people are panicking to me. I think this will be no more than blip in the history of Tesla supercharging. Let me know when you see Tesla Superchargers operating like EA stations and then maybe I'll agree that it's an issue.

But also keep in mind that Tesla has been having quite a few issues with their superchargers lately, even before this happened.

 

[RedCanyon]

Sure Rivian can thank Tesla for EVs, I agree with that. And SpaceX can thank all the rocket companies that came before him, Boeing, LM, ULA, GD, Raytheon, etc. Many many years of success before SpaceX was created.

Perhaps... but with a total estimated investment of $20 billion SpaceX is now the premier provider of travel to space globally, radically lowering the cost to put both people and technology in space and making launches and rocket reuse routine. They have also deployed Starlink now providing high-speed internet globally and opening up the Internet to people and countries previously under served. While NASA has spent over $95 billion on Artemis and Boeing has blown by the $18 billion it had budgeted, and now 14 years of work, to create its new Space Launch System rocket which has yet to make a single successful test flight.

 

[Dark-Fx]

I can't answer that because I don't know. But I bet the team will be rebuilt and will be just fine. Without inside knowledge, everything here is just speculation as to why this happened. My guess is that the supercharger network will be improved after the dust settles. That's just my opinion and it's speculation as well.

I thought Tesla wasn't really a car company anymore? Firing key people doing car-adjacent jobs seems like the first step in the transition.

 

[BigSkies]

This exactly. I'm sure they won more NEVI grants from other states too. This is going to be a huge mess and entirely caused by Elon and Elon alone because he acts like a child. I hope all the NEVI sites that were awarded to Tesla are revoked and Tesla is banned from any future locations.

It’s almost like a Real Stable Genius could have made a couple billion dollars by spinning out the Supercharger network with all of its technology, barriers to entry, expansion contracts and strong personal relationships.

 

[emoore]

Perhaps... but with a total estimated investment of $20 billion SpaceX is now the premier provider of travel to space globally, radically lowering the cost to put both people and technology in space and making launches and rocket reuse routine. They have also deployed Starlink now providing high-speed internet globally and opening up the Internet to people and countries previously under served. While NASA has spent over $95 billion on Artemis and Boeing has blown by the $18 billion it had budgeted, and now 14 years of work, to create its new Space Launch System rocket which has yet to make a single successful test flight.

I agree what Space X did for LEO launches is pretty damn good. They built upon years and years of experience in the industry. And SLS has made a successful launch.

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