What just happened? Tesla is making its second round of mass layoffs in just two weeks. This time, it's the Supercharger team that is being let go, along with the head of new vehicle development and everyone who worked for them.
Rebecca Tinucci, Tesla's senior director of EV charging, will be leaving the automaker. Being shown the door alongside Tinucci will be all 500 members of the team that reported to her, writes The Information.
Confirmed - @Tesla @elonmusk has let our entire charging org go. What this means for the charging network, NACS, and all the exciting work we were doing across the industry, I don't yet know. What a wild ride it has been.
– willjameson (@willjameson) April 30, 2024
Tinucci's push to gain support from other manufacturers in adopting Tesla's North American Charging Standard (NACS) earned her a place on the TIME 100 Climate list and the number 2 spot on Motor Trend's auto industry power list, notes Electrek. The Supercharger network is viewed as one of Tesla's most successful elements, so removing the team behind it comes as a surprise.
The email sent by Musk informing the executives of the layoffs also states that Tesla will continue to build out some new Superchargers and finish those under construction. In a post on his X platform, Musk wrote that Tesla still plans to grow the network, just at a slower pace and with more focus on 100% uptime.
Tesla still plans to grow the Supercharger network, just at a slower pace for new locations and more focus on 100% uptime and expansion of existing locations
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 30, 2024
Daniel Ho, Director of Vehicle Programs and New Product Initiatives, is also being laid off from Tesla after a 10-year stint. Ho was program manager for the Model S, 3 and Y before being placed in charge of all new vehicles. His entire team, made up of an unknown number of people, will be laid off.
Tesla's public policy team is also being dissolved. Rohan Patel, the former VP of the team, left the company two weeks ago when the previous cuts were announced.
"Hopefully these actions are making it clear that we need to be absolutely hard core about headcount and cost reduction," Musk wrote in the email, the report said. "While some on exec staff are taking this seriously, most are not yet doing so."
Musk added in the email that executives with more than three team members who "don't obviously pass the excellent, necessary and trustworthy test" would be asked to resign.
It was mid-April when Tesla said it was eliminating more than 10% of its global workforce, meaning at least 14,000 workers were being pushed out. Tesla recorded first-quarter vehicle deliveries of 386,810 last month, fewer than what analysts had been expecting. Deliveries were down 20% in Q1 compared to the previous quarter and more than 8% compared to the same quarter a year earlier, marking the automaker's first year-over-year decline since 2020. The sales dip saw profits fall 55%.
Tesla lays off entire Supercharger and new vehicles teams, weeks after previous cuts
