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This morning I saw an article in Electrek discussing a move by Elon Musk that has some questioning the stability of Tesla. After announcing a significant expansion of the Supercharger network, Musk fired the entire team responsible for making it happen. This has created confusion amongst Tesla's partners and may lead to a slowdown in deployment.
The article says that Elon Musk fired the entire Tesla charging team after the head of the team, Rebecca Tinucci, pushed back against the level of layoffs that he requested.
This resulted in a lot of confusion amongst Tesla's partners in ongoing projects and may slow down deployment of new charging stations.
Some people believe this was a rash and impulsive decision by Musk. Current Tesla and EV customers who use the Tesla Superchargers will likely be affected if other automakers are onboarded into the network.
Elon Musk Knows Better Because He Is Better Informed
First of all, people need to know that we are not Elon Musk and will never be. He is leading a US electric vehicle company against other rising EV companies, particularly those in China. He knows the Tesla's lead in the EV global market share will eventually shrink, but he won't let complacency accelerate this shrink. As one Tesla enthusiast commented, "If anyone one is not in the war mode, they are out of Tesla. They will just be trimmed. Look at the big three here, they will extinct soon in China and many foreign markets."
The second is an opinion I read in one of the Facebook groups. According to that thought Tesla didn’t fire the entire charging team. They fired the administrators and managers. "So, yes, the head of the management team said they fired her whole team, but that was just management, not the people building and maintaining superchargers," commented Laird Popkin under Electrek's facebook post. But others say he fired a large number of people from the team. About 500 people according to one estimate.
Elon's Move Is Both a Challenge and an Opportunity fo Tesla
Elon Musk's recent announcement of a $500 million investment in Supercharger network expansion is a surprise for me, considering the news comes on the heels of layoffs that reportedly included Tesla's entire charging team. I have questions about the project's execution and potential delays. If you guys have any ideas what Tesla will do in this regard, please click the red link below and write your comments. I will look forward reading them.
In my opinion here is the potential impact of Elon cutting its supercharging team, but below I will also talk about TEsla's possible benefits. The impact is the loss of expertise and partner uncertainty.
The fired Supercharger team likely possessed specialized knowledge and experience crucial for efficient Supercharger deployment. Rebuilding this expertise could lead to delays. Perhaps, Tesla will use some of those $500 million to rehire some of these people because of their expertise.
Existing partners collaborating with the charging team might face uncertainty due to the leadership change.
But I look forward to what's coming at Tesla because of transparency and alternative solutions.
Tesla could benefit from clear communication regarding the team's replacement and project timeline.
Exploring partnerships with established charging infrastructure companies could expedite expansion plans.
Overall, this situation presents both challenges and opportunities for Tesla. Addressing concerns about continuity and leveraging external expertise will be crucial for the success of this ambitious Supercharger expansion.
Armen Hareyan is the founder and the Editor in Chief of Torque News. He founded TorqueNews.com in 2010, which since then has been publishing expert news and analysis about the automotive industry. He can be reached at Torque News Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Youtube. He has more than a decade of expertise in the automotive industry with a special interest in Tesla and electric vehicles.
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Comments
To be clear, they didn’t…
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To be clear, they didn’t fire the entire Supercharger team, they fired 20% of them, particularly the management team, not wiping out the people making and maintaining Superchargers.
And they didn’t stop expanding Superchargers, they just shifted strategy to expanding current locations more than building new locations. And even then they didn’t stop all new locations, they’re still filling gaps, just doing less of that and more expansion of capacity in existing locations because that’s more efficient.
I think this is similar to back when SpaceX’s Starlink team was not delivering, they fired the Starlink dev/management team and built a new team, and the new team did great.
I think there is a weakness…
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I think there is a weakness with Tesla supercharger expansion. As a customer and for future customers the more supercharger the better Tesla is. Tesla has money and technologies why can not expand supercharger fast enough? To the leaders of supercharger, it seems that they have not satisfied Tesla's objective, my guess that they are the bottle neck of Tesla bottom line. Firing them is a good thing to make Tesla better.
I think the $500M was stuff…
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I think the $500M was stuff that was already happening, and it sounds like oil companies are lined up to pay Tesla to let them install Superchargers.
I believe Elon Musk is…
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I believe Elon Musk is attempting to avoid the Innovators Dilemma. (Small, agile, disruptive and efficient start up companies eventually become large, lethargic, inefficient behemoths who take no chances). That’s what it seems like to me.
I think Elon Musk knows…
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I think Elon Musk knows everything he is doing, the reasons and consequences of what he is doing and has done. Regarding the charging stations and related mechanisms, they need no more technical advancement to what they are now, and what he needs is to keep producing the same products on as deemed necessary. It only need to manufacture those devices (rather simple tasks) and deliver to where needed, and that takes only few low-level workers. same goes to Tesla car manufacturing. The Giga factories everywhere are all pretty much automated and for the new models that need special designers and engineers are, I am sure Musk has in hand, and as Sandy Munro said Musk need no more managers to run dealerships as they are more or less saturated in US network.