Tesla Lays off Supercharger and New Car Development Teams – Report

In view of falling sales and profits Tesla is pulling the ax on its headcount, with the latest losses reportedly being its Supercharger fast-charging network and new vehicle development teams.

The information assumes that Tesla has fired Rebecca Tinucci, head of the Supercharger department, and will also lay off the approximately 500 people who report directly or indirectly to her.

Ms. Tinucci has been with Tesla since 2018 and was appointed to lead the Supercharger network in 2020. Before joining Tesla, she was the founder and CEO of Evatran, a company specializing in wireless inductive charging for cars.

Daniel Ho, head of new vehicle development, will also be laid off, as will his entire team. The information could not determine how many people work on Mr. Ho’s team.

Mr Ho worked at Ford Australia for over 12 years and started at Tesla in 2013. He served as program manager for the Model S, Model 3 and Model Y before being named vehicle program manager for new vehicle introductions.

Accordingly The information Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent an email to the company saying, “Hopefully these actions make it clear that we need to be absolutely tough on headcount and cost reduction.”

“While some leaders are taking this seriously, most are not yet.

“Starting Tuesday at 10 a.m. EST, I will be calling for the resignation of all executives who employ more than three people who clearly fail the excellent, necessary and trustworthy test… I have been very clear about this.”

Later in the email, Mr. Musk said Tesla would expand the Supercharger network where it is critical and complete new stations currently under construction.

It is widely believed that the Supercharger network, particularly in the United States, was a crucial factor in the company’s success. The Supercharger system has better satisfaction ratings, while competitors often suffer from charger failures and poor reporting of faulty units.

Tesla’s lead in this space has led to virtually all of its competitors in the US adopting the company’s charging plug to gain access to the Supercharger network.

These job cuts follow an earlier round earlier this month in which 15,000 people, or about 10 percent of the global workforce, were laid off.

During that earlier purge, Tesla fired Drew Baglino, the company’s head of powertrain and energy, and Rohan Patel, the automaker’s political chairman.

Today’s layoffs are understood to extend to the political team that previously worked under Mr Patel.

This year has been a rocky one for Tesla. The company said it manufactured 433,371 vehicles but delivered just 386,810 in the first quarter, its lowest figure since 2022.

Due to an unintentional acceleration problem, Tesla also had to stop selling the much-hyped Cybertruck and subsequently recall all 3,878 cars for temporary repairs.

The automaker has also denied claims that it has canceled plans to develop a cheaper model with a starting price of $25,000 ($38,500). Now it’s supposedly going all out with a robotaxi, which will be presented on August 8th.