Report: Tesla lays off entire Supercharger team! [Update: Elon Musk says supercharger growth will continue]

[Sjohnson20]

A lot of overreactions going on about this. There's still 2300 supercharger locations. I'm not worried unless they start closing locations. Hopefully one day a competent company will come and offer something that can compete with superchargers.

 

[vinsk]

Yep.

Because totally a CEO should cripple a company by firing everyone like some sort of child's tantrum.

Uhh, no.

-Crissa

It seems like you've been consistently critical of Musk's decisions. I'm sorry you're feeling that frustration. Opinions vary, but it seems like you might have a specific agenda to see Musk removed from his position, perhaps for personal reasons. It's a complex corporate landscape, and being a CEO involves myriad responsibilities. There's a lot to consider regarding workforce efficiency, restructuring, and the dynamics of the corporate world. However, it seems like speculation is all we have regarding the reasons behind the SuC team's firing, as concrete information is scarce.

 

[JBee]

There's still quite a bit of money on the table for companies to profit from charging, but that's only a small part of the story. Tesla still offers free chargers to many of their early adopters for life because they originally didn't build those chargers to earn money from the power.

Those chargers are what made people feel comfortable buying their cars in the first place.

Like many EV drivers, I charge at home 99% of the time. The kicker is the remaining 1% is when you travel long distances. Without the SuperCharger Network, Tesla never would've grown in the first place.

SuperChargers and DC Fast Chargers in general are literally the most essential thing to widespread EV adoption. If you ask anyone who is afraid to switch to an EV why they won't buy one, they will all say they worry about running out of power, especially when they travel.

The Fast Charger market is growing quickly. While it's not essential that Tesla dominate that space because there are more players entering each day, the fact is when people see that bright red SuperCharger, they feel more comfortable buying a Tesla.

I get how it was.

That is however not how it is anymore.

There are quite a few chargers, and there doesn't need to be as many as gas stations, if everyone is doing most of their charging at home. Like you do too.

The point is simply when is the break even point reached, when is there enough Tesla branded chargers?

Maybe about now?

Point is no-one here even knows if there will be any less chargers deployed.

All they know is that 500 less people are involved in doing it, and all of a sudden the sky is falling.

(Btw I don't think theres any money on the table for chargers, do you have any info to back this assumption?)

 

[vinsk]

I get how it was.

All they know is that 500 less people are involved in doing it, and all of a sudden the sky is falling.

Take the case of Twitter (7500 headcount) to hardly 1500 now and of those only 500 core engineers maintaining X ! I'm sure everyone noticed the knee-jerk reaction by haters and media when Musk fired 80% workforce.

 

[JBee]

Take the case of Twitter (7500 headcount) to hardly 1500 now and of those only 500 core engineers maintaining X ! I'm sure everyone noticed the knee-jerk reaction by haters and media when Musk fired 80% workforce.

Exactly. Bloatware, just like Windows, or a Chinese cheapo phone that is subsidised by pre-installed apps.

More is not better.

Best part is no human...sometimes!

 

[Idea Of The Day]

All they know is that 500 less people are involved in doing it, and all of a sudden the sky is falling.

(Btw I don't think theres any money on the table for chargers, do you have any info to back this assumption?)

There's no doubt about the opportunity.

We all know there aren't enough DC Fast Chargers out there. I can't even travel to my favorite vacation spot right now because there would be no place for me to charge along the highway unless I'm lucky enough to book a night at a campground that offers RV power. Charging overnight is not the best way to travel long distances.

Profitability (Money on the table) is another factor.

Originally, Tesla gave everyone free SuperChargers for life, because they didn't care about making money from charging. They knew they couldn't sell cars without them and as the number of SCs grew, so did vehicle sales.

After a while they started to charge new owners for power. They still didn't need to think about profitability, they could break even or even lose a bit because it still boosted car sales.

Since Non-Tesla owners couldn't use SuperChargers, locations needed to decide which standard to support. Most of the time, they chose Tesla, but some offered CSS to support everyone (with adapters).

Then Tesla opened up their standard to every car maker.

That's where things get interesting. Now, they need to make sure their SuperCharger locations are actually capable of making money because these new customers are not buying Teslas. They need to cut costs, boost reliability, and find other revenue streams for customers by selling food, movies / entertainment, etc. while they wait. Another opportunity.

With the deadline for banning the sales of new gas vehicle sales coming closer each year, those opportunities will grow exponentially, especially in Europe where the cutoff is 2030.

So it all comes down to profitability. If Musk's cuts lead to lower costs and higher profits per station, they stand to not only win contracts for massively more chargers, but earn money from them.

With non-Tesla owners using their chargers, if they can't make money from them, they'll just give up that part of their business to some of the traditional energy companies.

Among those looking to get those huge contracts are Electrify America, ChargePoint, EVGo, Momentum, Siemans, EN+ and countless small startups.

Meanwhile most of the big oil companies like Shell, Exxon Mobile, and BP are making commitments to transition their locations. They may have the best long term opportunity because they already have strategically placed locations.

 

[HaulingAss]

The current format of Supercharger stations is not set up to deal with driverless cars. I think these big changes speak to a pause in the buildout of the current style of stations, followed by a rapid population of stations capable of charging driverless cars (and likely EV trucks pulling large trailers too).

The new stations will be robotic, deal with charge ports in any location without resorting to inefficient long charge cables, and cost not much more, perhaps less, than the current crop of Superchargers. When they are ready, they will roll-out in massive numbers, very quickly. The project will be funded by the money currently spent on the out-going Supercharge team.

Musk doesn't want to make his strategy public for the obvious strategic reasons, but also because he knows investors would cringe at the thought of investing so much money, and disrupting the current state of Supercharger growth, when many still think autonomy is years away.

As usual, Musk will turn out to be four steps ahead of everyone else. This happens all the time, after he is roundly criticized for the direction he is taking the company. Never bet against Elon Musk.

 

[Cybertruck2024]

There isn't near enough chargers for people who don't own a home to buy an EV. If Tesla has a demand problem, and slowing sales is a demand problem in any industry, then they need to figure out a way to fix this issue. Building fewer new locations won't bring in anyone who's on the EV fence. How do you get people who don't own an EV already to buy one? There's a few ways:

- Make the value proposition so much better than ICE, that people have no choice. $20k EV versus $35k ICE? Even if someone prefers ICE, they may settle for an EV.
- Make owning an EV so much easier than owning ICE, you want to do it. That means chargers everywhere (i.e. - each rental property, street parking spot, or as easy to get to as a gas station).
- Have 600+ mile actual range or an ability to charge to full in 5 minutes, so people hardly think about charging.

We all (most?) own Teslas, so we don't care about the above. But we aren't the ones causing the demand problem. EVs are not enticing new buyers at a fast enough rate. We can all say the above reasons are dumb, but that doesn't sell cars. Fixing the above issues sells cars. More supercharger stations sells cars.

 

[getsometom]

I wonder what this means for the V4 supercharger rollout. Was really hoping there will be many V4s coming soon but this news doesn't make that a great possibility.

 

[HaulingAss]

More supercharger stations sells cars.

Tesla's data also shows that every new Service Center sells a rash of cars wherever they add a new service/delivery center. That's probably a more cost-effective way to continue to grow sales while keeping customers satisfied. People don't like to drive over an hour for service, even if service is rarely required. Those new to EV's don't understand how little servicing most of them need, so it will sell more cars. And there will already be Superchargers nearby.

Remember, Elon said they would continue to increase the number of chargers at current locations, it's the expansion of the network into increasingly distant places from service and maintenance personnel that will see the slowdown. The more remote the location, the more it costs to keep online, and the less likely it is to ever become profitable.

Tesla should not be solely responsible for funding EV infrastructure build-out nearly single-handedly. Where are the other manufacturers chargers?

 

[Cybertruck2024]

Tesla's data also shows that more Service Centers sells a rash of cars wherever they add a Service Center. That's probably a more cost-effective way to continue to grow sales while keeping customers satisfied. People don't like to drive over an hour for service, even if service is rarely required. Thise new to EV's don't understand how little servicing ost of them need, so it will sell more cars. And there will already be Superchargers nearby.

Remember, Elon said they would continue to increase the number of chargers at current locations, it's the expansion of the network into increasingly distant places from service and maintenance personnel that will see the slowdown. The more remote the location, the more it costs to keep online, and the less likely it is to ever become profitable.

Tesla should not be solely responsible for funding EV infrastructure build-out nearly single-handedly. Where are the other manufacturers chargers?

I actually thought about this and then forgot to add it to my list. I had the conversation with my gf the other day that driving 6 hours to get our CT is enough of a disincentive for many people not to buy a Tesla. There's a lot of bad that can be said about traditional car dealers, but one of the good things is most people are within 30 minutes of being able to test drive a car, get in person help with financing / trade in, get repairs, and pickup an ordered vehicle. If there was a traditional Tesla dealer in my neighborhood, I guarantee there'd be twice as many driving around.

 

[fhteagle]

The point is simply when is the break even point reached, when is there enough Tesla branded chargers?

Maybe about now?

I cannot speak to other countries, but the answer for the US is "no".

Interstate highways are mostly covered, but with some ugly gaps and especially "V3 gaps" remaining. However, the interstate system does not cover everywhere, especially out here in the Mountain West. US highways have many many many nasty holes still.

There's a guy over on TMC who keeps a list of the gaps. I can't find the post with the exact number he came up with of "can't make it between two chargers on one battery" on US highways, but it was at least high triple digits number of gaps.
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/8199893/

Bottom line is no, the Supercharger network is not "done", other than the fact that Musk killed Tesla's ability to expand it.

 

[JBee]

I cannot speak to other countries, but the answer for the US is "no".

Interstate highways are mostly covered, but with some ugly gaps and especially "V3 gaps" remaining. However, the interstate system does not cover everywhere, especially out here in the Mountain West. US highways have many many many nasty holes still.

There's a guy over on TMC who keeps a list of the gaps. I can't find the post with the exact number he came up with of "can't make it between two chargers on one battery" on US highways, but it was at least high triple digits number of gaps.

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/8
199893/

Bottom line is no, the Supercharger network is not "done", other than the fact that Musk killed Tesla's ability to expand it.

Why post a link to a story from nearly twenty years ago in 2006?

The question is not to fill holes, it's where do most customers live and use the vehicle. I live in Australia and my nearest SC is 300miles away, going from WA to over east, along our countries main interstate, there is a 1600mile gap in SCs.

And there will never be a single SC there.
Because there is no network there to support even just one v3.

EM said they are going to replace existing with v4 etc.

This is because network connections are the bulk of the cost, not the charge stations themselves, and Tesla has not control of the cost of network connections. Further the more remote the location, the more likely the cost is higher, or the capacity is lower, because the network gets thinner there as well.

Should Tesla start building out the grid network as well so a couple of users can travel more conveniently?

This completely ignores profitability and the current market conditions, the limit is not the silly Tesla stalls, it's the network.

You'll find whereever there's people there's network, and where there's network there's also chargers.

 

[Crissa]

It seems like you've been consistently critical of Musk's decisions.

It seems like you're wrong.

Take the case of Twitter (7500 headcount) to hardly 1500 now and of those only 500 core engineers maintaining X ! I'm sure everyone noticed the knee-jerk reaction by haters and media when Musk fired 80% workforce.

I also noticed that Twitter's performance went way down and outages went way up. Twitter's market share has gone down precipitously, as has misinformation and abuse on the platform. The number of bots is higher now than it was when he took control, the total number of useful bots is much, much lower.

Look, I've always said he was a very smart, and very lucky guy. Last week I was thinking we should re-vote for his payment package.

This week I think he should be fired.

There's no 'agenda' there. I think this is torpedoing the company.

Tesla weathered Covid by planning for growth and taking the best suggestions and implementing them. All the other automakers planned for shrinking, and in consequence, shrank. He's planning to slow growth, and in essence, making the same mistake they made. You plan for less growth, you get shrinking.

I wonder what this means for the V4 supercharger rollout. Was really hoping there will be many V4s coming soon but this news doesn't make that a great possibility.

It means it's dead. There's no one doing it.

-Crissa

 

[fhteagle]

Why post a link to a story from nearly twenty years ago in 2006?

Forum mangled the link. I edited the post and fixed it.

Agreed that the way cost structures for grid connections (especially "demand charges") very much messes up the deal for CPOs. But Tesla has had the tech necessary to battery backup, and demand manage Superchargers for how long? With even a single Megapack on site, each Supercharger could be helping to stabilize the grid and getting paid for ancillary grid services to boot (plus or minus crappy outdated regulations of course).

So I don't agree with your assertion that there has to be raging urbanity in a place to make it worth putting in a Supercharger. It's an opportunity to capitalize on their tech that Tesla has mostly squandered, and with the burning down of their planning team now probably never will capitalize on.