spoiler
Tesla has fired its entire Supercharger division, staff who worked in the team say.
There are over 50,000 Superchargers globally, the company says, making it the world’s largest fast-charging network for electric vehicles.
Boss Elon Musk said the firm would cut one in ten jobs, as it faces strong competition from less expensive rivals.
It needed to be “absolutely hard core” about cost reduction, he wrote in a memo first reported by The Information.
The BBC has approached Tesla for comment,
Multiple employees have confirmed their departures from the division, which had hundreds of employees.
William Jameson, strategic charging programs lead at Tesla, posted on X that Mr Musk had “let our entire charging org go”.
“What a wild ride it has been”, he wrote.
Also writing on X, Mr Musk said the company still planned to grow the Supercharger network, “just at a slower pace for new locations”.
Andres Pinter, chief executive of Bullet EV Charging Solutions, a supplier to the charging network said that his team “woke up to a sharp kick in the pants this morning,” Reuters reported.
He speculated that Mr Musk could “reconstitute the EV charger team in bigger, badder, more Muskian way” in order to continue to benefit from US government funding to develop the network. ‘Extremely perplexed’
Tesla’s network of chargers is widely seen as industry leading, and recently it cut deals with several rival car-makers in north America to adopt its “NACS” charging standard so that their vehicles could use the network.
Fred Lambert, editor-in-chief of electric vehicle news website Electrek, posted on social media he was “extremely perplexed” by the move.
“If one thing was a clear success at Tesla, it’s the Supercharger network. Even from a talent perspective. No other charging team in the world has been able to do what Tesla did,” he wrote.
The quality and reach of the Supercharger network has long been a huge advantage for Tesla, James Attwood, acting magazine editor of Autocar, told the BBC.
It was “a key selling point for potential buyers” he added.
“But with regulators in both Europe and the US pushing the firm to open the Supercharger network to owners of other electric vehicles, it will offer less of an advantage in the future.”
Last year, seven large car manufacturers including Mercedes, Honda, BMW and Hyundai-Kia set-up a joint venture to build a rival fast-charging network.
As well as the cuts to the Supercharger department, the firm’s entire public policy unit will also be cut the Financial Times reported.
The layoffs come days after the firm reported its first quarterly revenue decline since 2021.
It follows declining sales at the company, which is also having to deal with an investigation into the safety of its Autopilot assisted driving system, and a recall relating to its newest model, Cybertruck.
cool, maybe this is a good thread to ask a dumb guy question: why can’t EVs just plug into a something that already exists as a standard. if our little 120V outlets aren’t up to the task, why not those 220 joints we use for dryers and ovens.
i ask because, as a dumb guy who has shocked himself several times, it seems like some kind of existing standard that municipalities and communities can already stand up charging stations on their own with stuff from any hardware store would be The Move™ for rapidly creating a massive support network for EV charging, because any little city council or organization could contract with an electrician to order the shit from almost anywhere. like i understand there would need to be some weather proofing/hardening but the point being to not get wrapped up in proprietary technologies or specialized supply chains/licensing.
Power delivery and communication mostly
EV chargers deliver massive amounts of power, far more than what’s delivered by a 120 or 220 socket. You can charge EVs with those but it’s usually used to charge overnight because it takes hours instead of the minutes needed for a proper fast charger
You also need to have the car handshake with the charger to know how much power to draw and when to stop, because not every EV on the same charging standard accepts the same power draw, so in addition to the h u g e power phase and ground pins in the connectors you’ve also got a pin dedicated to talking to the charger to allow it to function properly
Technology Connections on YouTube has tons of videos on the subject, if you want a deeper and more specific dive
i forgot how wild rapid charging is. thanks, that explains a lot and i will look through those videos. i think EVs/ transportationelectrification is inevitable, but i’m always on the lookout for how i might integrate myself into it without getting caught up in a grift.
like 10 years ago i read a near-futurist/post-carbon article on transportation and they made a convincing case that at best, battery technology is transitional because it still has many of the inefficiency problems associated with hauling around a heavy liquid fuel. to the writers, the solve for personal conveyance are grid connected vehicles that have limited batteries for short duration/distance off-grid travel. the benefit being the huge reduction in non functional / cargo weight. that’s just a small piece of the somewhat short read (14 pages) about the larger looming shifts which are imminent in transportation, mobility, logistics, etc.
Retvrn to trolleybus tradition
We’ve got trolleys in my home town, along with regular buses. Most lines are like 15-20 min apart and the modern vehicles are quite comfy, if a little crowded at peak hour. Wish we would subsidize and make them completely free at point of service. I’m certain that the net road amortization decrease from fewer car rides alone will make up for it.
You can, but the current draw is massive and woud fry most household wiring if you’re doing fast charging.
You also need that in DC which means additional hardware needs to be installed. The wire gauges for the ones that charge a car in 30 minutes or less (needed for long distance travel) are huge.
Home setups are usually meant to charge a car overnight not in minutes.
yeah, ok that makes sense. sometimes i forget about how the not-home charging stations aren’t meant for very rapid charge (like filling up a tank at a gas station).
AC works fine at home because you’re going to leave it plugged in overnight. it’s unworkable when you want charging to complete quickly. the advertised 0.25-1hr charge times aren’t possible over AC. the amperage needed would produce an absurd amount of heat without absurd wire dimensions that you’d never actually be able to lift and plug in. fast charging uses DC at or near the battery voltage so the supplied amperage isn’t massive and you don’t run large losses to a rectifier. to put this in perspective, even with DC, wires are usually liquid cooled to keep wire dimensions down and they’re still larger than any wire you’ve ever seen/used for any other purpose.
consider: the F150EV can power your house for 3 full days as a generator. that’s how much energy you’re trying to get into these batteries and it’s supposed to happen really fucking fast.
They can, charging from 120v or 240v AC is called level 1 or 2 charging respectively and is plenty for almost all driving most people do the vast majority of the time. It does tend to require a garage where you can park overnight, though.
All these charge stations trying to charge as fast as possible are really only for long distance road trips.
Because more options = more competition = more gooder for consumers
i critically support a unified world government with the power to destroy that can develop and enforce all standards.
HOW STANDARDS PROLIFERATE*
*Under capitalism