Tesla to lay off everyone working on Superchargers, new vehicles
There’s more chaos at Tesla this week. The Information reports that last night, the company’s erratic CEO Elon Musk emailed workers with the news that he has dismissed a key pair of executives—one responsible for the Supercharger network, and the other head of new vehicle development.
The electric car maker posted its quarterly results last week and they paint a poor picture, with shrinking sales and plummeting profit margins. While Tesla once had a strong first-mover advantage and benefited from Musk’s marketing savvy, the company has frequently ignored the many hard-learned lessons of the auto industry.
Customers not turned off by Musk’s antics instead are losing interest with a product line up of two EVs that are ancient in car years (the Models S and X) and two EVs that are merely old (the Models 3 and Y). The Models 3 and Y are also the only two vehicles that Tesla sells in volume. Any other automaker would have a second-generation Model 3 ready to go either this year or next, but at Tesla the product pipeline is empty.