Tesla conducting more layoffs, including entire Supercharger team! Barely two weeks after initiating layoffs for at least 14,000 staffers, Tesla is now reportedly laying off hundreds more — including senior executives and the majority of its Supercharging team. According to an email first reported by The Information and then Electrek, the automaker’s senior director of EV charging Rebecca Tinucci is leaving the company on Tuesday, alongside most of the 500-person team she oversaw. Tesla’s head of the new vehicles program, Daniel Ho, is also out along with his team. These cuts come in addition to the recent 10 percent workforce reduction — and Musk’s email leaves room for more. Elon Musk goes ‘absolutely hard core’ in another round of Tesla layoffs - The Verge
Makes no sense as (from my understanding) Superchargers/team is profitable. I think he needs to fire his designers and bring in freash designs. Teslas look outdated. Whatever happens Tesla will continue to lose Marketshare they are no longer the dominate force in EVs.. so many other options .. literally multiple of hundreds of different EV models around the world now. The wide Profit margins are long gone
The world of tech seems to be full of stars that shine brightly for a moment and then flame out. Anyone remember the Commodore 64? Took the world by storm. Had one myself and actually had a spreadsheet program for it that I used for my business. They tried to advance with a more useful 128 model and then the Amiga but it was too late with IBM and Apple entering the scene scooping the business with more powerful and reliable products. Where is Commodore today? Remember Osbourne computers? A luggable all in one. What a great idea! Unfortunately with plenty of inventory on hand they did a press release of how much better next year's models were going to be to the point where everyone held off buying the current inventory and they went broke. Their legacy is the term "Osbourne effect" which does still get used today. Remember the Blackberry phone? They were everywhere and as addictive as today's smart phones to the point where they were referred to as "crackberrys". Even Obama had one. Then Apple entered the scene with the iphone and soon eclipsed Blackberry out of existence. And now we have Tesla. It was truly remarkable that Musk with his money and vision took this little niche company and made it into a formidable competitor to the established auto makers. Initially laughing them off the big guys started paying attention when Tesla started eating their lunch on certain models and showed that EVs weren't going away. Tesla may be experiencing a Mark Twain moment ( rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated! ) but rough seas are certainly ahead. Even if Tesla were not survive the automotive world will have been set on a new course as a result of what Tesla accomplished. As for Musk I've often heard that there is a fine line between genius and madness. It does seem that Elon is heading towards the latter.
NIO now has over 2,500 Batttery swapping stations in CHINA and rollout has begun in Europe (30 new ones) . NIO has done over 40 MILLION battery swaps now , it's a proven technolgy and very profitable in busy areas.. the very spots that make battery charging expensive because of the demand charges. Ummmmm Is Musk up to something big where Superchargers play second fiddle to battery swappingare we going to see Tesla announcing battery swapping capabilities in all new Tesla soon ? It's the only way to get away from demand charges and who is going to buy a Chevy Blazer EV thats going to tyake 30-40 minutes to 80% when they could have aTesla Model Y that just needs 5 minutes to refuel to 90%/100%
Geely-owned Lotus is listening to Nio. That will certainly precipitate an NACS-like, industry-wide stampede to adopt Nio's swappable batteries. Lotus and Nio Team Up On Battery Swap Tech
yep they are the latest NIO already had 3-4 other ev manufactures sign up. essentially they just need to redesign thier battery "shells" and bottom cover to allow for the swaps. I suppose they need top change HV connectors and any cooling lines to be a quick disconnect..reconnect .. so a little engeneering nothing very difficult. And it isnt just NIO I know of at least 2 other Chinese battery swapping companies. Battery swapping makes so much sense. Just pull in swap in less than 5 minutes and you're back on the road. Ho perfect is battery swapping for peopel living in the Cities and battery swapping that dont/cant have home battery charging. Once every week every other week just pull in for 5 minutes and you are "fulll" for another week or 2. I drive Uber but only need dcfc maybe twice a month but MOST Uber drivers rely on DCF ..thats a another big part of the problem with DCFC , always rideshare drivers cl;ogging up the chargers.. So lets do this .. This is a taxi Swapping station , a company other than NIO. Look at this station clearly handling te abuse of a lot of swaps ..Taxis/Uberpull in and 5 minutes and back on the road making money and NOT clogging up DCFC This is how it should be .. Imagine where we would be if Musk had stuck withh his original plan of swapping batteries getting first priorty over charging 12 years ago or so. Each Swap station set up in less than a couple days, they hold 20-30 batteries each , always charging at low speeds so never any very very expensive demand chargins or extra demand on the grid. Very busy locations can have 2-4 of this. most places probaby need just one swap station with 20-25 batteries. Think about how long it took Tesla t add 2,500 chargers ..12 years + ? NIO has similar 2500 Swap stations set up in 5 years ..
NIO stations so nice.. She says "theoretically should be able to do 312 swaps per day "! Like I said highly unlikely this has anything to do with elon mass firing of Supercharger team BUT it could give him and Tesla a huge boost if he would announce that battery swapping coming..still falls in with him saying Supercharger installs will still happen just at a slower rate
I wish them well . . . long with the hydrogen fuel cell crowd. It is unlikely I'll be an early adopter to either one. Battery swapping is a response to poor battery chemistry and management. As our species learns more about how to make better batteries and manage them, swapping fixed size and dimension battery packs at some small or large company site will have cost and time advances. The chargers are more expensive and the time needs to include waiting in line for the battery charging machine. In engineering, we call it a solution that doesn't scale well. As for hydrogen fuel cells, hydrogen manufacturing remains an economic problem, ~3x the cost of direct charging. Speculations about how to bring the cost down are not physical facilities manufacturing hydrogen. So my thinking is the sooner they exhaust their budgets in competition to owner charging their batteries, the better. In fact, "GO SWAPPING!" and "GO FUEL CELLS!" But don't ask me for money or a purchase. Bob Wilson
