He's thinking others will build chargers for me now that the industry has adopted the Tesla plug, he's thinking there is a critical mass of chargers (there really isn't yet), and he's thinking no more free or subsidized charging for Tesla owners.

To sum it up he's thinking save money because the Tesla car sales have tanked lately and soon the stock will follow.

Nearly as crazy they (and I think "they" refers to just one person) apparently fired the head of new vehicle development. After just announcing they'd reveal a Model 2 in about a year.

Also apparently axed the team working on the next-generation "gigapress." So the speculation is Tesla will just continue with the 3-part body - front and rear pressed, both attached to a battery tray in the middle.

Had previously reportedly axing the 4680 battery team.

That doesn't leave a whole lot. I guess the AI/"FSD" team.

I agree that the charger team getting axed is the weirdest. That was the one thing that Tesla has unambiguously been the best at.

Doubt it. Non-Teslas pay a premium. It's a Tesla profit center. If others build chargers, they won't give Tesla a cut. The Tesla plug design does not command a licensing fee. Tesla made the design "open source." Also Tesla recently took Fed grants to build more chargers. No way Musk gives up gubmint cheese.

Also Superchargers give the best customer experience. Others can suck. That's a huge part of what Tesla advantage remains.


I'm guessing he's thinking he's being "disruptive." Time to break things and move faster. Get new blood in. The old teams had gotten complacent.

I imagine the Tesla name still carries some weight among engineers, but does he really think he’s going to get the best of the best with the track record of the last year or two? I’m not sure out with old and in with the new is the best course of action at this moment in time.

I wonder if the Cybertruck is a huge drain.

Total outsider and it does seem like a bizarre move, but the V4 supercharger rollout does seem to be going very slowly. The V4 externals (longer cables so non-Teslas don't block two spots) are still extremely rare and the V4 internals (higher voltage for the CyberTruck, Hyundai/Kia, Porsche, Lucid) don't seem to be anywhere. There aren't many CTs but minus a fender modification, the CCS -> NACS adapter and an EA/EVGo 350kw station, they can't charge at their max rate at any of the V3 Tesla stations (or apparently Nxu has some NACS native 800v stations)

Reports now are saying Tesla has slashed their internship program in the name of cutting costs. Show me a company that thinks of their internship program as a “cost” and I’ll show you one that isn’t planning ahead very well. Sure looks like Musk just enjoys burning companies to the ground at the moment. Can we please stop giving them public funds, stat?

I don't know what situation Tesla is in when it comes to interns, but they are a cost to the company. A smart cost, but still a cost. In NY there are programs that will offset the salary of the interns, but there is a lot of paperwork that goes with that offset. Depending on your size it can exceed the offset. There is the loss of production from the people that mentor the interns, the resources the interns consume or require to do what they are assigned, and many other things.

It is not a "no brainer" for most companies, including mine. In fact, we paused the program for this cycle. We plan to pick it up this summer.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

I was flippant with my statement about the cost, but like you laid out, we look at it as an investment. We move people here to the US from the country of our parent company so it is much more “costly” for us than most. Who knows what’s really going on in Musk’s head, but this isn’t an isolated case. Lots of suspect decisions being made, but I probably would have said the same thing about them prior to them becoming who they are.

And lets not forget any chargers built with Federal Money, still need the CCS port, so for Tesla that means Magidoc.

I always thought the ChargeStations were going to be a profit center for them

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Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.

Well of the say 100ish automotive engineers I know. The weight Tesla brings is not positive, and probably in the 95% run away, no way I would ever go work there.

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Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.

I also so the story that ELon said he still views Tesla as a technology company.. does this somehow play into this?

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Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.

Maybe? But he's sending out mixed signals about that on an almost daily basis.

A look inside tesla and this latest epic debacle: definitely not good.

'Quality Is Going To Deteriorate': Laid-Off Tesla Employees On Superchargers' Future
https://insideevs.com/...-employee-interview/

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Advanced Aero TopTube Storage for Road, Gravel, & Tri...ZeroSlip & Direct-mount, made in the USA.
DarkSpeedWorks.com.....Reviews.....Insta.....Facebook
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I Read an article that gives 2 (stretchy) reasons for moving away.

1 EV charging is a commodities business - gas stations sell gas, chargers sell Elec. but when you look at the reality, few pay "gas station" prices for electricity when they get it much cheaper (although slower) at home, or maybe free some places. How would Gas stations do, if you could fill up at home overnight for half or 1/3 the price? Charge stations maybe sold service, but now that they opened it to everyone basically, its not a tactical advantage for tesla so drop it. Having gotten everyone on NAC ports, he ensured future non-tesla chargers will include NAC plugs. (This requires belief in a high level business savy move that took many months to play out, by elon, if truely was his plan, he played the other OEMS like a fiddle).

2) the move to Robotaxi is what Elon is going all in on. (From my former days, I can say the profit numbers they throw around if you can get a fleet of robotaxis and users, is enough to entice anyone). Personally I see this as the more likely story given other moves.

There was another article, that detailed all of tesla's move of late, from the major reduction of VP's (recall they were the justification that the company was not all on Elon), the end of the gigapress experiment (two expensive, to much upfront cost, to much tweaking at start of production), The apperent end / radid slow down in superchargers, the end of an affordable EV, just price cuts on current designs.

To me taken as a whole, it has the feel of (gee didn't we all know this) the car side just isn't making the money, the carbon credit sales have dropped, competition has caught up, and well the auto industry is hard, trying to take his fan boy product/sales/service to the masses, is a big sell. I think this is the early move of the robo-taxi, autonomous robots, move for Tesla, and the auto sales are going to be the revenue generator till this other stuff takes off, and (in Elons mind) it will soon, so lets not invest more on the auto's lets ride it out, till the big cash cows come home.

I think spaceX success (I assume financially also but never hear talk of that) has him seeing that profits take a lot of continuous work in the Auto industry, and thats not his thing. He likes shiny new, wow.. so lets go for robo-taxis and Autonomous robots.

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Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.

Long distance travel electric stations will be the money maker. Not make profit of electric, but off luxury service for waiting for your car to charge. Build a gym, done in fast casual restaurant, video game arcades .

Tesla is not going to get into the travel stop business beyond installing chargers....and it sounds like they're slowing down on even that. Also the time to get 300 miles of charge is down to about 25 minutes, and there's a pathway to 10 minutes - not enough time even for fast food - barely enough to grab a Starbucks coffee. At that speed you just want to stay with your car so people don't start screaming at you for parking in a charging spot.

An excellent balanced analysis from ARS technica about tesla's insanity spiral:
https://arstechnica.com/...ks-cuts-and-layoffs/


One very notable take away:

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Advanced Aero TopTube Storage for Road, Gravel, & Tri...ZeroSlip & Direct-mount, made in the USA.
DarkSpeedWorks.com.....Reviews.....Insta.....Facebook
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Fast charging my car needs 90 minutes. Also constantly fast charging degrades battery life. I wonder how many these trucker stop super stations are converting to electric.. want to venture out soon beyond my cars round trip range

Well, it does look a lot like my stainless steel sink drain.

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Trieatalot

It's a C minus world.

Your car is an older generation that is no longer for sale. No one's going to build luxury fast charger services to accomodate the first-gen Bolt, or any of that generation of EVs.



Most people don't constantly fast charge. Just on long road trips. Most people level-2 charge at home/work for the vast majority of their charging.

maybe davehamm can chime in here, but it seems USA is reluctant in cheap EV compared to the world. The bolt was to be a game changer (as the tesla model y2 which seems to have disappeared). Can these cheap, compact EVs handle faster than 90 min charging? Will the 2025 bolt be faster?