Electric vehicle giant Tesla has released an email to its suppliers following the recent dismissal of the entire Supercharger team.
Instead of shedding light on the company’s ongoing layoffs, the email shows the tumultuous decision-making in the past few weeks.
Tesla’s email to suppliers
Presented below is the content of Tesla’s email to suppliers:
| To all concerned:You may be aware that there has been a recent adjustment with the Supercharger organization which is presently undergoing a sudden and thorough restructuring. If you have already received this email, please disregard it as we are attempting to connect with our suppliers and contractors. As part of this process, we are in the midst of establishing new leadership roles, prioritizing projects, and streamlining our payment procedures. Due to the transitional nature of this phase, we are asking for your patience with our response time.I understand that this period of change may be challenging and that patience is not easy when expecting to be paid, however, I want to express my sincere appreciation for your understanding and support as we navigate through this transition. At this time, please hold on breaking ground on any newly awarded construction projects and planned pre-construction walks. If currently working on an active Supercharging construction site, please continue. Contact [email redacted] for further questions, comments, and concerns. Additionally, hold on working on any new material orders. Contact [email redacted] for further questions, comments, and concerns. If waiting on delayed payment, please contact [email redacted] for a status update. Thank you for your cooperation and patience. |
Recent events
Tesla recently stunned the industry with the dismissal of the entire Supercharger team, including Senior Director Rebecca Tinucci. It was only a small portion of the electric automaker’s wider effort to cut 10% of its total workforce.
Nonetheless, it prompted Tesla to scale back its already planned Supercharging station deployments across the world.
On Tuesday, Tesla Chief Elon Musk assured that the company still “plans to grow the Supercharger network, just at a slower pace for new locations and more focus on 100% uptime and expansion of existing locations.”
However, Supercharger projects have already been suspended. It affected Tesla’s planned Supercharger installations in Australia, even those sites with long-term leases and construction permits already.
Suppliers’ reaction
Tesla’s sudden decision to lay off the Supercharger team has spurred a substantial perturbation on its suppliers, with one of them even calling the move a “sharp kick in the pants.”
“Tesla has already been awarded money under the federal government’s NEVI program. There’s no way Mr. Musk would walk away from effectively free money. It may be possible Mr. Musk will reconstitute the EV charger team in a bigger, badder, more Muskian way.”
Andres Pinter, Bullet EV Charging Solutions co-CEO (via Reuters)
For reference, Bullet EV Charging Solutions is an Austin-based EV chargepoint installer working on Tesla’s network.
The sudden job cuts also left Tesla’s NACS partner in the dark. Rivian executives recently released its NACS adapter to enable its owners to access the Supercharger network before integrating the NACS port into its next-gen EVs by 2025. However, the recent events left the company perplexed and concerned about the future of the Supercharger network.
Tesla’s NACS has advanced to become the leading charging network in the US over the past few years. The Musk-led company has already deployed 15,000 Supercharger stalls across the country as of 2024.
