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from the where-there's-firing-there's-smoke? dept.
Tesla has fired several hundred of its employees following performance evaluations. Tesla recently conducted the biggest expansion of its workforce in the company's history, and is struggling to increase production of its Model 3 sedan:
Tesla Inc. has fired an undetermined number of employees following a series of performance evaluations after the company significantly boosted its workforce with the purchase of solar panel maker SolarCity Corp.
The departures are part of an annual review, the Palo Alto, California-based company said in an email, without providing a number of people affected. The maker of the Model S this week dismissed between 400 and 700 employees, including engineers, managers and factory workers, the San Jose Mercury News reported on Oct. 13, citing unidentified current and former workers.
"As with any company, especially one of over 33,000 employees, performance reviews also occasionally result in employee departures," the company said in the statement. "Tesla is continuing to grow and hire new employees around the world."
The company has more than 2,000 job openings on its careers website.
The dismissals come after Tesla said it built just 260 Model 3 sedans during the third quarter, less than a fifth of its 1,500-unit forecast. The company has offered scant detail about the problems it's having producing the car. The vehicle's entry price starts at $35,000, roughly half the cost of Tesla's least-expensive Model S sedan.
Also at NYT, Reuters, and The Mercury News.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 15 2017, @03:02AM (16 children)
Yeah, if our plant only achieved 20% of production, a whole lot of us would be out of work too.
(Score: 5, Informative) by n1 on Sunday October 15 2017, @03:13AM (7 children)
It really can't be blamed on the employees for skipping beta testing, management departing for greener pastures and starting production before the factory was ready, to get the product out the door as promised. Tesla has never made a deadline and i'm pretty sure it's not the line worker or sales fault.
They have a visionary CEO that just picks numbers out the air, because you have to aim high, and it's all supposed to be done by robots anyway, built by other robots. According to reports much of the firings were in sales, which is kind of weird since they're apparently at full capacity on Model S and X production lines... Hard to sell a product that's already sold out... and they're supposedly 'anti-selling' the model3 and have 'no marketing'.
One year ago: "Tesla Model 3 Production Target Is Up To 200,000 In Second Half Of 2017" .... which somehow turned into 1500 in Q3, which actually became 260... and as Model3OwnersClub said.. "the software is not finished yet" when people saw the video of the touch screen UI...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @03:32AM (4 children)
> since they're apparently at full capacity on Model S and X production lines...
Not according to this post from July 2017 -- https://seekingalpha.com/article/4086711-teslas-new-vehicle-inventory-skyrockets [seekingalpha.com]
Goes on with more numbers and details -- claims over 8000 vehicles unsold at the end of 2nd quarter 2017.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by n1 on Sunday October 15 2017, @03:44AM
There are all sorts of skeletons in the Tesla closet, the most successful element of the business is in financial engineering. I used 'apparently' on full capacity because that's what the company claims as why they have a 100,000 target on S & X combined.
Tesla is a 'tech company' by reports and is valued as such... But is has the operational expenditure of a tech, manufacturing, retail and construction company.
They have 'amazing' gross margins on their cars, but do not include R&D of those cars, the sales and admin in selling them, despite owning their own 'service centers and galleries' as being how they're 'disrupting' the market, but do not include any of it in how they calculate their margins. Their charging network is apparently classified as marketing, so the cost of providing free charging facilities to the owners of the previous models doesn't count either.
(Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Sunday October 15 2017, @03:44AM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @04:13AM (1 child)
Not quite the same as traditional auto industry stuffing, since Tesla owns all the Tesla Sales Centers.
Channel stuffing includes forcing independent dealers to stock (and/or buy) extra cars, and this in turn probably involves the dealer's line of credit with their friendly bankers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday October 15 2017, @05:42AM
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @04:02AM
I saw that movie. "Producers Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom make money by producing a sure-fire flop. [imdb.com]"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday October 15 2017, @01:10PM
Software is never finished (thus the Soft in the name.) What the Model 3 owners have is unacceptable software, not ready for release.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by n1 on Sunday October 15 2017, @03:25AM (7 children)
To demonstrate the point about the line not being ready, as reported by one of the biggest fans of Tesla... https://electrek.co/2017/10/06/tesla-model-3-headlights-battery-seats/ [electrek.co]
They did manage to ship a record number of Model X in Q3 to make up for the lack of Model 3, but they've been recalled because of the new 'folding' rear seat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @03:40AM
Well, from the linked Jobs page, they are currently hiring "Agile Scrum Master [taleo.net]", so that explains that. Break Early, Break Often
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Sunday October 15 2017, @03:48AM (4 children)
Makes me wonder how smart Tesla and Musk really are. I mean, condensation problem in the headlights, really? That's a very old problem. I had a 1988 Ford Escort susceptible to that. (That car was nothing but trouble, thanks to American manufacturers' shabby attitude towards little cars. Built them way too cheap. In those days, had to get Japanese to get a decent quality little car.) Fixed it myself by adding more air and drain holes.
Doesn't Tesla have any old car guys who have the long memories of automobile defects back to the 1960s, so they can avoid the mistakes made 30 years ago?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by n1 on Sunday October 15 2017, @03:54AM (1 child)
They manufacture cars, and as i'm often reminded 'the fastest production car in the world' (0-60, once or twice for 1/4 of a mile)
But with these complex 'computers on wheels' they decided to skip the beta phase this time and just go to 'early production'
Because after all, it's just a computer on wheels and the software can be updated later because no one else does 'over the air updates' on cars... it's all super secure too, because the cars can only connect to Tesla servers... Apparently later versions of the Model 3 wont require a key or other entry system either, because you can just use your phone.
http://gas2.org/2017/03/18/tesla-model-3-will-skip-beta-phase-go-directly-early-release-cars/ [gas2.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @08:08AM
WCPGW
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @04:25AM
> Doesn't Tesla have any old car guys...
Not too many old car guys/gals are willing to put up with the working conditions (frenetic pace) at Tesla. I know a few that tried it and quit pretty quickly. Some of the best engineers were moved to CA by Tesla, and then jumped ship to one of the other new electric car companies in the SF area.
Before Model S came out Tesla set up a Detroit Engineering Office, here's a 2007 story on the closing of that office, https://jalopnik.com/5065982/a-peek-inside-the-soon-to-be-dead-tesla-motors-detroit-office [jalopnik.com]
Then in 2008, they decided to keep a skeleton crew in the Detroit area (but not engineering),
http://www.theoaklandpress.com/article/OP/20090115/NEWS/301159971 [theoaklandpress.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by crafoo on Sunday October 15 2017, @12:36PM
A lot of thought and engineering go into keeping a automotive light clear of condensation. It's even harder with LED lights. You might think it's an easy problem, Tesla engineers probably did too. Like so many other things it's much more difficult to actually _do_ it than to claim it's easy and you can do it. I imagine there are thousands of such detail engineering problems on Tesla vehicles. It's fine. This is what is required to start building a new car.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday October 15 2017, @01:12PM
So, he's running his car company like a web-app producer on regular release cycles.
🌻🌻 [google.com]