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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: 5, Informative) by n1 on Sunday October 15 2017, @03:04AM (6 children)
Related...
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2017/09/13/tesla-diarmuid-o-connell-executive-departures-tsla.html [bizjournals.com]
A Wall Street Journal report claims at least 10 top engineers and four higher-level managers have left the autonomous technology division in recent months.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4102017-tesla-executive-turmoil [seekingalpha.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @03:17AM (3 children)
I was on a car ferry a while back, and wondered what would happen if it was packed full and a Tesla car on board started on fire. As more Telas get built, and corners get potentially cut during "production hell", the chances of a real catastrophe rise. Hopefully, if there is fire danger, it reveals itself in less dangerous settings first.
(Score: 2) by n1 on Sunday October 15 2017, @03:33AM
As noted in a comment above, they're maybe only now just entering production, if you want to be kind... The current 'production cars' that have been delivered to employees and insiders are subject to component changes, including replacing batteries, seats and other 'smaller components' so far...
The cars currently 'in the wild' but presumably the owners are under NDA as employees are beta at worst, release candidate at best.
I also wonder if any of the people fired are also a customer-tester for the model3, I doubt it. The even more cynical side of me wonders if a lack of interest in a Model3 of their own contributed to their negative performance result... Not being a team player, sharing the vision of the company.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday October 15 2017, @03:47AM
Probably about the same as if any other car on the ferry caught on fire. It's not a great thing to have happen, but they can drive to a port and put the fire out. Damages to the ferry and neighboring cars could be quite expensive.
(Score: 3, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Sunday October 15 2017, @08:19PM
Yeah, I was in the supermarket the other day and I couldn't help but worry about what would happen if the lady in the queue in front of my suddenly spontaneously combusted.
These things really prey on my mind.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday October 15 2017, @01:15PM
When I left a VP post it was due to differences in strategic vision with the CEO. In my case, I didn't understand the CEO's fantasy world where everything was going to work out in the end. Spoiler alert: it didn't take too long after that for the whole thing to fall apart.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @01:47PM
So you saying that they are hiring? sweet
also all those employees are just the first mars wave that will build the substandard domes, you might say that this is evil and bad but just think about it for a second, in a few years there will be three breasted whores and we can all get some ass on mars!