Tesla’s latest round of layoffs have left both the auto industry and company stock holders shook. Falling sales have forced the automaker to cut 10 percent of its total staff. Its left broadsided workers confused as they try to make heads or tails of severance packages that look to be pretty crappy. One part of Tesla that was unexpectedly laid off was the entire Supercharger team, around 500 people. And as Insideevs has learned, the cuts also hit some planned Supercharging locations.
According to an anonymous source and real estate documents seen by Insideeevs, four Supercharging sites in New York City — College Point, Queens, South Bronx, South Brooklyn and two in Maspeth — were canceled. Of these, only Maspeth was said to be close to being ready to handle DC fast charging. Before this, Tesla had been expanding DC fast charging access in the city. There’s also no word on whether or not existing sites in the city will be affected.
The move to eliminate the Supercharging team does see Tesla take a step back on the charging front, alarming nearly everyone. Many, including the Biden administration, were counting on the network to help with the EV transition.
In a tweet, Musk confirmed that the company would be slowing down the expansion of the Supercharger network; it’ll be less new locations and more of a focus on charger uptime and expanding existing Supercharging locations. This move would also see some of the Supercharger team that was let go get rehired according to a source that spoke with Bloomberg.
The move will slow the network’s growth, according to a person familiar with the division, who asked not to be identified discussing private matters. There already are discussions about rehiring some of the people affected in order to operate the existing network and grow it at a much slower rate, the person said.
This is following reports since the beginning of this year that NYC Supercharger sites are often congested and backed up, according to Electrek and Tesla Owner’s forums are filled with cries for more charges in the Big Apple. The main problem is ride-sharing fleets pushing for drivers to use electric cars. This has resulted in a lot of EVs, but not enough chargers. Tesla promised more chargers in early April, so this is a quick about face for the company. There’s also growing concern on what this means for other planned Supercharger sites across the country as Insideevs pointed out. Whatever happens, hopefully Tesla doesn’t plan to pull back more Supercharging sites. Losing even more Supercharging sites could really throw off mass EV adoption in the U.S.