Tesla suddenly laid off the entire Supercharger team, leaving the entire American electric vehicle industry stunned

This week, after personally coming to China to promote the entry of FSD into China and turning the tide, Musk once again demonstrated his whirlwind execution power. Just half a day after the plane from Beijing landed in the United States (late Monday night local time), Musk suddenly disbanded the entire Tesla Supercharger team, involving hundreds of employees worldwide, including Rebecca Tinucci, the global senior director of Supercharger who had worked at Tesla for six years.

This decision not only plunged the entire industry into confusion and turmoil, as they believed that charging stations were one of Tesla's main advantages, but also brought unprecedented uncertainty to companies and contractors who have been cooperating with Tesla in charging facility construction.

No one in the entire Supercharger team was spared

It was reported that early Tuesday morning, some Tesla Supercharger department employees woke up to find themselves locked out of the company system, only able to learn of their dismissal through personal emails.

According to insiders, the wide range of layoffs this time was astonishing. From executives to sales staff, to on-site managers responsible for supervising construction sites, no one was spared. This undoubtedly left many companies that have cooperation relationships with Tesla in charging station construction puzzled and worried, as they have no idea about Tesla's future plans in the Supercharger field.

For many years, Tesla has been a leader in the construction of electric vehicle charging networks in the United States, having built the most extensive and strongest charging network covering the entire United States in just a few years. The Tesla Supercharger station is the only national charging network in the United States, seen as a key driver for public acceptance of electric vehicles. If Tesla now begins to significantly reduce its investment in this area, the entire development of the U.S. electric vehicle market will suffer a major setback.

According to data from EVAdoption company, as of March this year, the number of Tesla Supercharger stations has increased by about 19% to reach 1526, more than four times that of the second place.

For the employees affected by this sudden large-scale layoff, they seemed caught off guard. Some laid-off employees revealed that although the company's current operating environment is indeed severe, the charging network business has always been seen as one of the company's key development directions.

According to media reports, in mid-April, Mike Snyder, the head of Tesla's Megapack business, revealed in an internal email that Musk believed the Supercharger network was crucial to Tesla's future.

Suppliers are at a loss, contacts are laid off just before signing contracts

Although Musk later posted on social media that the company still plans to continue expanding the Supercharger network, but the speed of building new sites will slow down, with more focus on improving the reliability of existing sites. However, this explanation did not dispel doubts among industry insiders.

Some real estate companies and developers who are negotiating with Tesla on new charging station construction sites have expressed doubts about whether the company really intends to continue investing heavily in the charging network. They are concerned that if Tesla does significantly slow down the pace of charging network construction, the entire industry's development process will be hindered as a result For the entire electric vehicle industry, Tesla's decision to slow down in charging network construction is undoubtedly a heavy blow, which also exacerbates the industry's uncertainty. Last year, due to a brief surge in electric vehicle sales, many car manufacturers were temporarily unable to meet demand. However, months later, as sales slowed down, traditional automakers including General Motors and Ford have cut back on electric vehicle production capacity plans and instead increased their focus on hybrid models.

While there is oversupply on the supply side, another important reason constraining the growth of electric vehicle sales is the lag in the current infrastructure development, making consumers feel uneasy about whether they can charge their electric vehicles conveniently anytime and anywhere. A widely covered, fast-charging, stable and reliable network is crucial to attracting consumers to adopt electric vehicles. Previously, Tesla's Supercharger stations were highly anticipated, but now, this leading company not only significantly slowed down the expansion of the charging network, but even the team responsible for operations has suffered a serious setback.

In the context of the slowing development and overall downturn of the electric vehicle industry, Tesla's sudden tightening of investment in charging infrastructure undoubtedly feels like a bucket of cold water poured over the industry. Some organizations specializing in promoting electric vehicle charging express disappointment, fearing that Tesla's contraction in the Supercharger business will cause market turmoil in the short term and hinder the overall improvement process of the U.S. electric vehicle charging network.

At the same time, some companies engaged in charging infrastructure construction believe that Tesla's slowdown may create opportunities for other companies to enter this field, which in the long run may be beneficial in forming a healthier and more dynamic industry competitive landscape.

However, for some companies that originally had cooperation with Tesla in building charging stations, Tesla's aggressive downsizing undoubtedly has caused them great uncertainty and a crisis of trust.

A developer told the media that they had been negotiating with Tesla for seven to eight months regarding leasing a Supercharger station in Queens, New York. They were close to signing the contract, but suddenly received a message at 4 a.m. on Tuesday that the team involved in the project had been disbanded, and Tesla did not contact them on how to proceed with the subsequent work.

A supplier building Supercharger stations for Tesla in Texas was suddenly informed that over twenty employees who had been working with them had resigned. The email addresses they had been communicating with became "invalid," and Tesla did not contact them to discuss future cooperation matters.

Some developers bluntly stated that Tesla's unpredictable and unreliable behavior makes it difficult for them to see it as a trustworthy partner anymore