Stacey Randecker’s Post

Is Tesla cutting its own throat by firing the entire Supercharger team? "Astoundingly, the rest of the auto industry that was getting ready to partner with Tesla on charging seems blindsided as well today, leaving them with countless questions about what's next. "We were surprised as anyone, and have no additional information than what’s been reported," one automaker official told me. There's no two ways about it: this move is utterly baffling." In the last 10 years, after some excellent strategic moves, it appeared that Musk and Tesla were playing chess, while all other OEMs were playing checkers. One of those was the widespread roll out of the Supercharger network. It was, and remains, a massive competitive advantage. So much so that every other OEM signed up for Tesla's NACS charging standard in North America. This huge network allowed Tesla to capitalize on future EV rollout, and secure huge amounts of federal funding Yet, now Musk has fired the ENTIRE team!! Why would you kill your own competitive advantage? Perhaps Musk is so focused on robotaxi he doesn't see a need for Superchargers. Apart from cost savings, I see no upside for this, and MAJOR downside. It's a shocking end to one of the best infrastructure rollouts in decades. What do you think the reason for laying off the entire Supercharger team is? Will Tesla invest in truck Megacharging? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below #automotive #batteries #climatechange #electricvehicles #innovation #sustainability #cleanenergy #renewableenergy More here: https://lnkd.in/gi7cEibF

RE: Musk fires Supercharging staff Valid argument. This won't "kill the EV charging sector". It'll energize it. Research In Motion / RIM / Blackberry, was based in Waterloo, Ontario. It was a roaring economic powerhouse, building up from the year 2000 through 2010. When their balloon suddenly popped from the pins of the iPhone and Android smartphones, at first blush, locals worried that the layoffs and loss of a local winner would crush the budding local tech & innovation hub. On the contrary, the liberating of all the talent that RIM had brought to Waterloo revolutionized the region. Instead of having all their eggs in one basket, the region diversified and dozens upon dozens of startups were created. I think you're right. This is an odd and confusing move for Tesla, but it will result in many more flowers blooming in the garden. As the US auto market moves quickly towards adopting the NACS standard, these experienced professionals and engineers will be able to go to Ford, to GM, to all the others, AND to EVgo, Electrify America, and to NEW STARTUPS, which will actually accelerate our move to better EV charging. The charging sector has now grown bigger than one single company can capitalize. The IRA is supporting its rapid growth. We have a standard. This talent pool will deliver bigger results as a distributed force than as a single player. The timing for the other stakeholders couldn't be better.

Reflection on Tesla firing their Supercharger team. My intial reaction was ‘how could they?’ And ‘they are nuts!’. Now I’ve slept on it I think it now makes sense. Why? - The Tesla network was set up to get critical charging infrastructure momentum without which Tesla could not sell their vehicles. That has now been achieved. - Tesla has a huge weight of cost around its neck because it sells KW at a lower than commercial price to the majority of its own drivers. It needs to get that average kW sale upto the same rates charged by the likes of Instavolt and Gridserve et al. - Tesla calling a halt to new sites to focus on ‘improving’ its Network could be a part of a fundamental change to refocus the network on generating a profit by turning all sites to open access faster and reducing Tesla drivers usage discount (using US Gov funding to achieve this stateside?). - once the entire Tesla Network is run on an entirely commercial basis rather than a marketing arm of Tesla then it can start to grow again employing a new development team. Conclusion - Tesla is getting rid of a cost and turning it into a highly valuable EV CPO that generates a LOT of cash. Elon being a bit of a genius again. I feel sorry for the Tesla Supercharger team but they will go on to join many other EV CPOs to build their networks. #tesla #teslasupercharger #evcharging #elonmusk #ultrarapidcharging

Tesla Shares Rise 12% as Elon Musk Declares Affordable EVs. Investors flocked back to Tesla following CEO Elon Musk’s announcement of plans to expedite the release of more affordable electric vehicles in a bid to bolster dwindling profits. Read More: https://rb.gy/a19thz #electricvehicles #ElonMuskDeclares #Tesla #News #DailyNews #UpdatedNews

Elon Musk sure knows how to garner free publicity and as the saying goes there is never bad news just a good marketing opportunity. With Tesla announcing yesterday the majority of its most successful USP (in my view anyway) supercharger team have been made redundant. The supercharger network was the main reason I purchased a #Tesla as it offered high quality and rapid charging across most of the U.K in a cost effective way compared to other charging networks. The supercharging network here in the U.K. is still incomplete in certain areas and will still need to expand eg; Cornwall so this action seems to really to be a really bad move which every Tesla fan has pretty much agreed upon. Tesla has opened its network up to other car manufacturers many of which are not capable of charging at 1000mph rates so will inevitably take up large chunks of charging time compared to a Tesla so revenue generation will slow down significantly. Yes they could have a Tesla charge rate cost and a higher non Tesla cost per kWh but it does imply they will need to build out more chargers to cater for this. I can only imagine there is scientific evidence behind his method eg; the utilisation rate of the Tesla network has fallen to such a low level due to successful expansion that they are waiting for the volume to catch up and that period is predicted to be more than 18 months! My view is Tesla have seen a massive slow down in volumes sales predicted over the next 3 years and have to start to conserve cash hugely and capex is now a key lynchpin to focus on and it’s not really the staff that run this department but more the cost of adding extra capacity that is needed to slow drastically. This in turn logically means why do I need a team of expensive professionals that are geared to high growth sitting around being bored as we are not going to spend investment on the network all of which makes massive sense. The key now for Tesla to survive as an independent is to hope its big bets on #robotics, #FSD and #robotaxis pay off! Don’t feel bad for Elon musk though as even if his Tesla wealth drops to below $100bn his next wealth engines will pick up the slack and he can move on! https://lnkd.in/dBSpeTmH

So much commentary on this today, a lot of it 'Tesla' are insane (well their boss anyway). Some (perhaps counter) thoughts: - Tesla need to generate profits. The Supercharger network is brilliant for Tesla owners, but costs Tesla many $$$$$$$$ - Is it such a competitve advantage anymore? Look at the high quality infrastructure that is so common now from the likes of InstaVolt, GRIDSERVE , IONITY, RAW Charging, Applegreen Electric and others - As ranges increase, and range anxiety dies down, the need for massive amounts of public charging might be overdone - On so many sites with fast charging, there are many non Tesla chargers and some Tesla chargers (look at Rugby, the new installation at Birchanger Gridserve forecourts) - why do Tesla drivers use the Superchargers rather than the available 350kW chargers? Because Tesla subsidise the cost. That can't be very sustainable. https://lnkd.in/diJBsJTe

Long-term investing is supposedly about patience. For the second quarter, Tesla generated approximately $1.6 billion in GAAP operating profits, over half of which came from tax credits. That implies around $1,600 in profits per car. To break even on its current valuation, Tesla therefore needs to make almost 500 million cars... which is about a quarter of all the cars made in all of human history. Of course, they then need to make another 500 million to double your money!

If you still need to understand what a #platform is, look no further than Tesla's announcement regarding its #supercharger network. Other automakers recently licensed the use for it. Tesla is slowing its deployment. Is it about cutting costs amidst flailing #EV sales? Yes, to some degree. It’s also about slowing down US and EU competitors, which won’t be able to oversell Musk’s company without enough charging infrastructure. Textbook platform power move. The one who owns the rails regulates the traffic. This won’t save Tesla from Musk being unfocused on its business and trying to sell the moon again to investors, but this will buy some time. https://lnkd.in/giCjhYEZ

I'm quite surprised about this news from Tesla. The Fastcharger appeared to be one of the main assets for the company thus far, and today it is the biggest fast-charging network in the world, with many OEMs making deals to adopt this technology. Okay, the company has confirmed that everything existing projects will be completed, but why fire the entire division? Since I don't think Elon Musk is going mad, what do you think could be the reason? 1) Did they realize that sticking to only 400v was a wrong strategy, so they want to sell the network before 800v becomes a standard? 2) Have they reached a peak where building more stations will be more expensive than what they can earn from them? Considering the growing competition as well? 3) Was their target simply to become the US standard, so now others will build the stations for their cars? Or has the guy effectively just gone mad? :)

The news was broadly expected and finally official. Tesla 's growth is slowing down. 🤑 "..net income of $1.1 billion for the January-to-March period is down 55% from the year prior. Revenue fell 9% to $21.3 billion. Tesla’s operating margin narrowed significantly, dropping to 5.5% in the first three months of the year, from 11.4% a year earlier. " So what? 🤔 The #ev market faces a stagnation phase and will not change in a quarter or so..Investors should focus on long term value💹 generation looking at least at 18/24months period. You can't just keep growing and every industry and market prove having hypes and down, even more considering an emerging #technology. I think putting an all-in bet😎 in the autonomous driving should worry the most, because we know that #robotaxis is a complex business and you risk to crash against the wall even if you have the best technology (that still has to be proved even for Tesla..) and #safety Authority places a key role to enable (or shut down) the business. let's see next August 8th unveiling 😉 The Wall Street Journal Rebecca Elliott