Tesla Tastelessly Tosses Their Team
If you thought breaking up over a text message was in bad taste, try empathizing with the Tesla employees who were just laid off… via a blog post! That’s right, 90% of the Tesla team in Metro Detroit were let go, but someone assigned to break the news didn’t have the guts to tell them. Instead, the employees found out through their own site that they were finished. What’s to become of the remaining 10%? Those who aren’t notified of their termination today (via a bulletin board at the plant, mind you) have to relocate to San Jose, CA - at least it’s brighter and the weather is more temperate in Cali, right? The problem is getting there when your company won’t help with relocation, moving costs, selling your current home or apartment, or anything else for that matter. They’re essentially being told, “Be glad we didn’t can you. Now get moving!” The official word is as follows:
There will also be some headcount reduction due to consolidation of operations. In anticipation of moving vehicle engineering to our new HQ in San Jose, we are ramping down and will close our Rochester Hills office near Detroit. Good communication, tightly knit engineering and a common company culture are of paramount importance as Tesla grows.
Yes, “good communication” and a “common company culture” are of paramount importance. We’re wondering what the schmuck who wrote this piece was thinking when writing that there would be a “headcount reduction.” With tough times and an economy suffering at exponential rates, one would think that Tesla could have been just a tad more appropriate and tactful with letting their hard working employees go.
Tags: Detroit layoffs, economy, electric car, recession, Tesla, Tesla layoffs
:::patiently waiting for CNN Breaking News to report a shooting at the Tesla Headquarters:::
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Throwing money at Tesla’s problems didn’t help. They learned you can’t build a car in the same way you build a website.
Tesla may have these great minds in San Jose, but if they want to compete in the auto world they need these auto types to show them the way. Tesla would have been better to take the few smart San Jose guys and move to Detroit to exploit the local labor force eager for an auto job than to do what they are doing here - relocating a select few to San Jose.
Plus it would be cheaper in Detroit to get manufacturing facilities, workers, etc.
I’m not a fan of how the American auto industry has been run. But that’s a management issue. The skills necessary to build a car are in Michigan with the auto workers & engineers. Just take the Tesla management from San Jose to Detroit and they may have something. Otherwise Tesla will die a slow, expensive death in San Jose.
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Coming from someone that lives and works near Rochester Hills, I think that was pretty cowardly. Its bad enough that the automotive industry in Michigan has helped turn the state’s economy into one of the worst in the nation, now we have an up and coming company doing this… Laying people off and doing it in a chicken Sh*t manner. I hope Tesla fails!
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I think their layoffs have less to do with the way the run their business than with the depression that the country is heading into.
I think it was horrible to let them know in this way, but the choice had to be made. Tons of companies are laying people off or getting ready to do so, Tesla is far from the only one.
Tesla will survive as they now are getting cars made and there are still rich people to buy them. They might have to adjust their model for the economic times but they will do so.
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The Tesla car sucks ass anyways. That company panders to rich bastards who can pay for a larger carbon footprint. “Why change your lifestyle when you can pay someone else to do it for you?”
Go Chevy Volt! Electric cars for the masses!
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@jacka$$, You are Sofa King stupid
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Wow.. I heard that they had been cleaning house, but not via blog posts.. that’s harsh
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If anyone saw the 60 min interview with the Tesla folks, the owner came across as a smug ba$tard.
I can’t say as I’m overly distraught that the company who builds cars for $110,000-ish is having tough times.
Jacka$$ might be Sofa Stupid but he’s right about the Volt…that is, if a sub-$40k car can be thought of as “for the masses”
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On the 60 Minutes story the owner was bragging how the car could go from 0-60 in 4 seconds, but he forgot to put brakes on it and it looks like they hit the concrete wall.
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“Tesla will survive as they now are getting cars made and there are still rich people to buy them. They might have to adjust their model for the economic times but they will do so.”
Dtest54, Oct 17, 2008 @ 2:31 pm
The problem is Tesla can’t survive building cars the way they do now. They are loosing gobs of money every month while they miss deadlines for delivery dates. When a car is delivered they are riddled with problems & need constant support since Tesla is still tweaking their manufacturing & design processes.
Rich people ready to buy or not, Tesla cannot keep producing too few cars with too many problems.
They started out without any auto knowledge, just some rich guys with a tech background unrelated to building cars. The only good thing Tesla has done lately is realize they needed the help of Detroit auto engineers to make this car work. Now they are firing a lot of them and not paying to move the few others - in other words they don’t care that much if these auto people stay on board. Tesla is shooting themselves in the foot with the only smart move they have made in this endeavor, getting auto experts on board.
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well guess what, every car company loses a lot of money early. They are producing the car already. Their work in Detroit was likely on the sedan version they are planning to release next year.
They sportscar is already in production. And Auto experts in the US are the ones that got them into the situation that the big 3 are in now. Now they (big 3) are losing gobs of money.
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@Raul: And you’re Sofa King original. Where did you dig up that old joke line. Your a$$? Hey Raul, why don’t you follow it up with some substance instead of such an empty retarded-a$$ remark. You fa-King moron.
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I would think that it’s very expensive to maintain a skilled auto workforce in Detroit because of the power of the unions there. Clearly the US auto business has a difficult time competing with non-union auto makers. The union benefits are the killer. I agree totally that Tesla will fail in San Jose because you can’t screw people and expect them to be loyal and put 100% into their job. It’ll be ‘San Hose U’.
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Producing cars at a reasonable price anywhere in CA can’t last long. For Tesla to succeed though they must find a labor source and avoid the UAW. Look at GM or Ford financials and its plain to see how the concessions they’ve made to the UAW over 100 years in Detroit are now destroying the US auto industry. What’s clear is neither the Big 3 nor the UAW have an interest in saving their industry, the automakers would love to walk away from their obligations to their workers (via a gov’t bailout), and the UAW seems oblivious to the fact that the concessions they’ve “negotiated” over time are killing the very industry in which they work. I wish there was a easy solution but its looking like US car companies will soon follow us electronics (tv’s, stereos, etc.) into extinction.
Hey Tesla, rather than CA, you need to pick up shop and move to KY or somewhere similar, AND if you don’t make a car to compete with the Volt you too will be extinct soon! Only a fringe cares about car that does 0-60 in 4 seconds! Where the heck you gonna drive that in town anyway? Want to be relevant, give us a sub-$40k minivan my wife can shuttle the kid around town in.
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They made the car faster by making it lighter - and just because they were the first to make an electric car that isn’t hideous, and is peppy, doesn’t mean they deserve more money than the sum of the parts in it are worth. I felt insulted by their introductory price - and since it was PRE-PAY, basically, demanding that I’d invest in their solvency and cover their mfg cost up front, they should be giving a DISCOUNT to do it. They just misunderstand elasticity, marketing, and the true nature of global warming; China and India must get nuked. No - not really, but the coal plants are the problem. Not my M3.
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