Tesla is planning to lay off over 14,000 employees—more than 10% of its global workforce—in its first large-scale layoffs in over a year, according to an internal memo this week. The company’s electric vehicle sales have begun to stagnate amid a decline in demand and increased competition from Chinese carmakers. Tesla’s shares fell over 5% on the news.
CEO Elon Musk said the layoffs are part of cost-cutting measures as the company prepares for its next phase of growth. Also yesterday, two top executives at Tesla announced their departure: engineering executive Drew Baglino and policy and outreach executive Rohan Patel.
The shake-up comes after Tesla earlier this month posted its first year-over-year decline in quarterly sales since 2020. The report came after China’s BYD briefly overtook Tesla as the world’s top seller of battery electric vehicles last year. In January, Musk said Tesla would soon release a cheaper, $25K model rumored to compete with BYD. That plan has now reportedly been tabled, with Musk prioritizing the debut of a robotaxi fleet in August.
My question is: Has anyone in this Administration thought about what is coming in about 5 to 8 Years? With THIS administration only thinking about getting Trump and trying to get all the illegals able to Vote, I’m guessing NOT. There are OVER a Million EV’s on the Roads in the US alone so, what is going to happen when all those Batteries have to get REPLACED. Think about it, Millions of Battery Packs, 800 to 8000 Pounds each, Billions of Battery Cells filled with Toxic Chemicals. The Government hasn’t really started on upgrading our Power Grid to handle the EV’s on the Road NOW let alone the Millions more he wants us to Buy. I keep hearing how every part of the Batteries are Recyclable but have we heard yet on WHERE they will be Recycled at? Who wants to bet it will be CHINA?
EVs are way too expensive for Joe average citizen. They have limited use, primarily for short distance drivers, unless you’re willing to venture out on a long distance trip requiring a number of time-consuming inconvenient recharge stops. Plus, we have yet to see the potential impact of batteries wearing-out that will require a financially significant replacement cost. Dealing with the disposal of environment-damaging old batteries will also present a challenge we’ve yet to face.
At this stage of their development EVs are just a novelty, similar to the very first cell phone that sold for almost $4,000 way back in 1984.
EV technology needs more time to evolve before the product becomes a viable alternative to the internal combustion engine powered car. Those vehicles also went through a long evolutionary stage before they were ready for the public to accept them. Give technology time to catch-up with the concept of electric vehicles for the general public.
yet Tallahassee marches forward with the idiotic plan to buy electric buses.