Tesla’s Supercharger layoffs couldn’t have come at a worse time

Bounced emails. Projects stopped. Late adapters. These are the immediate effects of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s “absolutely rigid” approach to cost-cutting, which has resulted in at least 500 layoffs from the company’s Supercharger business, including the division’s top executive, Rebecca Tinucci.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. Tesla was on the verge of making its vehicles’ charging sockets the de facto standard in North America, and its competitors and stakeholders are counting on a smooth ride. But Musk claims the leaner team will focus less on rolling out new Supercharger locations and will instead focus on “100% uptime.” It’s unclear how this will translate into reality, with laid-off employees counting Inside EVs that workforce reductions will impact their ability to respond to disruptions.

Just a few weeks earlier, Tesla was touting Supercharger advances in quarterly filings with the SEC. In the document, the company states that it intends to increase its charging infrastructure teams in order to expand the network to support EVs from other manufacturers. Tesla also had accepted $17 million in federal subsidies for electric vehicle charging before destroying the Supercharger team.

In reality, Tesla is doing the opposite: expanding its network. Sources counted Electrek that Tesla canceled four Supercharger locations in the New York area, giving up leases, lending credence to Musk’s prediction of slower installations. Meanwhile, emails have been bouncing back to contacts in Tesla’s charging division, a contractor who works on the company’s charging station installations counted E&E News. As the contractor headed to a site in Dallas, Tesla’s construction lead called to say the entire team had been laid off.

Elsewhere, projects to install Tesla’s slower Level 2 destination chargers in apartment complexes have also been affected. A condominium owner named Don Burke posted on X what his building was in the middle of installing four chargers when the project stopped. Burke said his emails to Tesla employees have been returned and there is no indication that there is still anyone at the company who can help.

On Reddit, a commenter posted this his $7,000 project is also in limbo as Tesla needs to fix the software but no one responds. Another contractor reported how his construction project a station of 43 chargers was canceled after his contact at Tesla said the entire team was laid off.

Tesla also has a large contract with Hilton to install up to 20,000 chargers in hotels, but it is unknown whether the project will be affected. A spokesperson for the hotel chain did not respond to a request for comment.

Tesla’s cuts are also affecting the availability of CCS to NACS adapters that were supposed to ship to Ford, Rivian, and GM electric vehicle owners this year (and eventually to all major automakers), allowing them to use the company’s Superchargers. Some Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning owners I took it to Reddit sharing emails sent by Ford stating that its free fast charging adapter is delayed “due to supply constraints”. Some moved from May to June, others until September.

Tesla’s Supercharger network is widely accepted as the gold standard in how to build electric vehicle charging infrastructure, a network that other EV networks can’t seem to match in size and reliability. According to BloombergNEFTesla is responsible for 74% of all fast chargers in North America.

Part of Tesla’s success is due to Tinucci, who oversaw Tesla’s portfolio of Supercharger locations, led business-to-business destination charger projects, and led Tesla’s Magic Dock-capable Supercharger installations for EVs from other manufacturers. can be connected without the need to bring an adapter.

According to a former employee who spoke with The Washington Post, Tinucci met with Musk privately before the layoffs to express his opposition to the magnitude of the layoffs. Now, with Tinucci out, along with most of the Supercharger team, Tesla’s big leadership is at risk.