Tesla lays off hundreds of employees after annual performance evaluation
Luxury electric-car maker Tesla Motors has fired an "undisclosed" number of employees while several others received promotions and bonuses following the company's annual performance reviews. Tesla said the layoffs are part of the annual evaluation, but didn't reveal the exact number of employees affected. According to anonymous former and current workers, 400-700 employees, including factory workers, engineers, and managers have been fired. Read more!
Tesla fires employees even as it struggles with production
The departures come at a very stressful time for Tesla Motors, which separated with many "trained" workers in manufacturing operations, administration, and sales. The employees have been fired amid Tesla's long-awaited first mass-market Model 3 sedan production headaches. The company has been struggling to ramp up production in order to meet the demand for its "affordable" Model 3 sedan.
Performance reviews result in departures: Spokesperson
A spokesperson for Tesla Motors stated, "As with any company, especially one of over 33,000 employees, performance reviews also occasionally result in employee departures." He added, "Tesla is continuing to grow and hire new employees around the world."
Half a million Model 3 reservation holders
Tesla is currently under pressure to deliver Model 3 to a waiting list of over 450,000 customers who paid $1,000 deposit per car. The company is lagging behind its production forecasts as it built only 260 Model 3 sedans in the last quarter, which is way less than its 1500-unit target. CEO Elon Musk blamed "production bottlenecks" for the slow manufacturing of $35,000 sedan.
Employees dismissed at Tesla's SolarCity in September
Tesla earlier boosted its workforce with the purchase of SolarCity, a company that manufactures and installs rooftop solar panels. The solar panel maker was bought by Tesla for around $2bn in 2016. Last month, the electric vehicle maker said it was phasing out as many as 63 positions at SolarCity's Roseville office in California. As of 2016-end, SolarCity had nearly 12,250 full-time employees.
Despite firings, Tesla looking to hire several workers
Despite the mass employee departures, Tesla Motors is reportedly looking to hire hundreds of workers. Tesla wants to make about 100,000 vehicles (all models) this year while CEO Musk aims to increase Tesla's production by five times in 2018. To meet these goals, Tesla needs more workers. According to the company's careers website, it currently has over 2,000 job vacancies.
