Tesla is having trouble selling cars – and paying workers.
In the wake of a disappointing deliveries report, the company dismissed several dozen sales team members on Thursday in Chicago, New York and Tampa, Florida.
The cuts made last week affected teams known internally as “inside sales,” which were tasked with reaching out to potential customers and inviting them to test drive cars
One impacted employee in Tampa told Bloomberg that 20 inside sales advisers and two managers were informed around noon Thursday that their positions there were being eliminated. Another employee who worked in Brooklyn said the team there was also informed Thursday. Both said the teams were informed of the terminations via conference call and that it was effective immediately.
The dismissals are just the latest shakeup at Tesla as part of a zigzagging approach to its retailing strategy that has rattled investors and stoked confusion. Ten days after signaling an almost complete withdrawal from physical stores, the company backtracked and said more locations would stay open than planned, though some would continue to be evaluated.
Musk, 47, wrote to employees in February that Tesla would evaluate all areas of its sales and marketing organization in the following weeks, with some being cut and other employees transitioning to different parts of the company.
Bad news for us who don’t like Tesla. Manufacturers like FCA are going to give money to tesla so that their cafe/carbon numbers are within regulations in europe. Around 500 million from fca to tesla. Looks like they don’t need to sell cars to collect cash
Most of the hydrocarbon powered cars that TM’s products compete against have lots of profit margin. TM’s products do not. The only way they can push cars down to 35K is to get rid of people. That’s just the way it is. If we had an actual free market the gasoline models would have prices cut just enough to put TM out of business. But we don’t have a free market and cutting prices enough to make up for government subsidies wouldn’t work out.
When Tesla goes t**s up how long will it take for someone to produce a documentary about how the “big 3” automakers destroyed the company?
The fanbois are already on that line of thought. I read a comment on an article somewhere about Teslas poor situation and the comment said something like: “That’s how capitalism works. The startup takes all the risk and invests in developing and perfecting the new technology, while the established players wait and see if the trend catches on. When it does, they take over the market without the hurdles and costs of the startup”.
Yes they’re preemptively blaming the “established players” for Tesla’s eventual bankruptcy. I’m sure Elon will get a spot on the documentary bitching about how the company’s fate was inevitable due to the government, media, and owners on YouTube all being against him.
As an unrelated aside, we have totally lost the word “capitalism”. People purposely conflate the corporatism and cronyism we have now as capitalism. They specifically attack the word “capitalism”, never any other term. Even very intelligent people I follow, who aren’t on the left, will still make comments like “well that’s capitalism” or “that’s what you get in a capitalist society”. So you have to have the argument about how a 1% tax rate nullifies the existence of capitalism. Then you get accused of being a shill for bezos or something. These people would be shitting in the water hole if it weren’t for the vestiges of capitalism that still exist in the world. I wonder if we should even bother defending the word, and start using a word like “voluntarism” which I think would be harder to subvert. But then again, they subverted “capitalism”, so maybe the energy should be spent fixing that.
Well-said, Brandon…
There is no free market left in this country; people are not free to buy and sell or hire and fire or agree to wages/conditions that suit them. Racketeering/rent-seeking is the new corporate model.
There has been some degree of all these things for most of the country’s history, of course. But over the past 30 years, it has become the dominant theme.
I read an article written by a Tesla Inside Salesman. They were never told ahead of time about the plan to close all the stores down. Then they were not given pto to be able to go interview for a new job. Then he said he still believes in Tesla and not to hate them. These people really love being abused by their god.
Sounds like a good ol’ fashioned case of Battered Wife Syndrome. That afflicts much of ‘Murica, unfortunately.