• Tesla is probably shortening shifts for the Cybertruck
• Workforce concerned about mass layoffs
• 20 percent of jobs at risk?
Things aren’t going well at Tesla at the moment. The delivery figures for the first quarter were well below expectations. There are also problems in the important Chinese market, where the US group is facing increasingly strong domestic competition. In addition, the general demand for electric cars has recently declined, to which the car company has repeatedly responded by lowering prices. The extent to which the stress factors have affected Tesla’s business development will likely become clear on April 23rd: Then the company will present its figures for the first quarter of the business year. In addition to the sales and profit development, investors will take this opportunity to keep an eye on the margin and the cost base. On the latter point, Tesla could take tough action in the near future.
Cybertruck shifts reduced
In an internal memo, which is available to Business Insider, among others, Tesla apparently informed its employees working on the Cybertruck on Thursday that shifts at the Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, would be shortened. Previously, workers worked 12-hour shifts from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. Now they will only be on the assembly line for the pickup truck for 11 hours a day; according to the memo, the times will be shortened from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. and from 6 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. The new shift schedule is scheduled to come into force on Monday, according to Business Insider.
It is still unclear to what extent the shift reductions will also be applied to other Tesla models. The Model Y is also produced in Austin, and the long-awaited new vehicle model from Tesla will also be built here.
Tesla is cutting every tenth position
Tesla boss Elon Musk wants to cut more than one in ten jobs in the company in view of the slack on the market for electric cars and weak sales worldwide. It is extremely important to look at every aspect of the company in terms of costs and productivity, said an internal email from the company boss, which was available to the German Press Agency on Monday. After a thorough examination, the company decided to reduce the number of jobs by more than ten percent.
Tesla said it had 140,473 employees at the end of last year. This means that more than 14,000 jobs are now at risk. The US industry portal “Electrek” and “Handelsblatt” had previously reported on the multi-billionaire’s email.
Details about the planned job cuts were not made public. There was also initially no information as to whether and how many jobs in Tesla’s only European factory in Grünheide near Berlin could be affected by the cuts. The company still lists many open positions in its newest factory on its website. More than 12,000 people now work at the plant in Grünheide. According to “Handelsblatt”, around 3,000 of the 12,500 employees in Grünheide are to be laid off.
Dirk Schulze, IG Metall district manager for Berlin-Brandenburg-Saxony, said when asked: “So far there are a lot of rumors and a declaration of intent from the company headquarters that over 10 percent of the workforce is to be cut – globally. What that means for Grünheide is what this means Even the works council doesn’t have any information yet.”
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On Monday, key top manager Drew Baglino also announced that he had decided to leave Tesla the day before. Baglino, who started at Tesla in 2006, most recently played a key role as head of batteries and motors. Political chief Rohan Patel is also leaving, the financial service Bloomberg reported.
Among other things, Tesla is feeling the effects of the tough price war in China, the largest car market, and in the first quarter it delivered surprisingly fewer vehicles worldwide than a year earlier, with almost 387,000 cars. Even before that, after years of strong growth, doubts had already increased about the pace of growth in the electric car market.
In the USA, car buyers are increasingly turning to combustion and hybrid vehicles; in China, Tesla is facing more competition from domestic manufacturers. In Europe, Tesla initially had to temporarily suspend production in Grünheide near Berlin due to delivery bottlenecks for components caused by the rerouting of ships following attacks by Yemeni Houthi rebels in the Red Sea and an attack on the factory’s power supply.
With the rapid growth of the past few years, there have been duplicate functions in some areas, Musk said in the email. The job cuts would allow the company to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next phase of growth. “There is nothing I hate more, but it has to be done,” the star entrepreneur wrote.
Minister: Sluggish sales are unlikely to leave Tesla unscathed
Brandenburg’s Economics and Labor Minister Jörg Steinbach (SPD) expects that in the event of a reduction in personnel at the US car manufacturer Tesla’s car factory in Grünheide, far fewer than 3,000 jobs will be lost. When asked on Monday, Steinbach said: “The slump in sales of electric cars in Germany and Europe is unlikely to leave a mark on a market leader like Tesla.” He is in contact with the company. “If it comes to one Job cuts If Tesla were to come to Grünheide, according to our information, the number of jobs would probably not be around 3,000, but would be significantly lower.”
Tesla boss Elon Musk wants to cut more than one in ten jobs in the company in view of the slump in the market for electric cars and weak sales worldwide. It is extremely important to look at every aspect of the company in terms of costs and productivity, said an internal email from the company boss, which was available to the German Press Agency on Monday. After a thorough examination, the company decided to reduce the number of jobs by more than ten percent.
There was initially no information as to whether and how many jobs in Tesla’s only European factory in Grünheide near Berlin could be affected. The company still lists many open positions in its newest factory on its website. More than 12,000 people now work at the plant in Grünheide. According to “Handelsblatt”, around 3,000 of the 12,500 employees in Grünheide are to be laid off.
This is how Tesla shares react
Tesla shares, which have already lost more than a third of their value so far this year, closed on Friday with a discount of 2.03 percent at $171.05. In Monday trading, the NASDAQ was down 4.83 percent to $162.79. The stock has lost over 40 percent since a high last summer of almost $300. The paper is even further away from the record highs of over $400 in autumn 2021. Nevertheless, with a market value of just under 545 billion dollars (512 billion euros), the company is still the world’s highest valued car company, ahead of the Japanese Toyota Motor with 61.5 trillion yen (375 billion euros). The German car manufacturers Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche are lagging far behind with a market capitalization of between 69 and 85 billion euros.
Editorial team finanzen.net / With material from dpa-AFX
Image source: JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images, pio3 / Shutterstock.com, Andrei Tudoran / Shutterstock.com