- General
- February 10, 2019
- 5 minutes read
Tesla’s Delivery Team Reportedly Badly Hit By Recent Layoffs
image : Tesla In the wake of lay-offs made by Tesla that affected 7% of its staff, Reuters reports that the company’s…
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| image : Tesla |
In the wake of lay-offs made by Tesla that affected 7% of its staff, Reuters reports that the company’s delivery team, one responsible for getting its electric vehicles into the hands of North American customers, was badly affected by job cuts, with the division more than halved – Some 150 employees laid off out of a team of 230.
Cuts like this could tense investor worries of falling demand for the Model 3 amid phase-out of a tax incentive that now makes Tesla EVs more expensive. This same issue, has led it to lessen production hours for the Model S and X vehicles and focus on boosting production of the Model 3, a cheaper vehicle.
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| Tesla CEO Elon Musk
image : Thomas Hawk on Flickr
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Even with this, the most affordable Tesla vehicle as of current is the the mid-range (264 mile) Model 3 with premium interior and sound that goes for $44,000, higher than Tesla’s intended price of $35,000. Tesla has said it would focus on supplying cars to waiting customers in China and Europe this quarter, recently making it possible for buyers in those regions to customize their Model 3s.
The Model 3 is a very crucial to long-term profitability, for Tesla which says it aims to post a profit in each quarter of this year, based on expectations it will sell more of the vehicles and continue to reduce costs. A statement from Tesla CEO Elon Musk in 2016 that the Model 3 would start at $35,000 led to a bolt in reservations, but the company is yet to sell any cars at that price, despite two price cuts already made this year.
Automobile production and personnel costs are quite expensive, specifically as the company churns out Model 3s at a reported rate of up to 1,000 a day.
