On Monday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk told employees the company intends to “flatten” its structure. That translates into fewer management executives as the automaker hires as many line workers as possible. Neither should come as a shock to those paying attention. Tesla Motors has bled high-ranking executives for a while now, and the autonomous assembly system that was supposed to revolutionize production hasn’t appeared yet.

Flattening the company’s management structure may be less about cutting costs and more about having no one to fill empty seats. That said, Musk’s announcement placed an emphasis on improving the company’s finances — echoing statements made during an earlier conference call that created some public relations hiccups. So the restructuring plan could be Tesla performing double duty.

“To ensure that Tesla is well prepared for the future, we have been undertaking a thorough reorganization of our company,” Musk said in his memo to staff. (Read More…)

During Tesla’s earnings conference call, the one that didn’t go so well, CEO Elon Musk spent some time explaining the company’s strategy to bring Model Y into production. He even went so far to set a date for the electric CUV, saying it would introduce a “a manufacturing revolution” within the next two years.

Wait, wasn’t the buzz that the modestly sized Model Y would be entering in production in 2019? According to Musk, it was not. But we know suppliers were accepting preliminary bids for contracts with the automaker already and it was reported that Tesla had said a November 2019 production date was “possible.” Pushing it ahead a few months, isn’t a big issue, especially since it hadn’t made an official announcement. But Musk said that was never the deal, saying that Tesla intends to commence assembly on the crossover in 2020.  (Read More…)

Tesla has stopped production of the Model 3 again.

That’s the second time this year.

Production problems might not normally make such news – after all, Tesla is a small automaker that’s both attempting to grow and bring a new model, its first truly mass-market model, to production.

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Tesla Motors is months behind schedule. Despite promises that Model 3 production would be humming along by the end of last year, the automaker has found itself bogged down by all kinds of delays. In March, the company’s problems were exacerbated by a voluntarily recall on 123,000 Model S sedans and another high-profile crash involving its Autopilot system.

This has shaken investors’ previously unwavering faith in Tesla, and forced a significant dip in its overall share price. Last month, the company’s stock valuation took a hit that it’s just now starting to come back from. But Tesla CEO Elon Musk knows he cannot simply dazzle shareholders with new ideas and promises, and has been camping out at the factory in Fremont, California, to prove his resolve and engage in some on-sight troubleshooting.

While he has mentioned his office sleeping-bag before, we actually got to see it in a recent interview he had with CBS This Morning host Gayle King — along with the rest of the factory. Musk invited CBS to come and see the plant and discuss Tesla’s current status, providing a rare glimpse of the facility. Normally, the automaker is incredibly strict in terms of who it allows inside and no network television crew has ever been able to film the assembly process.  (Read More…)

April Fools’ Day is a great holiday when you’re 12 years old but, as an adult, there are only so many people you can trick into drinking spoiled milk outside of your own family without getting into trouble. The world just doesn’t have the same level of patience for a matured prankster. Corporate foolery is even less palatable, usually because it’s far too tame to be genuinely entertaining, or results in some social blunder highlighting a genuine problem.

The automotive industry frequently engages in April Fools’ pranks, but this year was rather dull. Porsche’s phony Mission E tractor was cute but felt a little lazy and Honda UK’s chop-topped CR-V resulted in some members of the press requesting Honda actually built it — something none of us agree with, as that monstrosity would be a pillar of bad taste. The best of the bunch was probably McLaren’s weird take on promoting efficiency, in which the supercar maker hinted everyone will become a soulless robot. It wasn’t the best we’ve seen; still, the staff clearly enjoyed taking a playful shot at its more uptight rivals.

Then there was Tesla’s joke, which saw CEO Elon Musk issue a series of tweets about the company’s pretend bankruptcy. The timing on this was admittedly not great. Tesla had a really bad month involving a stock price attempting to bore its way to the center of the earth, the biggest recall in its history, another Model 3 production shortfall, and an Autopilot-related fatality in California.  (Read More…)

Tesla has been Wall Street’s fair-haired boy as the electric car startup’s share price soared over the past few years. Production figures have not kept pace with Tesla’s market cap, and now problems getting assembly up to speed on the company’s vitally important Model 3 and concerns about its cash burn have resulted in a downgrade of its credit rating from Moody’s Investor Service. That report from Moody’s was issued late on Tuesday.

When trading began on Wednesday morning, Tesla stock opened at $264.76, down 5 percent from the day before. That is almost 14 percent lower than it was at the beginning of the week, and 31 percent lower than in September of 2017, when Tesla’s stock price apparently peaked at $385 a share. (Read More…)

The United Automobile Workers have had its eyes on Tesla Motors for years. However, it wasn’t until the start of 2017 when unionization efforts at the automaker’s Fremont, California factory really started ramping up. Following complaints that the automaker failed to ensure effective safety measures, Tesla employee Jose Moran published a blog post that openly criticized the company for overworking its staff in unsafe conditions. Moran also said payment was insufficient and promotions were unfair — suggesting unionization was the only way to protect employees.

Soon afterwards, the UAW began filing a slew of complaints to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) while Tesla was confronted with racial discrimination lawsuits. Widespread reports of worksite injuries also surfaced. The California Department of Industrial Relations saw over 180 Tesla employees applying for compensation as a result of serious injuries between 2012 and 2017. Now, the UAW is accusing the automaker of intimidating pro-union employees and terminating those it could not sway.  (Read More…)

There’s something about EV manufacturers that elevates the turnover rate of high-ranking employees. It seemed like we reported on Faraday Future losing executives almost daily for two consecutive years, but Tesla now appears to have its own difficulty retaining talent. The automaker lost two of its senior financial executives this month as it prepares to report on the Model 3 sedan’s progress (or lack thereof).

Is this the beginning of the end for the EV manufacturer? Probably not. It’s easy to obsess about Tesla’s status and speculate endlessly on the health of the brand, but the company’s all-important stock price has yet to crash and Elon Musk has promised to remain at its helm for the foreseeable future. However, the firm may need to do some housekeeping to ensure it doesn’t lose the trust of its investors.  (Read More…)

Tesla temporarily stopped production of the Model 3. Considering everyone keeps wondering when the company will finally reach its first-quarter production target of 2,500 units per week, that’s big news. The Tesla faithful will, no doubt, consider the decision another incredibly shrewd move from the geniuses working within the company, while the opposition will claim it’s further proof that the firm isn’t capable of building cars at the scale it has promised.

Sticking with the facts, we knew Tesla had Gigafactory tooling waiting to be shipped from Germany at the start of February. However, the temporary shutdown occurred between February 20th and the 24th — a bit too early for the equipment to have made it stateside. The suspended production also took place at the main factory in Fremont, California, and not the Nevada-based Gigafactory. Model 3 vehicle registrations also dropped significantly in the days following the shutdown.  (Read More…)

Since beginning production of the Model 3 last summer, Tesla has dialed back production targets like a thermostat in the springtime. The electric automaker’s first goal of 5,000 units per week by the end of the year passed as the champagne corks flew on New Year’s Eve, but by that time Tesla had already pushed it back to the end of Q1 2018.

Amid troubles on the assembly line, that target eventually moved to the end of the second quarter of this year, a goal that still stands.

Just how many Model 3s is Tesla cranking out these days? The company only reports deliveries on a quarterly basis, making it hard to get a firm read on the company’s exact output. One publication hopes to change that. (Read More…)

Tesla claims it’s closing in on its goal to produce 2,500 Model 3 sedans a week, even though the original deadline for that target is a few months past. However, a problem remains. Despite having all the tooling needed to hit its mark, some of the essential components are still in Germany when they should be in the United States.

While the automaker still claims it can reach 2,500 unit per week by the end of March, the new automated system for module production needs to be shipped from Grohmann Automation in Dausfeld, Germany, to the company’s Gigafactory, located outside Reno, Nevada. That’s a long distance to ship a lot of hardware in roughly a month’s time, leaving many wondering if Tesla is about to break another promise to investors.  (Read More…)

Tesla’s Model 3, described by many as a make-or-break product for the EV startup, has had a very slow launch, with production falling far short of the numbers Tesla had predicted.

CNBC is now reporting that, according to current and former Tesla employees, one of the factors in the launch delay is the failure of Tesla’s battery “Gigafactory” in aptly named Sparks, Nevada to come up to speed. Ironically, the highly automated factory apparently needs so much human hand work that Tesla has had to “borrow” dozens of employees from its partner in the facility, Panasonic. (Read More…)

Unbothered by the constraints of space and time, Elon Musk took to Twitter yesterday, breathlessly announcing a press conference for Thursday. Is the call’s topic set to address Model 3 production troubles? Or, perhaps, provide some insight into the supply chain woes at the Gigafactory? No, dear reader, nothing so mundane.

It’s to announce the Tesla semi truck, which is surely the most urgent topic and best use of resources at Tesla these days.

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It’s now Tesla that’s been disrupted.

For all of the Silicon Valley speak about “disrupting” the automotive industry, and despite some very interesting successes in doing just that, Tesla is still struggling to actually get cars to market.

That’s understandable to an extent – the company is small, with limited experience. But CEO Elon Musk has talked a big game, and thus far not delivered on his promises.

Wall Street, predictably, has noticed.

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Tesla’s Model 3 production problems are well documented, including the recent firings/layoffs. Now we’re hearing that while Tesla has conceded it has production “bottlenecks” (and blamed some of the issues on suppliers failing to meet their deadlines), the company may also be shooting itself in the foot with mismanagement.

A TTAC reader with insider knowledge claims a design change to an aluminum frame component has idled production for nearly two weeks. In addition, an Indeed.com job posting from about 45 days ago sought temporary contract workers to program the robots on the assembly line.

That last bit is notable, as typically the hiring for that job would have wrapped up much sooner in advance of the production launch.

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