Tesla has seen its profits more than halve this year, and says it will bring forward the launch of new models after announcing thousands of job cuts to try to reverse its fortunes.

Despite plans to bring forward new models originally planned for next year the firm is cutting its workforce.

Tesla said it would lose 3,332 jobs in California and 2,688 positions in Texas, starting mid-June.

The cuts in Texas represent 12% of Tesla’s total workforce of almost 23,000 in the area where its gigafactory and headquarters are located.

  • paddirn@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Didn’t Tesla already have issues with production anyways? Job cuts just seem like they’ll exacerbate the issue.

    • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
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      8 months ago

      tesla was always a pump and dump. build it up quick, use it as financial vehicle, GTFO before it falls over.

      they have never had an exit strategy or long-term plans for their products.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      8 months ago

      Yes, and it’s common for job cuts to only make things worse for companies over the following quarters. It only makes things more backed up. It only helps your stock price for this quarter.

      Whatever you might think about the Cybertruck, it is sold through for at least the next year. I think they’re terrible–they look even dumber in person than in photos–but there are people who are lining up to buy one. Cutting staff does not sell Cybertrucks any faster.

      A $25k Tesla EV would be a huge win, both in the US and (most importantly for the company’s bottom line) China. There are reports of it being canceled, which may or may not be true, but it does appear that Elon wants to go all in on a self driving taxi, and I don’t see that working. Even if it eventually does, it’s a huge gamble when there’s a very straightforward moneymaker sitting right there that doesn’t require any particular R&D breakthroughs. Looks like Kia/Hyundai are happy to take that market if Tesla doesn’t want it. Meanwhile, BYD is sitting over there figuring out how to enter US and EU markets. Telsa is stuck with a stupid polygon truck.

      • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        Whatever you might think about the Cybertruck, it is sold through for at least the next year.

        Yeah, but that’s not really saying anything considering that their production numbers have been awful. They claim that they should be able to reach 125k this year, but there have been reports of them only managing to produce around 80 a day, which is only around 30k a year.

        And that was before the recent recalls and qc problems. Stainless steel is just an unforgiving material to work with, it’s gonna take them a while to reach mass production while maintaining any kind of quality control measures.

        • frezik@midwest.social
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          8 months ago

          Production numbers are awful, but that’s only more reason why laying off workers is a bad move.

  • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Lower sales > Lower profits > cuts across the board (except c level) > lower quality > lower sales … aka the death spiral… hope they can halt the decline but their unique position as the only real electric car brand ended 5 years ago… with their prices they compete with Audi, Mercedes, BMW, and the other premium brands.

    Edit: my point was indeed that their competition has better quality so the competition does not really work.

    • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Other than on price, Tesla is just not on par with premium German brands.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        And the Chinese EVs beat everyone on price…

        But Americans aren’t allowed to buy them

        If we had access to those, lots more Americans would be driving EVs.

        In the company’s last earnings report in January, Chief Executive Elon Musk warned about the competitiveness of Chinese brands. BYD, China’s largest EV maker, surpassed Tesla in car sales last year.

        "If there are not trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world,” Musk said.

        This year, Manhattan Beach-based Fisker Inc., an electrical vehicle startup, cut 15% of its workforce, had its stock delisted and said it might file for bankruptcy protection. Apple also recently announced an end to its long-held ambitions of making a self-driving EV.

        https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-04-19/china-ev-war-tariffs-tesla

        We’re not allowed to buy them because other companies can’t compete, but even without being able to buy them, EV makers are going out of business.

        The rich get protected while consumers and the environment gets fucked over

        • Billiam@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          We could never sell those dirty ChiCom cars in the US! Can you imagine what would happen if those cars collected your driving habits and reported them back to Ford GM Stellantis Tesla Honda VW Toyota Hyundai Subaru Xi Jinping!?

  • MyOpinion@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Tesla is a slow motion train wreck. Their answer to the china low cost cars was a Robo Taxi. They are completely out of touch with the ev market now.

    • RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Actually, they’re speedrunning the Boeing approach.

      “Announce new technological marvels while simultaneously slashing their workforce” is just two steps before “product falls apart during usage”.

      • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I mean, cybertrucks get bricked in a carwash, pretty sure that qualifies under usage and falling apart

        • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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          8 months ago

          Honestly the welding and soddering joints breaking down in some vehicles is also a pretty good example of dropping quality. The cybertruck is a mess from the start but the other cars in theory are kinda ok, like I would fucking burn one if it was force on me but I think late 80s interiors are peak.

    • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Yeah but come on. They spent years making a “Delorean, but now its a truck!” that rusts in the rain, has barely 180miles of actual range, has a non standard pickup truck bed, cant tow worth shit, cost between 60k and 100k dollars, has such shoddy workmanship that the accelerator pedal can fail and jam on, and they managed to sell a stunning 3800 of them in 6 months.

      Whose got time for a blockbuster, feverishly in demand 20k electric sedan when you have “a kool dude” like the above to work on for 3 or 4 or 6 years.

  • tacosanonymous@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Weren’t people estimating a *2027 end for Tesla bc they haven’t been working on new models? They put their efforts into the meme “truck” instead of the roadster. They have been slashing prices yet demand for EVs, especially theirs has been dropping. All the while, their main spokesman has been a toxic deterrent. Meanwhile, these douchelords think The ceo should get a $56B payout?

    • thejml@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      The roadster was the only Tesla I liked, and it’s no coincidence that it was pre-Elon.

      • Grippler@feddit.dk
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        8 months ago

        The original roadster is just a lotus Elise with a terrible DIY EV mod thrown in to it.

    • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Weren’t people estimating a 2007 end for Tesla bc they haven’t been working on new models? They put their efforts into the meme “truck”

      What? How is that supposed to make any kind of sense?

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        There were no efforts put into the “meme “truck”” in 2007, it wasn’t even speculated on being made yet. There were speculations back in 2007 that Tesla might not make it, because they had financial problems. But those speculations have zero relevance today.
        Your post is nonsensical.

          • frezik@midwest.social
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            8 months ago

            I’d guess 2027, since all the stuff mentioned are things that are culminating more recently.

            That said, the company’s best long term asset is probably the charging network. Especially since other manufacturers are adopting their plug. But that’s boring, and Musk isn’t a guy who cares about the boring stuff. He’s exactly the type to ignore the company’s best strategic direction just because he can’t make grandiose claims on Xhitter about it.

  • DrCake@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Who could see this coming when they decided to spend so much time and money developing an expensive steel box that rusts. Imagine if the CEO had any idea what they were doing and decided to focus on making actual cars

  • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    “If somebody doesn’t believe Tesla is going to solve autonomy I think they should not be an investor,” he said.

    🥹

    • Billiam@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Ah yes, the autonomous cars that are limited to only cameras and not any other form of sensor like radar/lidar will be so successful!

      • wewbull@feddit.uk
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        8 months ago

        It doesn’t matter what sensors you have. Autonomy is a pipe dream.

        • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Autonomy is not a pipe dream. It might not happen with Teslas sensors, and it might not happen for many many more years, but it will happen.

          There’s nothing unattainable about it with sufficient technology

          • wewbull@feddit.uk
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            8 months ago

            with sufficient technology

            Well of course but that statement is writing a blank cheque. Let me cap my statement.

            “…within the next century”.

            • TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee
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              8 months ago

              My pet theory is that self driving will start to really gain momentum when new construction in gentrified areas start designing roads with aids for self driving. It would require a degree of standardization to work across different manufacturers though.

    • ours@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I’ll pass on this bet. It’s the Pareto law at its worst: impressive advancements in the first years and now progress halted by a million edge cases.

  • FilthyShrooms@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago
    1. Fire workers to save money
    2. Loss of productivity losses money
    3. Fire workers to save money
    4. Loss of productivity losses money
    5. ???

    ?. Profit

  • HuddaBudda@kbin.social
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    8 months ago

    I couldn’t imagine being a software engineer for Telsa, pouring your heart and soul into making a good product.

    And in your bosses’ drunken haze, gets to make an ass of himself on the world stage and get paid 1,000,000,000x your salary to do it.

    Lose advertising investors, lose quality and face on the products you have to build. Still gets to be CEO of three failing companies

    But your job is the one that gets canned to save the stock price.

    Edit: loose

  • EnderMB@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    It’s sad to say, but I’m glad we’re at a point where shareholders now look at job cuts as a negative, and layoffs don’t result in an increase in share price.

    Amazon have been cutting jobs for their third year running now, on top of URA, and the only thing keeping our CEO in a job right now is happy shareholders.

      • Billiam@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        God fucking damnit, I hate Wall Street.

        We sold fewer cars than expected, lost money, revealed that even though we’re making 1000 Cybertrucks a week we’ve only sold 4000 of them and had to recall every single one because we fucking glued the foot pad onto the accelerator pedal, and had our lying sack of shit CEO’s compensation nerfed by a judge so in response we’re gonna fire 6000 people.

        Line go up.

      • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Zoom out about a week.

        Its fair to say that last week, TSLA was oversold and is now bouncing back from that. But the -55% profits and -$2.3ish Billion FCF are bad numbers.

        TSLA is down from $180, where it was just a few weeks ago. $140 prices this past week apparently was too low, but there’s no chance in hell that TSLA goes back up to pre-Q1 announcement numbers. Q1 2024 was awful. Declining sales around the world in all major areas: China, Europe, AND USA. They’re weak everywhere.

      • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        HFT algorithmic robo-traders still gonna scalp daily delta, often in an incestuous and self-reinforcing cycle based on financial headlines

        I’ve been bearish on Tesla for years, but it’s getting increasingly obvious with growing EV competition that their market cap is/was absurd hype that defies fundamentals or even possible value if Tesla was a monopoly

        • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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          8 months ago

          A 6 month chart is supposed to correlate with the effect of today’s layoffs announcement?

          • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            The layoffs were known last week though.

            Sure, the news is finally talking about the layoffs, but people were locked out of their badges and complaining last week about this. So now its official today, but it was public knowledge last week when that price declined dramatically.

            So the employees were nominally on the books until today. Big woop. They stopped working a week ago and complained about it online. You can’t hide a mass of 10,000+ sad and angry employees talking shit about Tesla. The stock moved on that before the official layoff announcement today.

    • Guest_User@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I don’t think they do view it as negative, their stock is climbing aggressively on this news.

      • ripcord@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Well. It’s climbing based on today’s news.

        The layoffs have been known for a while so it seems more likely that it’s climbing based on other factors, like the hokum about still focusing on a low-prices car.

  • RidcullyTheBrown@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    A company who’s unable to meet customer demands should not be this profitable. It should use it’s revenue to invest back into growing the business to meet customer demand. This should be the real headline.

  • DaddleDew@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I wonder for how long they could pay those employee’s salary for with that $56Bn paycheck Musk is trying to give himself.

    • PhAzE@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      And if it’s tanking, Musk is responsible and shouldn’t be paid any bonus because he failed them.

  • joneskind@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Our Very Stable 4D Chess TwitterBoy Genius has become so fantastically effective in killing his brands.

    First Twitter.com, then TwitterCars and the TwitterTrucks.

    Will he kill SpaceTwitter too?

    And what about TwitterDigger? Is this still a thing?

  • protist@mander.xyz
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    8 months ago

    There’s a lot in East Austin near the Giga factory with hundreds of Cybertrucks that don’t seem to be moving…

    Honestly though, the size of that building is obscene. It’s hard to look at it and not think vanity is playing a serious role in top-level decision-making at Tesla.

      • athairmor@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        When a stock drops by a lot there’s usually a low point at which some investors will start buying it again because it got so cheap. This drives the price higher but only temporarily. This is called the “dead cat bounce.”

      • danc4498@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        My only guess is that there were rumors of layoffs, and the stock market LOVES when the middle class gets fired.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      It was because they announced they were speeding up their plans for their affordable next gen vehicle earlier than already announced, which was H2 2025

      Now it’s late 2024/H1 2025

      They are ditching their next gen “unboxed” production method to do this however and leaving that for the robo taxi. The vehicles will be a hybrid if their next gen tech and existing tech. They claim the new models to be released will be built on the existing manufacturing lines, getting them to over 3mil vehicles a year.

      These will be more akin to a gen 2.5.

      Robo taxi will be gen 3

      If their unboxed plans work with the taxi, they’ll use it for other vehicles in the future.

      Edit: they basically derisked the cheaper vehicles by foregoing the risky new production method that would make it cheaper in the long run, by figuring out how to use their existing lines, also making it cheaper. But in the grand scheme of things i imagine this hybrid way will have less margins than a successfully implemented new way.

      Also, some of the price crash was from Reuters reporting they abandoned the cheaper vehicle in favor of robotaxi and there’s been uncertainty for weeks now ok the topic, until now.

      • danc4498@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Thanks for the details! All I saw anywhere was the bad news, but this does sound like a good reason for optimism if you can trust this company.

        • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          if you can trust this company.

          That’s the key point. After all the other delays, they need to show they can do something on time now to gain some of that back.

          • danc4498@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            It feels like this announcement was 100% to keep the shareholders happy with probably very little planning ahead of time.

            • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              I was thinking it’s more like their contingency plan for if unboxed was a catastrophe.

              If they can actually pull off the accelerated, shared manufacturing lines plan, it feels like it’s too fast to be on a whim with no planning.

              I do agree though it’s probably to keep shareholders happy as the cheaper EV landscape unfolds and they were falling behind.