Tesla, the car company of real-life Tony Stark, Mr Elon Musk, has been on the wrong side of the news for a while now.
First, layoffs.
Just yesterday came the report that Tesla had fired people due to a company-wide annual review. A former employee who was among those laid off confirmed and stated that it concerned hundreds of people: “It’s about 400 people ranging from associates to team leaders to supervisors. We don’t know how high up it went.”
According to the San Jose Mercury News, the number ranges anywhere from 400 to 700. A company spokesman said: “As with any company, especially one of over 33,000 employees, performance reviews also occasionally result in employee departures. Tesla is continuing to grow and hire new employees around the world.”
Of course, if that 700 number would ever be confirmed by Tesla, then they just fired 7% of their 10,000 strong workforce in Fremont, and that is not the kind of publicity you want.
Secondly, production misses.
Tesla’s big entry into the car mass produced market would be the Model 3 Sedan, but if first estimates are to be believed, is had only delivered 220 of those so far, which is quite behind the 1,600 unit benchmark set by Mr Musk during his speech in July;
Furthermore, according to the usually well informed Wall street Journal, Tesla factory workers were having to make car parts of the Model 3 by hand (yes, by hand) as the assembly line is still not yet fully operational.
Lastly, taxes.
Norway, the Scandinavian model country where Teslas are a big part of the scenery in the capital Oslo (electric cars already make up 30% of the total market), is considering slapping a heavy tax on Tesla cars as they are now doing as much damage to the road as other cars due to their market share. When introduced to Norway, Tesla cars were sold with a big tax break, but now that the market has matured, the Norwegian government considers rolling back those plans.
Given that Norway (and other Scandinavian countries) just as Japan, are seen as early adopters for any new technology or legal proposal, it could be estimated that electric cars will soon be taxed in the rest of Europe or the US as well.
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