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Demand is under pressure, sales volume is declining, and price war is intensifying. In just a few years, the background of the "Red Sea" in the global electric vehicle industry has become increasingly strong.
On April 15 local time, an internal memo showed that, Tesla More than 10% of global layoffs are under way. Tesla The last time layoffs were announced was in 2022, Tesla CEO Mask once told executives that he had a "super bad feeling" about the economy.
This round of layoffs has also had clues. In the past few months, Tesla It seems to be preparing for a new round of layoffs. Tesla The manager of the company was informed that he asked them to identify key members of his team, suspended some stock awards, and canceled the annual assessment of some employees.
At the end of last year Tesla The total number of employees reached 140473, almost double the number three years ago. Although there is no exact percentage for this layoff, "more than 10%" means that at least 14000 employees will be dismissed. On the other hand, the number of layoffs will still be much higher than that three years ago. Musk said on social media that every five years or so we need to restructure and streamline the company to achieve the next stage of growth.
What signals did Tesla's global layoff release? Can Tesla foster the next new growth pole in the future?
From "midsummer" to "cold winter"
Behind Tesla's layoffs, the global electric vehicle industry has gradually turned from "midsummer" to "winter" in just a few years.
Tesla has experienced a wave of rapid personnel growth before. According to U.S. regulatory documents, the number of Tesla employees will increase from about 100000 by the end of 2021 to more than 140000 by the end of 2023.
In this regard, Musk said that over the years, Tesla has developed rapidly and set up many factories around the world. At the same time, however, roles and job functions in some fields have also been duplicated. As companies prepare for the next stage of growth, it is extremely important to reduce costs and improve productivity.
"As part of this work, we conducted a thorough review of the organization and made a difficult decision to cut more than 10% of the workforce globally," Musk said in a memo to all employees. It is also reported that the layoff rate of some departments of Tesla may be close to 20%.
Behind the layoffs, Tesla is facing multiple challenges. High interest rates have weakened consumers' desire to buy expensive goods. Tesla has been slow to update old models, while Chinese competitors are introducing cheaper models. American consumers have given up driving more expensive electric vehicles in favor of hybrid vehicles, which has led many manufacturers to reconsider their electrification plans.
Wang Xianbin, senior director of the Gesch Automotive Research Institute, analyzed the reporters of the 21st Century Business Herald and said that on the whole, Tesla's delivery in the first quarter did not meet expectations, and there were signs of sluggish growth in China, the United States and Europe. At present, there are a lot of model benchmarking Model 3 and Model Y in the Chinese market. The competitiveness of Model 3 and Model Y, which have been on the market for many years, has declined. The new version has limited boosting effect, and consumers' attention has shifted. The European Union has also begun to slow down the pace of electrification, and subsidies have seen a relatively obvious correction. There is uncertainty in the future European policies.
In terms of data, the report released by Tesla this month shows that the delivery volume in the first quarter was far lower than Wall Street's expectations, with only 386810 vehicles, down nearly 9% year on year, the first quarterly delivery decline in nearly four years, with a month on month decline of more than 20%. Against the background that Tesla's major markets are generally facing huge challenges, in the first quarter of this year, Tesla's car production exceeded the delivery by 46561 vehicles.
In this regard, Zhang Xiang, a researcher of the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center of North China University of Technology (Analyst Jin Qilin) The 21st Century Business Herald reporter said that in the past, the supply of Tesla products exceeded the demand, and improving the production capacity was the main problem. However, the current environment has undergone tremendous changes, and the competition has become increasingly fierce. Tesla products were oversupplied, and costs need to be reduced.
Can we foster the next growth pole?
Under a series of shocks, as of April 15, Tesla's share price had dropped by 35% within the year, and its market value had shrunk to about $500 billion. After the rapid development period of the industry and the company, Tesla urgently needs to find a new growth pole.
In fact, in order to cope with the adverse market trend, the news of Tesla's layoff is not bad for the stock price. It is even good for the U.S. stock market in some cases, so the layoff has not had a great impact on the stock price. In contrast, the resignation of core executives seems to have a greater impact. Drew Baglino, senior vice president of Tesla Power Assembly and Energy Engineering, announced on the 15th that he would leave the company after 18 years of service, which is also the key reason why Tesla's share price fell 5.59%. Less than a year ago, Tesla CFO Zach Kirkhorn left.
Baglino's departure may exacerbate some investors' concerns about Musk's successor. Musk has been the CEO of Tesla since 2008. In addition, he also leads six other companies, so he cannot devote all his energy and time to Tesla. It is unclear whether the resignation of several Tesla executives is related to the company's predicament.
Michael Ashley Schulman, chief investment officer of Running Point Capital Advisors, believes that the resignation of these executives is "the biggest negative signal today", indicating that Tesla has encountered trouble in its development.
It should be noted that Tesla will announce its first quarter results next week, and investors will focus on such information as Mask's reasons for cost reduction, future strategy, product roadmap and overall vision. Dan Ives, a well-known Tesla analyst at Wedbush, believes that for Musk, the key to saving market confidence will be in the earnings call next week.
"After experiencing the difficulties in the past few months, Tesla urgently needs to explain the recent layoff action to the market to regain the confidence of investors." Ives said that if it cannot explain the current situation and appease the concerns of Wall Street, Tesla may lose the support of investors.
For Tesla's current situation, Ives described Musk as responding to a "Level 5 storm": global demand has been weak, and Tesla has had to cut costs. In addition, considering Baglio's participation in the development of Tesla Model 2, the loss of Baglio is "an absolute blow" to Tesla.
Wang Xianbin told reporters that considering that Tesla's delivery data will not be particularly good this year, and the pace of new product release is not so fast, layoffs can reduce costs and increase efficiency, and improve organizational efficiency. This year Tesla has introduced some stimulus policies in various forms. If the subsequent sales are not particularly good, Tesla may take some price reduction strategies to ensure sales.
There are many challenges at the moment. If we look to the future, fully autonomous cars will become the key to whether Tesla can obtain an overestimated value in the future. Automatic driving artificial intelligence Can it become a new growth pole in the future?
On April 5, Tesla CEO Mask posted on social media that Tesla would launch on August 8 Driverless taxi. Tesla said its next generation vehicle platform will include affordable cars and dedicated Driverless taxi. future Driverless Taxis may appear before affordable electric vehicles.
Zhang Xiang said to the reporter that the driverless taxi is a field with broad commercial prospects, and also a field that is easier to realize. If Tesla can take the lead in the field of driverless taxis and take the lead in achieving L5 level automatic driving at some time in the future, the pressure of Tesla will dissipate. Previously, Musk had skipped the ticket many times. When he could really achieve his goal was still a question mark. There were still many problems with automatic driving.
It still takes a long time for the technology to mature. Zhang Xiang said that since the automatic driving technology is not yet mature, the so-called driverless taxi released by Tesla on August 8 may not be very impressive, and may even jump the ticket again. At present, there is no perfect industry standard. In a sense, Tesla is using driverless taxis as a marketing tool. In fact, it is difficult to release fully automated vehicles with mature technology.
Looking forward to the future, Wang Xianbin told reporters that Tesla's next-generation models and driverless taxis have attracted much attention and are important trump cards, but they need time. In the short term, Tesla will have a vacuum period in its products, and it still needs to focus on the global promotion and operation of existing products such as Model 3 and Model Y.
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