All posts tagged: Teslas

Tesla’s ‘Robotaxi’ expansion looks like another stock pump before earnings

Tesla’s ‘Robotaxi’ expansion looks like another stock pump before earnings

Published by skeptic

Tesla launched its “Robotaxi” service in Dallas and Houston yesterday — expanding to two new cities for the first time since Austin. There’s just one problem: there are virtually no cars available. Data from Robotaxi Tracker shows that Tesla’s new Houston and Dallas deployments have had 0% to 2% availability over the past 24 hours, with only brief spikes to around 50% during a narrow morning window before dropping back to zero. It looks like Tesla deployed a car or two in each city and called it a launch. The pre-earnings pattern If this sounds familiar, it should. In January, Tesla announced it had launched “unsupervised” Robotaxi rides in Austin — just days before its Q4 2025 earnings call. The stock jumped 4% on the news. But as we reported at the time, Tesla’s ‘unsupervised’ Robotaxis vanished a week after that pre-earnings announcement. Now Tesla is running the same playbook. Q1 2026 earnings are on Wednesday, April 22 — three days from now — and the company suddenly has a “Robotaxi is now rolling out …

Podcast: Tesla’s cheaper EV model comes and goes, FSD v15, Rivian R2 EPA numbers, and more

Podcast: Tesla’s cheaper EV model comes and goes, FSD v15, Rivian R2 EPA numbers, and more

Published by skeptic

In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Tesla’s cheaper EV model coming and going in the same week, FSD v15, Rivian R2 EPA numbers, and more. The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel. As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in. After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps: Advertisement – scroll for more content We now have a Patreon if you want to help us avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming. Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast: Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after …

Xiaomi poaches Tesla’s delivery operations manager in Europe ahead of 2027 launch

Xiaomi poaches Tesla’s delivery operations manager in Europe ahead of 2027 launch

Published by skeptic

Xiaomi has hired Dieter Lorenz, Tesla’s Senior Manager of Delivery Operations for Central Europe, as its new Head of Delivery & Logistics Europe. The move signals that Xiaomi is aggressively building an operations infrastructure on the ground in Europe well ahead of its confirmed 2027 market entry. Lorenz isn’t the only Tesla operations employee making the jump, either. At least one other former Tesla operations staffer in Europe has also landed at Xiaomi, suggesting a deliberate recruitment push targeting Tesla’s European logistics expertise. From Tesla lifer to Xiaomi’s European logistics lead Lorenz spent over six years at Tesla in Germany, rising through a series of increasingly senior operations roles. He started as an Operations Supervisor in early 2020, moved up to Operations Manager for Germany, then expanded his scope to cover Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic, then all of Central Europe. By September 2024, he held the title of Senior Manager of Delivery Operations for Central Europe — one of Tesla’s most important regional logistics roles. In a LinkedIn post announcing his departure, Lorenz …

Tesla’s Texas factory workforce reportedly shrunk 22% in 2025

Tesla’s Texas factory workforce reportedly shrunk 22% in 2025

Published by skeptic

The total workforce at Tesla’s factory outside Austin, Texas shrunk dramatically last year as the company suffered its second straight year of declining sales, according to a compliance report spotted by Austin American-Statesman. Tesla went from employing 21,191 people at the factory in 2024 to 16,506 workers in 2025, a drop of 22%. That’s despite the company’s global workforce growing from 125,665 employees in 2024 to 134,785 employees in 2025, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It’s not clear which teams were most affected by Tesla scaling back its workforce at the plant. But the company has become one of the largest employers in the Austin area since it opened the factory in 2022. CEO Elon Musk also relocated Tesla’s headquarters to the factory in 2021 before it opened. The company has invested more than $6.3 billion in the facility to date, according to the new report. Source link

Xiaomi poaches Tesla’s delivery operations manager in Europe ahead of 2027 launch

Xiaomi hires Tesla’s former head of sales in China to lead its auto retail push

Published by skeptic

Xiaomi has recruited Kong Yanshuang, formerly Tesla’s General Manager for the China region, to take charge of its growing automotive sales operations. The hire signals a significant professionalization of Xiaomi’s EV retail strategy as the company targets 550,000 deliveries in 2026. Kong joined Xiaomi in early March and is currently in a work handover phase, replacing Li Xiaorui, the former director of Xiaomi’s automotive division, according to a report from Jiemian News. Kong’s Tesla career Kong Yanshuang was a core executive in Tesla’s China sales organization for several years. She initially served as General Manager of Tesla’s South China region, where she oversaw the expansion of Tesla’s retail and service presence across cities like Guangzhou and Shenzhen, as well as into lower-tier markets — a critical part of Tesla’s strategy to grow sales in China. She later rose to the role of China Regional General Manager, a position she held during 2022-2023, during which she frequently served as a spokesperson for Tesla China at media briefings covering Shanghai Gigafactory milestones and new model launches. In …

Tesla’s head of customer experience leaves for Coinbase as talent exodus grows

Tesla’s head of customer experience leaves for Coinbase as talent exodus grows

Published by skeptic

Tesla (TSLA) has lost another senior leader as Jose del Corral, the automaker’s head of product for customer experience, announced today that he is leaving after almost eight years to join Coinbase. Del Corral’s departure lands on the same day as yet another Cybercab production leader’s exit, extending a talent drain that has now stripped Tesla of institutional knowledge across virtually every critical function of the business. Del Corral joins Coinbase to lead customer experience Del Corral announced his move on X, writing that he will lead customer experience at the crypto exchange. He called Coinbase one of “very few companies” with the chance to “help rebuild the financial system from the ground up.” During his nearly eight years at Tesla, del Corral rose from senior manager of digital experience to head of product for the automaker’s entire customer experience operation. His scope covered the digital touchpoints — app, web, and in-store — that Tesla relies on more heavily than any traditional automaker because it sells directly to consumers without a dealer network. Advertisement – …

EV deals, Volvo EX30 update, and Tesla’s latest Robotaxi crash

EV deals, Volvo EX30 update, and Tesla’s latest Robotaxi crash

Published by skeptic

On today’s surprisingly affordable episode of Quick Charge we respond to America’s new, $770/mo. average car payment buy rounding up some affordable EV lease deals at less than HALF the new normal. Plus, we take a look at some new entry-level EVs from Kia and BMW, talk about the future of Volvo’s compact electric cars, and ask questions about Tesla’s lone driverless Cybercab and the company’s latest self-driving Robotaxi crash in Austin. Source Links Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players. New episodes of Quick Charge are (allegedly) recorded several times per week, most weeks. We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage podcast series. Advertisement – scroll for more content Got news? Let us know!Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show. If you’re considering going …

Tesla’s Terafab chip fab ambitions ignore its total lack of semiconductor experience

Tesla’s Terafab chip fab ambitions ignore its total lack of semiconductor experience

Published by skeptic

Elon Musk announced on Saturday that Tesla’s “Terafab Project”, a plan to build what he envisions as the world’s largest semiconductor fabrication plant, will launch within seven days. The problem is that Tesla has absolutely zero experience manufacturing semiconductors, and its track record in the closest comparable venture, building its own battery cells, should give anyone pause. From battery cells to chips: Tesla’s manufacturing track record Tesla’s decision to get into chip manufacturing echoes a similar strategic move from six years ago, when the company unveiled its 4680 battery cell at Battery Day in September 2020. Back then, Musk made bold promises: Tesla would build 100 GWh of in-house cell production capacity by 2022, cut battery costs by 56%, and use the savings to deliver a $25,000 electric vehicle. None of that happened on schedule. The 100 GWh target for 2022 was missed by a wide margin. By early 2025, Tesla’s actual 4680 production was estimated at roughly 20 GWh per year — five years after the announcement and still a fraction of the original …

Podcast: Tesla’s cheaper EV model comes and goes, FSD v15, Rivian R2 EPA numbers, and more

Podcast: Rivian R2, Lucid counter attack, and Tesla’s ‘Digital Optimus’

Published by skeptic

In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Rivian R2, Lucid’s counterattack, and Tesla’s ‘Digital Optimus’. The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel. As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in. After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps: Advertisement – scroll for more content We now have a Patreon if you want to help us avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming. Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast: Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET: FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. …

Minnesota State Employee Who Vandalized Teslas Last Year ‘Punished’ With 1-Day Suspension

Minnesota State Employee Who Vandalized Teslas Last Year ‘Punished’ With 1-Day Suspension

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness, A Minnesota state employee who vandalized six Tesla vehicles last year, causing up to $21,000 in damage, received no jailtime and just a single-day suspension from his job, state records show. Dylan Adams, an employee with the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS), was caught on Tesla security cameras keying the vehicles in March and early April 2025, amid a rash of anti-Tesla vandalism and firebomb attacks throughout the nation. The anti-Tesla attacks coincided with nationwide “Tesla Takedown” demonstrations organized by ActBlue-funded groups to agitate against Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). As the Fiscal Policy Analyst and Compliance Lead on DHS’s Program Integrity Team, Adams is reportedly responsible for preventing  waste, fraud and abuse in public benefit programs in a state that has recently seen an estimated $300 million in child nutrition funds and $9 billion in Medicaid funds lost to waste, fraud, and abuse. According to a report on the Minnesota DHS investigation, Adams indicated that he was “concerned” about Musk making a “Nazi …