It's not a good time for Tesla, and especially for some of its employees. The company founded by Elon Musk has been embroiled in Takata's faulty airbag scandal in China, where it was forced to factory recall nearly 15.000 Model S vehicles built between February 4, 2014 and December 9, 2016. Takata meanwhile is failed, but it seems that even on electric cars Tesla had installed airbags that were dangerous for drivers. Tesla by the way has recently intensified its relations with China, where it has inaugurated the work of the Gigafactory in Shanghai, and in Beijing the patron of the group, Elon Musk, was received by the Chinese prime minister, Li Keqiang.
But that's not the only concern for the automaker. In a painful email sent to his employees, Elon Musk announced a redundancy plan which provides for a 7% cut in the workforce. Overall, around 3.000 employees should be made redundant, given that the current workforce of the American company is around 45.000 people. This cut comes, however, after a good year in terms of employment with an increase in headcount of around 30%.
At the same time, Tesla also communicated some news for its production system. The goal of this mini internal revolution is a reduction in costs to make Model 3 more competitive. In the email which can also be viewed on the company's blog, the patron highlights how 2018 was an extremely difficult year but also full of great successes. However, now, the company will have to overcome another difficult challenge that is, to make cars, batteries and products for the production of renewable energy economically competitive. Indeed, Musk highlights how his products are still too expensive for most people.
