Tesla told Austin workers on its Model Y and Cybertruck lines to stay home for the week of Memorial Day, three workers told Business Insider.

The break is unusually long, the workers said. Production lines were up and running during the same period last year, they said.

The electric vehicle maker notified employees earlier this week. The workers, who are paid hourly, were told they could either take paid time off or come in for cleaning and training but would not be working on the production line.

Tesla deliveries dropped 13% year over year during the first quarter.

  • havocpants@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    Yes, all that, but the effect of Elon completely alienating the people who wanted to buy Teslas can’t be understated. I don’t hate the cars at all, but my god I loathe Elon and would never give him money.

    • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Absolutely, if Elon had been a normal CEO, Tesla would probably still be riding on the reputation they had few years ago.
      What I’m saying is that it will be hard for Tesla to make a comeback, even if they somehow manage to restore the name.
      They are no longer a technology leader, and they aren’t leading on value either, which makes Tesla just one among many options.
      And it seems they can’t keep up with the competition anymore, now that the traditional auto makers have learned the basics of making a good EV. And China is so far ahead on batteries and Fast Charging it isn’t even funny.
      Both BYD and CATL have batteries that can charge 3 times faster than the fastest Tesla!

      In USA Tesla is protected by tariffs, So USA has lower competition, but in Europe and China, I don’t think Tesla has much of a future, (EU has 3 times as many BEV models to choose from than USA!) and even USA will be a a huge uphill struggle, because they have such poor brand recognition.
      I don’t think Musk can turn Tesla around, the claimed options to do that are RoboTaxi, and AI and robots. But Tesla is not even close to be leading in any of those fields. So Tesla will be a company with huge R&D costs, but little money coming in. Unless Musk can keep conning new investors of course.

      • turmacar@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        The little Ford EV hatchback they sell in Europe is a lot more attractive than a Tesla personally. I just wish we could get them in the US, but the CEOs have apparently decided by fiat (hah) that no small cars are desired.

          • turmacar@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            The Puma Gen-E is what I was thinking of, could’ve sworn it was a 2-door though. Must’ve confused it with something else.

            • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              That’s a cool car IMO, but personally we want something with better range.
              It is quite impressive in efficiency though 13.1 kWh/100 km. And it is decent for fast charging.

              • turmacar@lemmy.world
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                24 hours ago

                Why?

                Every vehicle doesn’t need to do everything. Otherwise we’d all buy turbocharged Hummers with a trailer for extra fuel. It’d be nice to have some middle ground between a smartcar that confined to surface streets and something you’d take a roadtrip in. A worst-case ~150-200 mile range is enough for a boatload of people to commute 50 miles and not have to worry. If you can plug it in overnight, even on just 120v, charging speed is a negligible concern.

                I think a lot of range anxiety is weird. A lot of gas cars from the 80s/90s/00s have ~300/400 mile range per tank, but that’s because you don’t want to go to a gas station every day. If you could just trickle in gas overnight they could’ve had much smaller tanks too.

    • StonerCowboy@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      The brand can recover if they remove Musk but I’ll never support it cause the Nazi will still get his cake from w.e cars get sold.

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