Disruption in the Electric Vehicle Industry: Tesla’s Supercharger Advances and the Loss of Target Charging Points at Hotel Complexes

It is widely accepted that electric vehicle charging infrastructure should be built on a standard that is replicable by the other networks, one that they can match in size and reliability. According to BloombergNEF, Tesla accounts for 74 percent of all fast chargers in North America.

The documents were filed just a few weeks before, and mentioned the Supercharger advances. In the document, the company said it planned to increase its charging infrastructure teams in order to expand the network to support EVs from other manufacturers. Tesla had also accepted $17 million in federal EV charging grants before gutting the Supercharger team.

It’s “unheard-of behavior,” Gordon says, “more compatible with an out-of-money startup than the most valuable publicly traded car company in the world.” Even if some new version of the Tesla team were to reach out to finalize the deal, “we wouldn’t do business with them, because the premise for a contract is reliability.”

Hundreds of employees in the electric vehicle policy and charging units were laid off yesterday, in a move that shocked the electric vehicle industry because the employees are known to be some of the best in the business.

Projects to installTesla’s slower Level 2 destination chargers at apartment complexes have been affected. A condo owner named Don Burke wrote on X that his building had been in the middle of installing four chargers when the project stopped. There is no sign of anyone left at the company that can help, Burke said, and his emails have bounced back.

It is not known if a project that involves installing 20,000 charging points at hotels will be affected. The hotel chain did not respond to the request for comment.

The availability of CCS- to-NACS adapters which are supposed to be sent to owners of Ford, Rivian, and GM electric vehicles this year is now less likely due to the cuts by Tesla. Ford sent an email to some mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning owners that said their fast-charging accessory was delayed due to supply constraints. Some have moved from May to June, others as late as September.

Tinucci oversaw the design and construction of the Supercharger locations, led the project to create a Magic Dock-enabled Supercharger, and worked to make the Supercharger available to other manufacturers.

Tinucci met with Musk to express her concerns about the layoffs according to a former employee who spoke to The Washington Post. Now with Tinucci out, along with most of the Supercharger team, Tesla’s big lead is at risk.