As of: February 14, 2024, 6:15 a.m
By: Fabian Hartmann
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Tesla is currently facing problems.
Sixt and SAP have already terminated their roles as suppliers to the electric car manufacturer.
Are layoffs now planned?
Austin - Although Tesla resumed production at its Gigafactory in Grünheide, Brandenburg, on Monday, there are currently a number of negative comments coming from the US car manufacturer's corporate sector.
The once rapidly increasing growth of CEO Elon Musk's company is currently slowing down, and Tesla is no longer the stock market darling on New York's Wall Street that it once was.
In addition, Tesla is currently having major problems selling cars to major customers and company car drivers, as the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
(FAZ) reports.
This has a particularly severe impact in Europe's most important car market, Germany - in 2023, of the 2.84 million new car registrations in Germany, commercially registered cars accounted for a full 67 percent.
And the US manufacturer actually sells most of its automobiles to business customers in this country.
But last year this business collapsed: The two Tesla mass models, the Model 3 (approx. 16,000 new registrations) and the SUV Model Y (approx. 46,000), only had a 41 percent share of company cars last year and are therefore far below that Average.
Sixt and SAP have already removed Tesla from their supplier list
In December, the international car rental company Sixt announced that it would no longer use Tesla as a supplier in Germany and subsequently decided to sell 20,000 of its Tesla models.
Last week, the software company SAP announced that it would remove Tesla from its supplier list.
“Tesla’s list prices fluctuate more than other manufacturers, which makes planning more difficult and poses a higher risk for us,” said fleet manager Steffen Krautwasser to the
Handelsblatt
.
An example of this is the immense price drops with which Tesla planned to increase sales figures last year.
This was precisely what became a problem for some former corporate customers: as a result of price reductions for new cars, used cars also immediately lost value.
Falling resale value and high repair costs are among the reasons for rejecting Tesla
As part of its annual report for 2023, Sixt reported special depreciation on its Tesla models averaging $12,250 per car,
FAZ
reported .
That's a total of $245 million.
As such, they accounted for 70 percent of Tesla's total annual loss.
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SAP cited fluctuating list prices and a falling resale value of the cars as reasons for canceling the collaboration with Tesla.
This also involved high maintenance and repair costs.
In addition, SAP is annoyed about delivery conditions.
For example, it is said that Tesla delivered company cars to the fleet customer shortly before the end of the quarter, the delivery of which was actually planned for later.
This means that an attempt could have been made at the last moment to achieve the desired sales targets.
This affected the processes at SAP.
“Companies that sometimes manage an inventory of 30,000 cars need processes that work,” says Axel Schäfer, managing director of the Federal Association for Corporate Mobility at
FAZ.
Tesla, however, is still just building up its corporate customer segment.
Apparently, this means there is a lack of contact persons for managers of company fleets.
Schäfer is also concerned that there are no large regional spare parts warehouses, as is common for other brands.
As a result, body parts are only built to order, which means delivery times could take up to a few months.
According to expert Dudenhöffer, Elon Musk and Tesla are overlooking important aspects in the automotive trade
Economist and car expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer believes Tesla is in a difficult situation due to Tesla CEO Elon Musk's corporate philosophy.
They want to implement technical progress as quickly as possible, but at the same time they are not prepared to invest in supposedly traditional areas of the automobile trade.
And according to Dudenhöffer, this also includes contacts for fleet managers, the supply of spare parts and sensitivity to customer requests.
Tesla Gigafactory in Grünheide © IMAGO/
Tesla may be preparing for massive layoffs
Today it was announced that the US electric car manufacturer may be planning large-scale layoffs as part of efforts to cut costs across the board.
According to a report by the
Bloomberg
news agency , Tesla management asked its managers which employees were crucial in which positions and which they considered critical.
Tesla had previously canceled the semi-annual performance reviews of some employees.
Although it is not yet official, the strategic positioning of employees indicates imminent layoffs at the company.
(Fabian Hartmann)