Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Tesla Motors, UK
Tesla to lay off workers in UK
Click above for high-res gallery of Tesla Roadster v1.5
Ten people are scheduled to be let go from Tesla Motors UK at its Hethel facility in Norfolk. The UK facility is the starting point for Tesla Roadsters, which see their first light of day outside the Lotus factory where the guts are welded and bonded together from aluminum. In the interest of sounding a bit more palatable, the official reason for their departure is that they have been "made redundant." Note to automakers, we know what that means... just be honest. While ten people doesn't seem to be a big number, it actually represents a fifth of the total number of workers employed by Tesla Motors at that facility. For those who like to keep track of such things, that places the workforce at 40 persons, which, for those who aren't so good at math, is down from 50. The good news is that Tesla Roadster production is not expected to be affected.
Gallery: 2009 Tesla Roadster v1.5
[Source: Autocar]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Peter 6:59PM (11/03/2008)
"Made redundant" is a UK thing, not an automaker thing.
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stevefazek 7:28PM (11/03/2008)
I just cant help but compare Tesla to Eclipse aviation
Both new comers both talked about big plans.
One has gone under the other will soon
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Richard 1:01PM (11/04/2008)
Going under soon? Did you read about the $40 Million infusion just yesterday? Or are you just shooting your mouth off? I guess we should just consider you an expert because you mentioned another company that went down, huh?
stevefazek 6:27PM (11/04/2008)
I did and thats a drop in the market. The cost of developing a car is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Hey I love Tesla as i did love eclipse. Both are new comers ready to completely change their industries. The problem is its never as easy to do it.
Eclipse business model relied on them selling 1000 planes a year. Considering in a year no more than 4000 turbine planes are sold in a year.
An instant 25% market share is unlikely.
And by the way that turbine sales counts all civil. commercial and military.
Now look at the roadster how many have the sold? What is their development costs? From my figures they have around 200 million into this operation. They would need a high volume car i mean 40,000-60,000 units to live.
Remember this all the giant companies including ford, mercedes, GM, Boeing, Microsoft, google started in a garage. They had very low operating costs.
This company started big starting big= big expectations = greater chance of failing
joboutlets 6:20AM (1/14/2009)
I have a very close friend, who graduated from Harvard. Worked for ML for over 8 years, recently he’s been “right sized” too, despite of his outstanding performance and the increasing revenue he generated. OMG, now the banking industry is badly hurt, how long it would take for those financial background guys like him get back to the job market. Banking jobs are not there as much as before as easily seen on http://www.joboutlets.com and other job sites in the region
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