EXCLUSIVE: Tesla Supercharger roll-out in Australia stopped as job losses at Tesla end new development

Massive news in the world of Electric Vehicles this week with Tesla laying off around 500 staff including what appears to be their entire Supercharger team, now EFTM can reveal this has had immediate impact in Australia with planned sites for new Superchargers now shelved.

Within the motoring and EV community it is widely accepted that the one single best thing that the “EV revolution” has going for it is the Tesla Supercharger network.

Tesla built a large network fast, and early in their company life-cycle, bringing the ability to charge, fast, on major highways to the world, including a vast network in Australia at the same time as ramping up both production and sales of their Electric Vehicles.

Essentially, the company put the cart before the horse, with a “build it and they will come” mentality. And they came, Tesla vehicles are the most popular in Australia with many owners claiming the vast Supercharger network as a selling point.

Today, EFTM can reveal that at least one planned location, where work was set to commence within months will not go ahead, and given the messaging, it seems clear that will likely flow along to many if not all others.

This business – located in regional Victoria, who’s name we are keeping private at their request, has a large carpark which was due to include a four-bay Tesla Supercharger.

In an email sighted by EFTM, a legal representative for the business advised the General Manager that “I have just received a voicemail from (Name redacted at Staff request) at Tesla advising that the Tesla Supercharger team has been dissolved globally and there will be no more supercharger sites moving forward.

This article is probably the best I could find to summarise what has happened

I’ve just spoken to (Tesla staff member) and he has expressed his disappointment and was certainly caught by surprise – as were the rest of the Tesla Supercharging teams. He also said he expects his email to be deactivated within the next 24 hours.

Happy to chat if you have any queries but safe to say this matter probably won’t be going any further.“

From what we can ascertain, the staff member they are referring to works in the Global Supercharger planning team in Austin Texas for Tesla.

EFTM has also seen the Licence agreement for the Supercharger, which was for a five year period with the option for Tesla to extend twice by five years. That’s a fifteen year plan for a Supercharger location – out the window.

Looks like these four bays, plus the fifth that was going to be used by the Control Cabinets and Switchboard will still be available to all car-owning patrons for years to come.

While we don’t know the cost structure of the Tesla Supercharger arm of Tesla, nor how profitable or loss making it is, the decision to scrap the team, and end or dramatically slow as Elon claims the roll-out of the network is mind boggling given globally they have announced they will slowly open their charging network to non-Tesla’s.

That alone will of course bring more demand, but bring new and higher revenues per use as non Tesla’s are charged a higher rate than Tesla’s for the charging.

Additionally, in North America, other car brands have agreed to change their default charging port to that of the Teslas to make it the North American Standard. This was to incentivise the use of the Tesla network and capitalise on it’s scale and growth.

It’s about as smart as using the Inches and Yards to measure while the rest of the world sticks with the real stuff like meters and centimetres in that every other place uses the Standard Type 2 charging.

Look, this is a disaster, and a problem for the EV industry.

Electric Cars need a charging network, and what we have today is barely adequate for the cars on the road today. It has to grow, and grow fast.

It needs a visionary to build something massive with zero return on investment for 10 to 15 years, but in time, trust me, it will pay off.

Seems Elon’s Board and Investors don’t see that.

EFTM reached out to Tesla’s Australian representatives for clarification and comment. We are yet to get a reply.