Today we are going to talk about Tesla's layoff plan.
Tesla, which has been founded for 21 years, has experienced many dangers of escaping death, and has also suffered from many controversies such as "cutting leeks" and "vehicle loss of control", but it is still recognized by Volkswagen as a leading electric vehicle company.
At the same time, Tesla can also be regarded as a "double winning general" in the field of public opinion and sales.
But this time, it was the "winning general" Tesla's largest layoff. If you calculate the total number of employees disclosed by Tesla at the end 140473 of last year, 10% will lay off more than 14,000 people!
In this regard, many people may be a little confused: How much of a dilemma did Tesla encounter to be so cruel to its own employees?
In fact, not only Tesla, but also the "wave of layoffs" in the automobile circle actually blew up as early as last year.
Stellantis Group laid off more than 47,700 employees, Volkswagen's software company CARIAD laid off 2,000 employees, and parts supply giants such as Continental, Bosch, and ZF have also announced layoff plans, with up to 12,000 people to be fired......
So, when the giants of the automotive industry choose to lay off employees to survive, does it mean that the winter of the industry has arrived, and how should we respond?
Hello everyone, I am the president of the Electric Vehicle Corporation. Today, we're going to talk about a somewhat sensitive topic - layoffs, and see if Tesla is the first bird to fly when the gun goes off, or the hunter with the gun.
01. Behind the "big layoffs" is the curse of reducing costs and increasing efficiency
More than 700 years ago, in the land of the Song Dynasty, there were many wealthy landlords who planted a large number of cash crops such as tea, citrus, sugar, and flowers. Their tea plantations and orange orchards employ a large number of helpers when it is time to harvest and sow seeds.
These hired "temporary workers" can not only eat and live in the master's house, but also take a certain amount of rice, grain and silver as compensation.
In prosperous years, a large tea plantation even had to hire thousands of people to work, and even paid a "fixed fee" in advance to lock in labor, which also formed an early "labor contract".
As for the hired poor peasants, as long as it is a good year, in fact, it is the same for whoever they work. The only thing that can affect them is the terrible famine.
Once the production is reduced due to floods or dry weather, the first thing the landlords who have no surplus to do is to cut the wages of the helpers and even lay off the workers.
As the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun, and now, as long as the enterprise encounters any problems, the simplest and rude way is also to "reduce costs and increase efficiency" - less expenses, profits will not come up!
Ford has developed an "assembly line" production model by reducing costs and increasing efficiency; Toyota has developed "lean production" by reducing costs and increasing efficiency, which has affected most of the world's manufacturing enterprises; and the essence of modular production, which is the most famous among car companies, is also to reduce costs and increase efficiency.
These four words are used in good years to "rise step by step", and in famine years to be "life-saving medicine".
But when it becomes a lifesaver for enterprises, it often means the hardship of an individual, the sadness of a family, and even the turmoil of an industry.
Tesla tore open the scars of layoffs with the status of a leading enterprise, and it also made everyone suddenly realize that the "famine year" in the automobile circle and even the automobile supply chain has already arrived, and even caused many contradictions.
Stellantis has been heavily criticized by Italian Prime Minister Meloni for wanting to shift the production of small electric vehicles from EU member states (France, Italy) to lower-cost Morocco and Serbia due to cost concerns.
After all, Stellantis is the only car company in Italy, how can the pillar go?
As a result, thousands of Italian employees took part in strike action to save their jobs, and about 12,000 people, including recognized and local politicians and citizens, gathered in Turin to demand job security and a guarantee for the future of other factories in the country.
But at least in North America, nearly 400 Stellantis employees are leaving.
The upstream of car companies, the parts supply chain, has already entered the "famine mode".
Bosch, the world's largest auto parts supplier, has announced that it will lay off 1,200 jobs by the end of 2026, Valeo plans to cut 1,150 jobs worldwide, and ZF may need to cut up to 12,000 jobs. Even Germany's established companies, Schaeffler and Continental have issued warnings of layoffs.
On February 20, French auto parts supplier Forvia directly issued a notice that it plans to cut costs and eliminate 10,000 jobs in the next five years, with an impact of 13%.
And this distressing disaster is not only in the automotive industry, but also in the well-known and prosperous technology companies in the United States, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, ......
It is reported that 144 technology companies in the United States have laid off a total of more than 35,000 employees, not counting Tesla's 14,000 people (it can only be said that they understand statistics).
Compared with the war of digging into the wall at a high price and doubling the salary to grab talents, it seems that today's layoffs are like a cold winter after prosperity, withered leaves and dust.
To understand the "famine years", we must first answer a crucial question - who replaced them?
02. Automation and AI grab jobs, or are the times changing?
Let's go back to Tesla's model, and Musk's answer is this: It is reported that this layoff does not apply to any employees who actually produce cars, battery packs, or install solar products.
In other words, this fifth and largest layoff may not be aimed at the "front-line employees" on the production line, the core battery department, and the front-line assembly employees.
Then the direction is basically clear, that is basically the "middle and upstream" management, functional departments, as well as major R&D, sales, brand promotion (ah no, Tesla does not have a public relations department) in the positions that cannot directly create value.
Echoing this, in the past two days, the news of the resignation of two Tesla executives has been exposed.
One is Drew Baglino, Tesla's senior vice president of powertrain and energy, and the other is Rohan Patel, Tesla's vice president of public policy.
This basically confirms some directional speculations, and the core law of Tesla's "broken arm" is two words - substitution and transfer.
Substitution is to use new technologies and new methods to reduce costs and increase efficiency.
Musk's autobiography once mentioned that at the beginning of SpaceX's business, Musk would approve a few thousand dollars to replace the office with a beautiful set of flooring, and refused to approve the purchase of better quality and more expensive parts.
The reason is very simple, if "we all use the price of parts production, then we can dissolve now", after all, only by thinking of effective alternatives and achieving real cost reduction, can we survive.
And Tesla has been doing a very extreme job in this matter, and has a very Musk programmatic policy, that is, full automation.
On the day of the layoff news on April 15, some German media announced that Tesla would achieve a significant reduction in costs through a new production process called "unboxing".
This process enables factories with "no assembly lines", which means that the number of employees can be drastically reduced and the degree of automation can be increased. It can not only reduce labor costs, but also be more efficient and fast.
As we all know, industrial robots have long been shining on the production lines of major car companies and are used to replace manpower. The humanoid robot that Tesla is developing is also aimed at achieving a higher level of "automated substitution".
Indeed, more and more jobs are being replaced by machines and even AI. Jobs that rely heavily on "human intelligence" such as drawing, design, and even copywriting, editing, and programming can all be created more efficiently using AI.
For a radical technology company like Tesla, replacing human labor with automation and AI is obviously a matter of course.
Even many people can see that Musk not only wants to replace people with machines, but also wants to become the "hunter" who makes machines and artificial intelligence.
In contrast, the second thing Tesla does, the transfer, is much better understood. That is, where the cost of "manpower and material resources" is low, the factory will be built.
To a certain extent, Tesla and China's electric vehicle industry chain are mutually successful, the former brings orders, the latter sets prices, and there is no "subordinate relationship" of who dominates whom.
Therefore, when Tesla plays such a set of combination cards that have been replaced by automated AI in the front and want to transfer at a lower cost, large-scale layoffs may be inevitable.
03. Transfer and substitution are not necessarily a bad thing
When new energy vehicles were just emerging, I told such a story to my commune friends.
On the night of April 24, 1907, the Manhattan area of the United States experienced a "darkest hour" because all the lights on the streets were not lit.
The reason may be outrageous, that is, in the United States at that time, a group of lampmen were responsible for lighting every lamp before nightfall, using ladders and torches that they carried with them. However, electric lights appeared.
All it takes is a child to flip the switch, and the lights in the whole city can shine together.
All the lamp bearers will be unemployed.
Along with the lampmen, there were the horsemen who resisted the trains and railways, and the wired telephone operators...... The giant wheel of the times has been crushed and passed, and the interests of a large number of people will indeed be harmed.
The same is true of Tesla's layoffs, as are the layoffs of European giants.
But unlike before, this round is not just the "weak" who have no technical ability, but the "broken arm" that has been cut off in the choice of enterprise direction.
Perhaps because the scientific research direction of the enterprise has shifted, from the research and development of engines to the intelligent cockpit, then the people who developed engines in the past can only be abandoned, but this does not mean that they do not have value and ability.
From the perspective of economics, we can see that such a group of technical talents who have been released into society will find a new direction suitable for themselves under the pressure of survival.
Of course, some people will find this assumption a little optimistic and a little cruel. But the objective fact is that in the process of the industry maturing, it is bound to go through such a painful period.
Some people have declined in their quality of life, some countries have fallen in economic output because of this, some people have risen by taking advantage of the situation, and some countries have advanced by leaps and bounds, and they have finally become the "lucky ones" under the tide of the times by virtue of years of accumulation.
But in essence, we should ultimately focus on more than just the immediate benefits, as well as the hidden benefits.
In the past two days, I saw such an interesting piece of content when I was scrolling through Weibo.
Perhaps, there were lamp drivers who became vagrants back then, but there were also many lamp drivers who went on to work in lamp factories, power plants, and even electric light salesmen. And the lampposts erected one by one also let countless people enjoy the free light.
Perhaps, in those days, there were countless small families who relied on male farmers and women to weave broken into the cotton cloth dumped in Britain at low prices, but this also allowed more factories to appear on this ancient land, and let countless people who were once unclothed and coarse linen clothes wear a cheap and soft cotton cloth and a thick and warm cotton jacket.
And a "concubine smile" that the emperor's favorite concubine could only enjoy back then has long since flown into the homes of ordinary people.
The ups and downs of economic development, the ebb and flow of the tide are inevitable.
Therefore, it may not be surprising how far Tesla's wave of layoffs will be transmitted and how many supply chain companies will be affected, and we should even be happy.
Because when the gun goes off, the birds that can be frightened are lucky.