I understand the competitive advantage has changed with the NACS deal, but the last major Tesla brand advantage I as a lay-observer saw was their clearly superior charging network and connector. People seemed to unanimously agree their connector was better, that opening it up was good, and that Tesla charges are more reliable and more available than competitors'. Why you'd immolate that brand equity is beyond me.
The speculation that I heard was that Tesla saw a potential government enforcement of 1 type of connector. So they made the deals with other car makers and opened their connector so that their connector would be the open standard instead of something else. So yes they gave up their advantage, but there was a possibility that is was ending either way.
I don't know the rationale, but I do know that in spite of what tech sites and their bands of commenters would have you believe Musk makes mostly rational decisions, often to a fault. The fault in this case being that if he feels your role is not directly contributing to an optimal outcome for the company, your job will be in jeopardy.
My immediate thought was that he sees that Tesla's Supercharger advantage is not going to improve enough to justify the large team. And the experience for Tesla owners is still likely to improve over time, even if Tesla is not expanding at the same rate: even though gas cars still rule, EVs now have a significant foothold, and the rate of 3rd party charger installations will continue to accelerate.
He also said they will continue to expand existing locations and will continue with installs at a slower rate. So that means either he didn't fire everyone or he has replacements in mind.
That's just my guess though, and in addition to my guess likely being flawed, the hypothetical rationale could be flawed too.
What you said about government decisions could be important too, but it seems strange to make such a drastic decision based on potential government action, especially with an election coming up that could turn the tables.
They are not destroying superchargers. They are still there and even if they don't add a single new one for the next 5 years, it'll still be the largest and the best supercharging network in US. No need to be so melodramatic about it.
If you ask me it's a temporary cost cutting. When interest rates come down, car sales pick up and revenues pick up, they'll re-start the build out of the network.
I did not say they're destroying the chargers. You are nevertheless underselling the potential implications IMO. These chargers are finicky. People's primary complaint with Electrify America is how hit or miss they are in actually working. People have the same complaint about Tesla, but to a lesser degree. That combined with Tesla's wider presence have made people correctly laud the quality of the market. Expansion aside, these chargers will need to be maintained, and sacking the entire division doesn't leave me hopeful they will be.
Moreover, EVs are going to just keep growing in number. Every brand now has a pretty solid EV for sale. Keeping the same number of chargers isn't helping anyone.
It's their right, but my main point is that this just further convinces me Tesla isn't serious about keeping up with EVs. Pumping money into a useless truck, chasing a dozen other fanciful projects, abandoning their world class charger network. The future is -- every other manufacturer -- it would seem.
As EV sales grow the chargers not growing will lead to more and more dissatisfaction as people will be queuing for longer and longer to even start charging. In many places in California that's already the case today.
Opening the chargers up to other brands leads to an influx of more cars wanting to charge at locations that won't be growing anymore. Anyone can do the math to figure out what that'll do to the EV ecosystem.
Possibility is that Tesla won't get billions in US tax dollars to build out their network for free (and reap all profits), i.e. Elon's M.O. for all his companies. Hence the childish decision to throw the whole thing away then.
My guess is, it was too expensive. That was a huge team with a huge capex outlay and for what? They still had to slash prices to keep moving inventory.
