Musk Promises $500 Million For Supercharger Network After Firing Spree

It’s never a boring day in Muskverse. The Tesla Supercharger saga just took another twist. After firing the entire charging team, Elon Musk announced that Tesla will spend a whopping $500 million on expanding the charging network this year alone.

The sudden cash injection raises eyebrows. When we look closer, though, we see that this is roughly the same amount Tesla spent in Q1 of this year while the Supercharger team was still in place. It seems that the attempt to calm the waves has created more questions than it has answered.

Supercharger Team Saga

Just last week, Musk took on the task of house cleaning. The entire Supercharger team, including the boss Rebecca Tinucci, was let go. According to numerous reports, Tucci refused to reduce the staff to Musk’s required level, and so her team paid the ultimate price.

How to Charge a Tesla Model 3 — Image Credit: The Bold Bureau/ Shutterstock.

The move sent shockwaves through Tesla, with other execs scrambling to meet Musk’s layoff demands. At the same time, Tesla’s charging partners were left in the dark, with many ongoing projects put on hold or entirely scrapped abruptly.

What’s Next For Supercharger Network

For the everyday EV driver, the news isn’t exactly rosy. While the $500 million is a substantial sum, Tesla spent that kind of money in the first three months of this year. Now, it has another $500 million to spend, but this time, it will be paid over the rest of this year. We have eight months left until Christmas, which brings the investment down to just under $190 million per quarter, or less than half of the previous budget.

With some of the new Supercharger locations scrapped and other projects put on hold, Tesla hopes to focus on maintaining the existing network. However, that won’t be enough to keep the waiting lines any shorter at the existing Superchargers. More Teslas sold mean longer waiting times, and with other brands now having access to the network, this can turn ugly.

We can only hope that a new team will be established soon, and even with a lower budget, the network will continue to grow. After all, the reliability and cross-country availability of the Superchargers helped Tesla become the company it is now. It’s hard to believe that Musk would have made such a move without having backup already in place.