Tesla’s Supercharger pilot program is expanding in Europe, as the UK, Spain, Sweden, Belgium and Austria have now been added to the list of countries where owners of non-Tesla EVs are allowed to use the company’s extensive charging network.

If you reside in one of the above-mentioned pilot countries and own an electric vehicle, you can find the open stations via the Tesla application. The app will allow you to monitor Supercharging for your vehicle and will show the electricity rates, but be aware that additional fees might apply for non-Tesla vehicles that use the network.

German residents who own EVs are also allowed to use Tesla’s open charginf hubs, albeit not domestically. They can take advantage of Tesla’s program when they travel to a country that has open Superchargers.

Previously, the Supercharger pilot included only select stations in France, Norway, and the Netherlands.

Tesla’s initiative to expand the program and open the Supercharger stations to additional European countries was announced in November 2021. The network, which includes over 30,000 Superchargers worldwide, is available to additional countries as of yesterday, May 18.

“It’s always been our ambition to open the Supercharger network to Non-Tesla EVs, and by doing so, encourage more drivers to go electric,” Tesla states on its website. “Our goal is to learn and iterate quickly, while continuing to aggressively expand the network, so we can eventually welcome both Tesla and Non-Tesla drivers at every Supercharger worldwide.”

For non-Tesla EV drivers who want to use the Supercharger network, here are the steps you need to follow: download the Tesla app for your operating system, create a Tesla Account, select the “Charge Your Non-Tesla” option and choose your Supercharger site. You’ll be prompted to add a payment method, after which you can plug in your car and select “Start Charging.” Tesla owners who want to charge their non-Tesla EVs don’t have to create a new account; they can use the existing one and just select “Charge Your Non-Tesla.”

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro arrives to a resort hotel where he is expected to meet with Elon Musk in Porto Feliz, Brazil on Friday.

There’s a lot of scandals hitting Tesla CEO Elon Musk all at once, but at least he knows he has a friend in Brazil’s deforester-in-chief Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing demagogue who similarly to Musk, has a very hard time taking any sort of public criticism, and has tried using the power of his office to make sure his conspiracies don’t get deplatformed.

Musk’s trip down south was reportedly meant to include talks about internet connectivity within the country alongside concerns of rapid deforestation. The Brazilian Amazon has seen a 15-year high under the three-year Brazilian president, which has scientists concerned it could lead to a total ecological collapse.

While making vague and unconvincing overtures to preserving the Amazon, Bolsonaro reportedly lauded the tech billionaire for his Twitter stance. The Brazilian president told the SpaceX CEO that his planned takeover of Twitter is “a breath of hope,” adding “Freedom is the cement for the future.” Musk has repeatedly said he doesn’t agree with Twitter account perma-bans, and wants to effectively open up the platform for anybody and everybody to post what they want. The billionaire has proposed incredibly vague ideas for which tweets could require content moderation, including anything that is “illegal or otherwise just destructive to the world,” or just “wrong or bad.”

Bolsonaro, an ultra-right and violent figure who has defended the 20-year military dictatorship of his country that ended nearly 40 years ago, has claimed that companies like Twitter are “left-wing” and are silencing people like him. He has used those platforms to attack the Brazilian electoral system much in the same way former President Donald Trump did for the 2020 election. After Trump was banned, Bolsonaro told his supporters to avoid much of current social media.
Musk is apparently seeking praise from wherever he can get it. He is currently embroiled in scandal after Insider reported Thursday about a SpaceX flight attendant who was allegedly sexually harassed by Musk, and that she was then paid $250,000 for her silence.

Alongside the sexual harassment accusation, Musk is being taken to task in a new FX and New York Times documentary that examines how the billionaire has responded to crashes involving his Tesla cars autopilot feature. Reporters say that Musk pressured lawmakers into curbing investigations into those crashes.

Other than for his Twitter stance, it’s no wonder that Bolsonaro is rolling out the red carpet for the world’s richest man. The president is five months out from a tense election this October, and Bloomberg reported Friday that Musk is a celebrity among Bolsonaro’s right-wing base. Musk himself proclaimed himself for the Republicans in a tweet Thursday afternoon.

Trying to get away from this accusation, Musk would apparently rather talk about his lingering plans for self-driving cars with the Brazilian strongman, despite the new documentary making the rounds. Of course, Musk has long promised completely autonomous vehicles, so it’s not like this is anything revelatory.

Tesla monitored its employees on Facebook with help of PR firm during 2017 union push

Thu, Jun 2 2022

In 2017 and 2018, as some workers sought to form a union at the Tesla factory in Fremont, California, Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company was paying a consultancy, MWW PR, to monitor employees in a Facebook group and more broadly on social media, according to invoices and other documents reviewed by CNBC.

Two things that MWW PR watched closely were discussions alleging unfair labor practices at Tesla, and about a sexual harassment lawsuit, according to the documents describing their work.

While the records confirming Tesla’s surveillance of employees online are years old, they hold new relevance for observers seeking greater understanding of CEO Elon Musk’s priorities where social media is concerned.

Musk recently struck a $44 billion agreement to buy Twitter, the social network he has relied on for years to promote his companies and mock or criticize perceived enemies, including short-sellers, whistleblowers, the UAW, journalists, and elected officials in the Democratic party. He is expected to become interim CEO of Twitter if the deal is completed.

The records show that Tesla paid MWW PR to monitor a Tesla employee Facebook group, monitor Facebook more broadly for commentary on organizing efforts, and to conduct research specifically on organizers, going on to develop labor communication plans, media lists, and pitches based on their reconnaissance.

A global communications director for Tesla during the time, Dave Arnold, had ties to the PR and consulting firm the automaker hired to do this work. He was employed at MWW for about 4 years from 2011 through 2015 as a vice president, following a stint as as a communications director for former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) according to a press release from MWW announcing his hire.

Tesla and Elon Musk have clashed with union proponents for years. In 2017, Tesla fired a union activist named Richard Ortiz and in 2018, Musk tweeted a comment found to have violated federal labor laws. The National Labor Relations Board ordered Tesla to reinstate Ortiz and to have Musk delete his tweet, which they said threatened workers’ compensation. Tesla has appealed the administrative court’s ruling and his tweet remains.

Musk has criticized many Democratic elected officials including President Joe Biden for their pro-union views. He recently said he plans to vote Republican in upcoming elections because “the Democratic Party is overly controlled by the unions” and class-action lawyers. Tesla’s factories in Texas and California have never held union elections.


[ . . . ]


Jennifer M. Grygiel, a Syracuse University associate professor whose research focuses on propaganda and social media, told CNBC companies should refrain from any action that interferes with worker’s rights, specifically their rights to discuss, form or join a union.

“Any organization can engage in ‘social listening,’ using publicly available social media data to gain insights for product development, or to understand voters, public and employee sentiment and more,” Grygiel said. “But there are laws in the US that protect the rights of people to organize. If you’re a PR firm, or a manager who has to infiltrate a semi-private group? That’s dishonest. And I doubt Tesla would send a PR firm to figure out how to support workers involved in organizing.”


[ . . . ]

BERLIN — Elon Musk’s demand that Tesla staff stop "phoning it in" and get back to the office got short shrift from Germany’s largest trade union on Thursday.

The Tesla chief executive waded into the future of work debate by telling staff at the electric carmaker that they must return to the office for at least 40 hours a week or leave the company, according to an email seen by Reuters.

The IG Metall union in the German state of Brandenburg Sachsen, where Tesla's plant is located, said it would support any employee who opposed Musk’s ultimatum. Tesla employs around 4,000 people in Germany and plans to expand the workforce to 12,000.

"Whoever does not agree with such one-sided demands and wants to stand against them has the power of unions behind them in Germany, as per law," Birgit Dietze, the district leader for IG Metall in Brandenburg Sachsen, said.

Employees at Tesla's plant in Gruenheide, Germany, elected 19 people to its first workers' council in February, setting the plant apart from others run by the carmaker in the United States and elsewhere without union representation, which Musk has fiercely resisted.

Some of the workers are part of IG Metall which represents workers across automotive companies and other industrial sectors.

In Germany there are currently no laws enshrining a right to work from home but the labor ministry is working on policies that would increase flexibility for workers. Many large employers, including automakers, have already embraced hybrid working models in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic which forced companies to send staff home to work.

"We have a fundamentally different view on creating an attractive working environment, and stand for empowerment and personal responsibility in our teams to balance the ratio of mobile and in-person work," said Gunnar Kilian, Volkswagen board member responsible for human resources.

Luxury carmakers BMW and Mercedes-Benz echoed that view when asked about Musk's ultimatum.

"Hybrid working is the working model of the future ... different forms are possible, from complete presence to predominantly remote working," a Mercedes-Benz spokesperson said.

Musk, who has helped shift the traditional car sector to an all-electric future making himself the world’s richest man in the process, had blunt words for companies that didn’t require staff to be back in the office full-time.

"There are of course companies that don't require this, but when was the last time they shipped a great new product? It's been a while," Musk wrote in the email.

When the email messages from Elon Musk about remote work leaked, some analysts saw that as a veiled attempt to cut jobs at Tesla. Reuters discovered that this is not so veiled anymore: it read an email message from Musk in which he ordered Tesla to stop hiring new people. The reason is a “super bad” feeling about the economy.
16 photos

Besides not hiring anyone else, Musk also wants to cut Tesla’s workforce by 10%. According to Reuters, the company employed 100,000 people by the end of 2021. That means that the Tesla CEO plans to fire 10,000 workers, which is quite weird given everything Tesla did recently and also what the company states about sales.

To start with, Tesla opened two new factories very recently: one in Grünheide, Germany, and one in Austin, Texas. Putting them in full operation will demand hiring a lot more people, something that Tesla was having trouble with, especially in Germany. The company pays lower wages than its competitors. Tesla disputes that by stating it offers stock options that make its rates attractive. Many employees complain that they are fired before being entitled to receive these share bonuses.

Another issue relates to the alleged demand Tesla has. The company often states that it will only be able to deliver some vehicles months from now. Some derivatives – the ones already in production, mind you – will only be delivered by 2023 if they are ordered right now. That wait would be shorter for vehicles ordered with FSD, a $12,000 beta driving aid that Tesla decides if you can use or not. If demand is as high as the EV maker says it is, it would need to hire more people, not fire those who already work for it.

Summing up, either Tesla does not have so much demand and needs to cut its production capacity, or it just wants to restrict the offer and raise prices, which does not make sense with two new factories ready to expand the number of cars Tesla currently sells.

At least one person agreed to talk to Reuters about the remote work email from Musk as a strategy to reduce Tesla’s workforce: Jason Stomel, founder of tech talent agency Cadre. According to him, this has the potential to be a disguised layoff with another benefit for Tesla: avoiding severances.

Again, it seems that the EV maker is more concerned about saving money than it says it is. We should never forget that Musk joked about Tesla’s bankruptcy risk on an April Fool’s Day when that was a genuine concern. We’ll only know about that if the Tesla CEO decides to admit that on Twitter or if the company runs into trouble. Firing 10% of your employees when demand is peaking is not a good sign.

TOKYO - Japan's Panasonic Holdings Corp, which makes batteries for Tesla, is evaluating which U.S. state it will choose as the site for a new battery plant, a top executive said on Friday.

"We've been making various considerations, but we are starting to evaluate," said Panasonic Energy Chief Executive Officer Kazuo Tadanobu, speaking to reporters during a round table event. No decision had been made yet, he added.

The Japanese conglomerate is looking at potential factory sites in Kansas and Oklahoma to supply the batteries to the U.S. electric automaker's plant in Texas, two people with knowledge of the plan have said.

Tadanobu told investors and analysts on Wednesday that the company had shipped samples of its more powerful '4680' format electric car battery to Tesla.

The 4680 format battery - 46 millimetres in width and 80 millimetres in height - is about five times bigger than those that Panasonic currently supplies, meaning the U.S. electric automaker could be able to lower production costs and boost vehicles' driving range.

Panasonic said mass production of the new battery is set to begin before the end of March 2023 at its plant in Wakayama, western Japan, before production is moved to North America.

The Japanese company has partnered with Tesla for more than a decade, supplying batteries for its first cars.

Since then, the electric automaker has diversified supply chain and brought in other firms such as China's Contemporary Amperex Technology Co (CATL) and South Korea's LG Energy Solution.

Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Saturday that the electric vehicle maker's total headcount will increase over the next 12 months, but the number of salaried staff should be little changed, backtracking from an email just two days ago saying that job cuts of 10% were needed.

"Total headcount will increase, but salaried should be fairly flat," Musk tweeted in a reply to an unverified Twitter account that made a "prediction" that Tesla's headcount would increase over the next 12 months.
Musk in an email to Tesla executives on Thursday, which was seen by Reuters on Friday, said he has a "super bad feeling" about the U.S. economy and needed to cut jobs by about 10%.In another email to employees on Friday, Musk said Tesla would reduce salaried headcount by 10%, as it has become "overstaffed in many areas." But "hourly headcount will increase," he said.

Tesla's shares sank 9.2% on Friday on the news.

According to a Tesla U.S. regulatory filing, the company and its subsidiaries had almost 100,000 employees at the end of 2021.

Ahead of his emails on staffing levels, Musk on Wednesday in an email to Tesla employees issued an ultimatum to return to the office for a minimum of 40 hours a week. Failure to do so would be taken as a resignation, he wrote.

Musk on Thursday said Tesla's AI day has been pushed to Sept. 30, and said a prototype of Optimus, a humanoid robot that is a company priority, could be ready by then and could be launched next year.

Tesla has just raised the prices of all its electric cars in the US (aside from some versions) by $2,000 to $6,000.

The last time when we saw such a broad price increase was in March 2022, after which there were some additional increases in April related to the Model 3.

Starting with the Tesla Model 3, the entry-level version remains at $46,990, but the Long Range AWD cost is $2,000 higher ($57,990). The price of the Performance version remains at $62,990.

In the case of the Tesla Model S and Tesla Model X, the increase for Long Range AWD versions is respectively $5,000 and $6,000. The Plaid versions avoided a price increase.

The Tesla Model Y Long Range AWD now starts at $65,990, which is $3,000 more than before. The Performance version is $2,000 more expensive ($69,990).

Price changes (without DST):

Tesla Model 3:

• RWD: no change ($46,990)
• Long Range AWD: up $2,000 (or 3.6%) from $55,990 to $57,990
• Performance: no change ($62,990) since April 2022

Tesla Model S:

• Long Range AWD: up $5,000 (or 5.0%) from $99,990 to $104,990
• Plaid: no change ($135,990)

Tesla Model X:

• Long Range AWD: up $6,000 (or 5.2%) from $114,990 to $120,990
• Performance: no change ($138,990)

Tesla Model Y:

• Long Range AWD: up $3,000 (or 4.8%) from $62,990 to $65,990
• Performance: up $2,000 (or 2.9%) from $67,990 to $69,990

We must remember that there is also the Made-in-Texas Tesla Model Y AWD, but it's not listed on Tesla's website. According to rumors, in April it was offered at about $60,000 to Tesla's employees. We assume that maybe it's now also more expensive.

Reuters says in its article that Tesla has increased the prices "in response to persistent global supply-chain problems and soaring raw material costs." We would add on top of that the strong demand encourages applying higher prices.

Tesla lineup in the US as of June 16, 2022

Below we listed the Tesla EV prices, including "Destination & doc" ($1,200) and "Order fee" ($250) as DST ($1,450):
Model Base Price Dest. Charge Tax Credit Effective Price
2022 Tesla Model 3 RWD 18" $46,990 +$1,450 N/A $48,440
2022 Tesla Model 3 RWD 19" $48,490 +$1,450 N/A $49,940
2022 Tesla Model 3 Long Range AWD 18" $57,990 +$1,450 N/A $59,440
2022 Tesla Model 3 Long Range AWD 19" $59,490 +$1,450 N/A $60,940
2022 Tesla Model 3 Perf. LR AWD 20" $62,990 +$1,450 N/A $64,440
2022 Tesla Model S LR AWD 19" $104,990 +$1,450 N/A $106,440
2022 Tesla Model S LR AWD 21" $109,490 +$1,450 N/A $110,940
2022 Tesla Model S Plaid 19" $135,990 +$1,450 N/A $137,440
2022 Tesla Model S Plaid 21" $140,490 +$1,450 N/A $141,940
2022 Tesla Model X LR AWD 20" $120,990 +$1,450 N/A $122,440
2022 Tesla Model X LR AWD 22" $126,490 +$1,450 N/A $127,940
2022 Tesla Model X Plaid 20" $138,990 +$1,450 N/A $140,440
2022 Tesla Model X Plaid 22" $144,490 +$1,450 N/A $145,940
2022 Tesla Model Y Long Range AWD 19" $65,990 +$1,450 N/A $67,440
2022 Tesla Model Y Long Range AWD 20" $67,990 +$1,450 N/A $69,440
2022 Tesla Model Y Perf. LR AWD 21" $69,990 +$1,450 N/A $71,440

Estimated delivery time (new orders):

Now let's also take a look at the estimated delivery time (new orders) of Tesla cars, which in many cases is 2023.

Only some of the models (usually the most expensive ones or with options) are expected to be delivered before the end of 2022. Interesting is the example of the Model 3, which has the shortest wait time, indicating that demand is substantially lower than in the case of Model Y.

Tesla Model 3:

• RWD:
  18" Aero Wheels: Oct, 2022 - Jan 2023 (Sep-Dec, 2022 with options)
  19" Sport Wheels ($1,500): Sep-Dec, 2022
• Long Range AWD:
  18" Aero Wheels: Nov, 2022 - Feb 2023 (Sep-Dec, 2022 with options)
  19" Sport Wheels ($1,500): Sep-Dec, 2022
• Performance: Jun-Aug, 2022

Tesla Model S:

• Long Range:
  19" Tempest Wheels: Mar-Jun, 2023 (Nov, 2022 - Feb 2023 with options)
  21" Arachnid Wheels ($4,500): Nov, 2022 - Feb 2023
• Plaid: Jun-Aug, 2022

Tesla Model X:

• Long Range:
  20" Cyberstream Wheels: Mar-Jun, 2023
  22" Turbine Wheels ($5,500): Mar-Jun, 2023
• Plaid: Aug-Oct, 2022

Tesla Model Y:

• Long Range AWD:
  19" Gemini Wheels: Apr-Jul, 2023 (Jan-Apr, 2023 with options)
  20" Induction Wheels ($2,000): Jan-Apr, 2023
• Performance: Aug-Oct, 2022