Tesla’s abrupt decision to lay off its electric-vehicle charging team and reduce its investments in public charging is a blow to the U.S. network, which has long relied on Elon Musk to build the bulk of the country’s fast chargers.
The sudden layoffs this week left Tesla construction vendors uncertain whether to carry on with the charging projects they were building, though one vendor said the company has since confirmed that existing projects should continue.
Tesla owns and operates nearly two-thirds of the fast charging ports in the United States and deploys more chargers each year than all other providers combined, according to the data firm EVAdoption. An unexpected retreat by Tesla could undermine the Biden administration’s pledge to rapidly expand the U.S. network.
Many other automakers and companies are investing in U.S. charging, but none so far at the scale Tesla had been pursuing, analysts said.
