Connect with us

Lifestyle

Tesla competitors are opening their doors to former employees affected by layoffs

Published

on

In the wake of the Tesla layoffs earlier this month, employers around the US, including some of the company’s direct competitors like Nikola Motor Company and Volvo USA, appear to be looking to capture some of the automaker’s just-released talent. Many have taken to social media to announce their respective companies’ openings for positions relevant to former Tesla employees’ skill sets. Overall, the outreach efforts have been positive, encouraging, and focused on helping those affected continue to see the value in their training and efforts to date.

In a post published on his official LinkedIn account, Trevor Milton, CEO at Nikola Motor Company, offered to help usher Tesla workers’ resumes into his company’s human resources office. Citing similar layoffs from other competitors such as Faraday Future and General Motors, he spoke positively of Tesla’s business process and intentions, and further touted Nikola’s company culture as a good fit for former Tesla workers. That sentiment was followed up by Jesse Schneider, Executive VP of Technology, Hydrogen & Fuel Cells at Nikola, in a post of his own directing potential applicants to the company’s job board.

Also promoting their company’s open positions for Tesla-related skills sets was Volvo USA. In a LinkedIn status post similar to the ones posted by those at Nikola, Christine Whitehill from the People Experience department at Volvo sympathized with impacted Tesla workers and indicated her company’s interest in becoming their “next opportunity.” Volvo’s pivot towards electric vehicles of its own (and possible embrace of a Tesla-style direct-sales model) indicates the Swedish automaker may have positions impacted workers would find appealing and applicable to their skills.

Sam Tan, Exterior Hardware & Glazing Engineering Leader at electric upstart Lucid Motors wrote, “For those affected by Tesla layoffs, please PM me with your resume. I have multiple openings for Mechanical Design Engineer, Exterior Systems.” Chadwick Conway, founding engineer at Span.IO with prior experience at Tesla, posted his own encouraging message directing interested applicants to his company which develops technology for combating climate change: “Those impacted by the layoffs at #Tesla, I am sorry that you are going through an unexpected career change. If you are eager to continue accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable energy…We are hiring power electronics, firmware, embedded, and all facets of software engineers!”

Company representatives from Sonoco, EaglePicher Technologies, LLC (battery systems), Kodiak Robotics, VEO Robotics, Velociti (technology project management company), as well as beer maker Sierra Nevada are among others vying for attention from Silicon Valley’s newest free agents.

While a few former Tesla employees have taken to social media to express their interest in new positions due to the circumstances, it seems that legal concerns have kept any related commentary to a bare minimum. California’s WARN Act requiring a 60-day layoff notice, among other conditions, may have inspired some creative maneuvering on Tesla’s behalf to avoid any disgruntled fallout, something not uncommon in mass layoff situations. Still, a few individuals related to those impacted by the layoffs (friends or family) publicly offered a few details on the circumstances: Possible offers made to transfer to other Tesla locations for fewer hours and/or pay, some departments eliminated entirely, and others were given two-month severance pay.

Advertisement
-

Further details made available in a separation agreement obtained by CNBC revealed a few more specifics surrounding the Tesla layoffs. In the agreement, employees were asked not to “disparage Tesla”, to refrain from sharing details surrounding their separation, and to cooperate with the manufacturer in any future legal events such as a class action lawsuit. Also, salaried employees received a minimum of 60 days of bay and benefits, and if they agreed to sign the separation agreement, Tesla would pay for their COBRA healthcare and provide additional severance pay based on the employee’s time at the company.

The major cuts appear to have primarily been made in the sales and delivery teams for Models S and X, according to the sources cited by CNBC, although employees were cut back across all areas of the company. Nighttime production for those same vehicles at the company’s Fremont, California plant have also reportedly been suspended. The backgrounds of those who announced their being impacted by the layoffs included recruiting, robotics/controls/equipment automation, inside delivery advising, process engineering, production planning, and industrial/material flow.

In Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s letter to employees addressing the layoffs, he explained the move as related to the ramp up of Model 3 production and lowering its cost to meet affordability goals. “Tesla will need to make these cuts while increasing the Model 3 production rate…Higher volume and manufacturing design improvements are crucial for Tesla to achieve the economies of scale required to manufacture the standard range (220 mile), standard interior Model 3 at $35k and still be a viable company. There isn’t any other way,” he stated. All considered, the staffing layoff observations seem to correlate with Musk’s expressed reasoning and plan.

Accidental computer geek, fascinated by most history and the multiplanetary future on its way. Quite keen on the democratization of space. | It's pronounced day-sha, but I answer to almost any variation thereof.

Advertisement
Comments

Elon Musk

How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts

Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.

Published

on

By

Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.

The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.



Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.

For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.

The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.

Advertisement
-
Continue Reading

Lifestyle

Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi’s real advantage won’t be the ride service

Published

on

By

Concept art of a Tesla Cybercab in Las Vegas Strip as rendered via Grok

For a century, the car has asked the same thing of its owner, which is basically to pay attention. Even the best ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft only moved the problem into someone else’s hands. You stopped driving, but you still sat in a stranger’s car, while half listening, and wondering whether to take a phone call in the car without being rude. The Cybercab has no wheel, no pedals and no driver. With Grok @bot now live inside it, it becomes something else entirely, and I think that matters more than the fleet count that everyone is tracking.

Grok @bot is an agent, not a voice assistant. A rider signs in once, and from then on can say what they need and watch it happen. Order dinner from a favorite restaurant. Fill the grocery cart. Move money, answer email, adjust a calendar, push a work project forward. Tesla engineer Yun-Ta Tsai confirmed it is enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y fleet, and Tesla’s own pitch is that Full Self-Driving handles the commute while Grok handles the errands.

Think about what that does to a thirty minute ride. Uber sells you a trip, while Waymo sells you the same trip in a more private setting. Tesla is selling the thirty minutes themselves, returned to you with an assistant attached. Errands that used to eat a Saturday get done between pickup and drop off. The ride stops being dead time between two places and becomes a place of its own.

Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant

Best of all, your Bots follow you into any Cybercab, and presumably your own Tesla, then logs you out automatically when you step out. Anyone can bolt a chatbot onto a screen, but much harder to own the vehicle, the autonomy stack and the assistant at once. It also quietly ties SpaceX’s Super Intelligence business to Tesla’s fleet, after Tesla converted its xAI stake into SpaceX equity. The relationship between those two companies is getting harder to describe as separate.

This is also where the hard questions start, because an agent that can spend your money in a vehicle other people also ride in needs some answers. How does it handle a voice it shouldn’t trust? What gets recorded, who can see it, and for how long? What happens when a rider leaves halfway through a task?

Advertisement
-

If Tesla gets those answers right, the scoreboard changes. We have been counting Cybercabs and wait times. The more telling number may be what riders accomplish per trip. That is data almost no one else will ever have, and it is the real reason to watch Grok @bot.

What do you think? Leave me a comment.

Continue Reading

Lifestyle

Tesla’s mirrorless Cybercab will give riders a visibility upgrade

Tesla engineer confirms Cybercab update letting riders pull up rear and repeater cameras on demand.

Published

on

By

Tesla Cybercab camera visibility for passengers (Credit: Dan Burkland via X)
Tesla Cybercab camera visibility for passengers (Credit: Dan Burkland via X)

Tesla is working on a Cybercab update that would let passengers pull up the vehicle’s rear and side cameras on demand, and the request came straight from a rider.

The exchange played out on X late Friday. Cybercab rider Dan Burkland shared photos of the two-seater’s cabin screen after an evening ride, praised the UI team’s work, and left one request: let riders open the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Tesla UI software engineer Evan (@CarCoder) answered with two words: “In development.”

The idea fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked since public rides began. Days after paid Cybercab service opened in Austin, Tesla sent riders a survey that asked them to rate the touchscreen, the app and the cabin, and to pick the features they wanted most. We reported on that survey in September, and a camera view is the kind of small software change Tesla can push quickly if riders keep asking.

Advertisement
-

It also speaks to something unique about the vehicle. With no steering wheel, no pedals and no driver, passengers have no mirror to check and no way to see behind them. The hardware is clearly built for camera awareness, from the repeater cameras to the rear camera. Letting a passenger look through those same cameras would give a nervous first time rider a way to confirm what is around the car.

The timing matters because the fleet is growing fast. Tesla’s Robotaxi account said on Saturday that more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, an eightfold increase in 30 days, and Tesla AI chief Ashok Elluswamy named Dallas as the next city. More cars and more cities mean more people riding in a driverless vehicle for the first time, which is exactly when small trust features carry weight.

For now, the feature is confirmed only as in development. If Tesla follows its usual pattern with Cybercab software, riders could see it appear in a point release without any announcement, and Teslarati will watch for it.

Continue Reading