Tesla is now facing its worst crisis in years. Last week, CEO Elon Musk laid off the automaker’s roughly 500-person Supercharger team and what remained of its policy and new vehicle teams. Before that, it reported its first-quarter financial results — and they were even worse than the lackluster performance that investors were expecting.

Already this year, Tesla has cut around 10% of its employees. Now Musk is promising that it will shift toward becoming an “AI” company.

Does Tesla, long a stalwart of America’s EV transition, now pose a danger to it? On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse discuss the automaker’s turn away from EVs, and why Musk’s decision to lay off the Supercharger team could throw the entire country’s EV transition off track. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University.

Mentioned:

Previously on Shift Key: The U.S. Has a Tesla Problem

Tesla’s Identity Crisis Gets Hardcore

Tesla’s Q1 2024 investor report

BloombergNEF on Superchargers’ profit potential

Rob on how to make sense of Elon Musk’s wacky moves

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by…

Watershed's climate data engine helps companies measure and reduce their emissions, turning the data they already have into an audit-ready carbon footprint backed by the latest climate science. Get the sustainability data you need in weeks, not months. Learn more at watershed.com.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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