Next Tesla manager throws in the towel

Tesla must yet again cope with the departure of a manager. Bert Bruggeman was only appointed Vice-President of Production at Fremont plant one year ago and has now thrown in the towel. Given his unexpected departure, a successor has not yet been announced.

The move was first reported in the German business weekly WirtschaftsWoche. Bruggeman, who came from the semiconductor industry and previously worked at Cypress Semiconductor for almost a decade, had only been on board at Tesla for just over a year.

In 2019, five managers responsible for production have thus already left the electric car pioneer, including Bruggeman’s predecessor in the position of head of production Peter Hochholdinger, and Eric Purcell, head of quality control. The other two production managers, Charles Mwangi and Shen Jackson, had already left Tesla earlier in the direction of a start-up that has nothing to do with the automotive industry.

Besides, there are further changes at the Vice President level: Jan Oehmicke, Vice President Tesla Europe, left the company in July. Also, there have already been two changes on the Executive Board: CFO Deepak Ahuja took his hat at the end of January, and since then Zach Kirkhorn has been the new CFO. And in the telephone conference on the occasion of the second-quarter figures, CTO JB Straubel announced his retirement from the board, and Drew Baglino replaced him.

Meanwhile, preparations for the Tesla plant in Germany are progressing rapidly: Following the agreement on the sale of land for the planned factory in Grünheide in Brandenburg, Brandenburg’s Minister of Economics Jörg Steinbach expects the contract to be signed “next week, at the latest by New Year’s Week”. He is “95 per cent sure” that the Tesla project will eventuate as announced.

There is also news about Tesla in China: According to information from Reuters, Tesla has agreed a new credit facility of 10 billion yuan (1.4 billion dollars) with Chinese banks with a term of five years for his plant in Shanghai. Part of the money will be used to repay the existing loan.

Last but not least, there is news on Model 3, with a leaked code indicating some future changes to Tesla’s volume model. For example, the maximum battery capacity could increase from 75 to 100 kWh.

wiwo.de (Bruggeman, in German), automobilwoche.de (Tesla in Brandenburg, in German), reuters.com (credit facility, China), insideevs.com, teslarati.com, electrek.co (Model 3)

2 Comments

about „Next Tesla manager throws in the towel“

Gordon Peterson

24.12.2019 um 08:32

Tesla’s confidence one key asset to maintain public support. Maybe too frequent leadership changes need more caution in appointments. The Cybertruck is/will be a great step forward in adventurous design science. Many buyers will want and will purchase this futuristic vehicle. Imitation has run riot over the last few decades. The sameness and copying g of design has seen good design be destroyed by changing to follow the others. One example, jelly bean headlights. There are many. Originality will get support. Look at the aftermarket parts business. Why? People are tired of the sameness of private vehicles. Tesla must continue being the most disruptive vehicle maker today. And oh dear! What a hugely important and relentlessly negative flood of absolute rubbish published because a window was broken in a maybe poorly judged confidence test. What is there about this opportunistic, pessimistic pack of morons who just ache to tear down those literally on another planet when big picture issues are the focus. Cheers Gordon Peterson.

Robert Sanchez

24.12.2019 um 18:37

A lot of Tesla top brass have jumped ship in the last year or so. Some have said it was the culture set by Elon Musk whose philosophy is large output per promised delivery date. Often unrealistic or more accurately extremely difficult on factories, employees, suppliers and top management. Good for consumers and the environment but has got to play havoc with everyone.