Tesla has fired hundreds of employees after performance reviews

Tesla fired hundreds of employees following what the company said is an annual performance review process, the company told TechCrunch. The news was first reported by The Mercury News.

“Like all companies, Tesla conducts an annual performance review during which a manager and employee discuss the results that were achieved, as well as how those results were achieved, during the performance period,” a Tesla spokesperson said. “This includes both constructive feedback and recognition of top performers with additional compensation and equity awards, as well as promotions in many cases. As with any company, especially one of over 33,000 employees, performance reviews also occasionally result in employee departures. Tesla is continuing to grow and hire new employees around the world.”

The company is not disclosing how many employees were let go as part of the process, though The Mercury News suggests that the number is between 400 and 700 employees.

Tesla will be reporting its earnings in the next few weeks along with a whole suite of other companies. But on the year, Tesla’s stock has continued to see an incredible run, especially following up on its most recent quarterly earnings report. The company said there was a further increase in Model S orders following the Model 3 handover event, prompting an additional amount of enthusiasm for the company.

During that report, Tesla also said it saw 1,800 Model 3 reservations per day following the handover event. But since then there’s been quite a bit of news, including a voluntary recall yesterday of 11,000 Model X vehicles. Earlier this month Tesla said it produced 260 Model 3 vehicles in Q3. CEO Elon Musk has said before that the company is entering “production hell,” a phrase that has been thrown around quite since then.

There’s going to still be a huge ramp-up period for the company for the Model 3. Tesla clearly has an enormous waiting list for the Model 3 and has said it wants to hit a run rate of 5,000 Model 3 vehicles per week by end of year, and achieve a 10,000 Model 3 per week clip at some point next year. This quarter, including the Model 3, Tesla produced 25,336 vehicles, the vast majority of which were Model S and X vehicles. The company also hopes to hit a run rate of producing 500,000 vehicles per year by the end of 2018