Tesla Fires Hundreds of Employees It Considers Sub-Par

Tesla Inc. dismissed roughly 400 hourly and salaried employees last week, according to The Mercury News in San Jose, Calif.

The newspaper says most of those fired by the electric car maker were engineers, managers and sales personnel. Some assembly workers were affected too. The cuts included workers in Tesla’s SolarCity solar panel operations.

Tesla, which employs more than 33,000 people, confirms a cutback but hasn’t provided a total. Employees tell the newspaper the number of affected workers could be as great as 700.

The firings were prompted by poor work performance and are the result of a routine companywide annual review, according to Tesla. But some of the dismissed employees tell the newspaper they had never received any indication of underperformance.

The Mercury News says several openly pro-union workers were among those fired. Some member of that group believe they were targeted, but the company denies any connection.

The firings come as Tesla struggles to meet production targets for the Model 3 sedan it launched in July. The company had hoped to build 1,700 of the cars in July-August, but it made fewer than 300 units during the period.