Tesla fired hundreds of employees in past week

Luxury electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc fired about 400 employees this week, including associates, team leaders and supervisors, a former employee told Reuters on Friday.

The dismissals were a result of a company-wide annual review, Tesla said in an emailed statement, without confirming the number of employees leaving the company.

"It`s about 400 people ranging from associates to team leaders to supervisors. We don`t know how high up it went," said the former employee, who worked on the assembly line and did not want to be identified.

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Though Tesla cited performance as the reason for the firings, the source told Reuters he was fired in spite of never having been given a bad review.

The Palo Alto, California-based company said earlier in the month that "production bottlenecks" had left Tesla behind its planned ramp-up for the new Model 3 mass-market sedan.

The company delivered 220 Model 3 sedans and produced 260 during the third quarter. In July, it began production of the Model 3, which starts at $35,000 - half the starting price of the Model S.

Mercury News had earlier reported about the firing of hundreds of employees by Tesla in the past week. http://bayareane.ws/2gb3PB8

(This article has not been edited by Zeebiz editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)