Tesla lays off hundreds of Autopilot workers as it shuttered California facility

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Tesla lays off hundreds of Autopilot workers as it shuttered California facility

According to people familiar with the matter, Tesla laid off hundreds of workers on its Autopilot team as the electric-vehicle maker shuttered a California facility.

The people who asked not to be identified talking about private information said that the majority of those who were let go were hourly workers. As recently as last week, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk had outlined plans to cut 10% of the salaried staff, but he said he would increase hourly jobs.

Teams at the San Mateo office were assigned to evaluating customer vehicle data related to the Autopilot driver-assistance features and performing so-called data labeling. One of the people said that the staff were data annotation specialists, all of which are hourly positions.

Around 200 workers were let go, according to the people. The office had about 350 employees before the cuts, some of whom were already transferred to a nearby facility in recent weeks.

After a surge in hiring in recent years, Tesla is reducing its ranks. The company, now based in Austin, Texas, had grown to around 100,000 employees globally as it built new factories in Austin and Berlin.

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Musk caught workers by surprise earlier this month when he said layoffs would be necessary in an increasingly shaky economic environment. He stated in an interview with Bloomberg that about 10% of the salaried employees would lose their jobs over the next three months, though the overall headcount could be higher in a year.

The EV market leader has focused on areas that grew too quickly because of the EV market leader's downsizing efforts. Some of the workers and software engineers have been laid off, and the cuts have hit employees who had worked at the company for just a few weeks.

The latest move has resulted in one of the higher-profile features in Tesla vehicles. In job postings, Tesla said that labeled data is the key ingredient for training powerful Deep Neural Networks, which help drive the Tesla vehicles autonomously. Staff in Buffalo, New York, and San Mateo spent hours labeling images for cars and the environment they navigate, such as street signs and traffic lanes.

A person familiar with the matter said that Tesla continued to expand its Autopilot data-labeling teams in Buffalo. The person said that the staff at that location, who are doing the same job, are paid a lower hourly rate than in San Mateo.

In late trading, Tesla's shares fell less than 1%. The stock fell by 34% this year through Tuesday's close, compared to a 20% decline in the SP 500 Index.

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