Tesla loses another director – Rohan Ma, energy/autobidder lead
Another Tesla director is leaving the company, amid an exodus of top talent over the last few months.
The director in question this time is Rohan Ma, who was responsible for Tesla’s “Autobidder” software.
Autobidder is a software platform that coordinates energy trading, which works alongside Tesla’s Energy products, like Powerwalls and Megapacks, to sell energy to the grid in real time.
Software like this is what allows grid-tied batteries to buy and sell from the grid, and help the owners of those batteries to make money by arbitraging energy – storing it when it’s cheap and plentiful, and selling it when it’s expensive and demand is high.
Not only does it help make money for battery owners who provide these grid services, but it helps to balance the grid during unstable times of very high demand or when supply is constrained (due to weather, generation plant shutdowns, or the like). It’s also a solution to the oft-repeated “intermittency” problem of solar and wind.
As of 2023, Autobidder made over $330 million in profits for the owners of the then-7GWh battery capacity that was available under its purview. Our last update on Autobidder profits came about a year ago, so surely more has been made since then.
But that update, at the time, came courtesy of Rohan Ma – the very director who announced his retirement from Tesla this week.
He announced his decision in a LinkedIn Post, where he mentioned his pride in contributing to Tesla Energy, thanked his colleagues, and said he has no plans for the future yet:
After eight years at Tesla, this will be my last week. It was a ride of a lifetime!
Today, Tesla Energy is thriving and I can confidently say it’s in the best position it has ever been in to drive impact toward the original mission I signed up for. I’m proud to have contributed over the years to where it is now, and will be cheering the team on from the sidelines as they carry the torch forward and continue to relentlessly solve problems at the frontier of the energy transition.
I want to thank all of my Tesla colleagues, past and present. It was a privilege to work alongside such incredibly resilient, committed and capable people all these years. I’m also grateful to our Autobidder customers, particularly those who partnered with me when it was just an idea on a white board. I always felt grateful for the responsibility of demonstrating what energy storage is truly capable of achieving in electricity markets, and without the trust of our partners and customers, that would never have been possible. Lastly, Drew Baglino, thank you for betting on me and bringing your vision, intellect and relentless optimism to us all over the years.
As for me, I have no plans yet for my next chapter, which is both thrilling and a bit terrifying. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with many of you in the coming months and learning more about what’s going on out there before hunkering down to build again.
The departure follows a string of other high-profile departures from Tesla.
Notably, Drew Baglino, the one person who Ma mentions by name in his departure post, left in April of this year, alongside Tesla’s announcement that it will lay off “more than 10%” of its global workforce. Baglino had been the top engineer at the company and had worked at Tesla for 18 years.
In the last few months Tesla also lost policy head Rohan Patel, Supercharger lead Rebecca Tinucci (and her entire team), program manager for Model S/3/Y Daniel Ho, investor relations head Martin Viecha, ad team leader Alex Ingram (and his entire team), head of product launches Rich Otto, and more, many of which seem connected in some way to Tesla’s massive layoffs. Around a year ago, the company lost CFO Zach Kirkhorn and senior engineer Colim Campbell as well.
While it’s no surprise for there to be turnover at companies, especially one as large as Tesla, the temporal proximity of departures of longtime and influential employees is worth noting. Tesla’s corporate governance page has become more and more sparse over time, with now only a single C-level executive listed on the site (CFO Vaibhav Taneja – as for CEO Elon Musk, he instead refers to himself as “Technoking”).
Electrek’s Take
We’ve mentioned several times the disturbing direction that Tesla is going with its leadership, with many longtime leaders departing or being fired.
It seems to be a pattern – and we believe that the pattern has to do both with Musk intentionally isolating himself at the top, and making himself seem more necessary to the organization (perhaps related to the shareholder compensation vote), and also related to executive reactions to this leadership behavior.
The company’s direction seems to have changed sharply in recent years, with Musk seeming to lose interest in electric cars and environmental protection and instead doubling down on big, likely unreachable promises for the near future. Not to mention his social media distractions.
For longtime employees who led the charge towards sustainable transport – which is Tesla’s mission, after all – this recent lack of focus on the mission must be discouraging. It’s certainly been discouraging to us here at Electrek, as our mission is also to move to more sustainable transport, and we see the change in Tesla’s strategy, as Fred wrote about yesterday in his excellent article about why he divested from Tesla (TSLA).
Most of these executives haven’t said they’re leaving for this reason, but that’s not the kind of thing that leaders usually say publicly when they leave a job. Everyone wants to put on a nice face and not talk bad on their previous employer, which is understandable. But Rich Otto did say that he left due to low morale in May, and that it was “hard to see the long game” in recent leadership decisions.
While Ma didn’t say anything similar in his departure note, the fact that he thanked only one former executive by name – Drew Baglino, who left earlier this year – and not the chief executive who is still the titular head of the company, may suggest there is some latent dissatisfaction with the direction of the company.
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National Grid Renewables has broken ground on its 100 MW Apple River Solar Project in Polk County, Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin solar farm, which will use US-made First Solar Series 6 Plus bifacial modules, will be constructed by The Boldt Company, creating 150 construction and service jobs. Apple River Solar will generate over $36 million in direct economic benefits over its first 20 years.
Once it comes online in late 2025, Apple River Solar will supply clean energy to Xcel Energy, which serves customers throughout the Upper Midwest. According to National Grid Renewables, the solar farm will generate enough energy to power around 26,000 homes annually. It will also offset about 129,900 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year – equivalent to taking 30,900 cars off the road.
“We are excited to see this project begin as it underscores our dedication to delivering clean, reliable and affordable energy to our customers,” said Karl Hoesly, President, Xcel Energy-Wisconsin and Michigan. “This project is an important step in those goals while bringing significant economic benefits to Polk County and the local townships.”
Electrek reported in February that Xcel Energy, Minnesota’s largest utility, expects to cut more than 80% – and possibly up to 88% – of its emissions by 2030, putting it on track to hit Minnesota’s goal of net zero by 2040. It also says it’s on track to achieve its clean energy goals for all the Upper Midwest states it serves – Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Michigan.
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Tesla has announced that it will finally deliver 500 kW charging as it is about to install its long-awaited V4 Supercharger cabinets.
The rollout of Supercharger V4 has been a strange one, to say the least.
Tesla has been deploying the new charging stations for two years and calling them “Supercharger V4”, but it has only been deploying the charging stalls.
Supercharger stations are made of two main parts: the stalls, which are where the charging cable is located, and the cabinets, which are generally located further back and include all the power electronics.
For all these new “Supercharger V4”, Tesla was actually using Supercharger V3 cabinets. This has been limiting the power output of the charging stations to 250 kW – although
Today, Tesla officially announced its “V4 Cabinet”, which the automaker claims will enable of “delivering up to 500kW for cars and 1.2MW for Semi.”
Here are the main features of the V4 Cabinet as per Tesla:
- Faster charging: Supports 400V-1000V vehicle architectures, including 30% faster charging for Cybertruck. S3XY vehicles enjoy 250kW charge rates they already experience on V3 Cabinet — charging up to 200 miles in 15 minutes.
- Faster deployments: V4 Cabinet powers 8 posts, 2X the stalls per cabinet. Lower footprint and complexity = more sites coming online faster.
- Next-generation hardware: Cutting-edge power electronics designed to be the most reliable on the planet, with 3X power density enabling higher throughput with lower costs.
Tesla reports that its first sites with the new V4 Cabinets are going into permitting now. The company expects its first sites to open next year.
We recently reported about Tesla’s new Oasis Supercharger project, which includes larger solar arrays and battery packs to operate the charging station mostly off-grid.
Early in the deployment of the Supercharger network, Tesla promised to add solar arrays and batteries to all Supercharger stations, and Musk even said that most stations would be able to operate off-grid.
While Tesla did add solar and batteries to a few stations, the vast majority of them don’t have their own power system or have only minimal solar canopies.
Back in 2016, I asked Musk about this, and he said that it would now happen as Tesla had the “pieces now in place” with Supercharger V3, Powerpack V2, and SolarCity:
It took about 8 years, but it sounds like the pieces are now getting actually in place with Supercharger V4, Megapacks, and this new Oasis project.
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Hyundai has a new secret weapon it’s about ready to unleash. To revamp the brand in China and counter BYD’s surge, Hyundai is launching a new AI-powered EV next year. The new model will be Hyundai’s first dedicated electric car for the world’s largest EV market.
With the help of Haomo, a Chinese autonomous startup, Hyundai will launch its first EV equipped with generative AI. It will also be its first model designed specifically for China.
A Hyundai Motor official said (via The Korea Herald) the company is “working to load the software” onto the new EV model, “which will be released in the Chinese market next year.” The spokesperson added, “The level of autonomous driving is somewhere between 2 and 2.5.”
In comparison, Tesla’s Autopilot is considered a level 2 advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) on the SAE scale (0 to 5), meaning it offers limited hands-free features.
With Autopilot, you still have to keep your eyes on the road and hands on the steering wheel, or the system will notify you and eventually disengage.
Haomo’s system, DriveGPT, unveiled last spring, takes inspiration from the OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT.
The system can continuously update in real-time to optimize decision-making by absorbing traffic data patterns. According to Haomo, DriveGPT is used in around 20 models as it looks to play a bigger role in China.
Hyundai hopes new AI-powered EV boosts sales in China
Electric vehicle sales continue surging in China. According to Rho Motion, China set another EV sales record last month with 1.2 million units sold, up 50% from October 2023.
Over 8.4 million EVs were sold in China in the first ten months of 2024, a notable 38% increase from last year.
BYD continues to dominate its home market. According to Autovista24, BYD accounted for 32.9% of all PHEV and EV (NEV) sales in China through September, with over half of the top 20 best-selling EV models.
Tesla was second with a 6.5% share of the market, but keep in mind these numbers only include plug-in models (PHEV).
Like most foreign automakers, Hyundai is struggling to keep up with the influx of low-cost electric models in China. Beijing Hyundai’s sales have been slipping since 2017. Through September, Korean automaker’s share of the Chinese market fell to just 1.2%.
Last month, Hyundai opened its first overseas digital R&D center in China to help kick off its return to the region.
According to local reports, Hyundai is partnering with other local tech companies like Thundersoft, a smart cockpit provider, and others in China to power up its next-gen EVs
With its first AI-powered EV launching next year, Hyundai hopes to turn things around in the region quickly. The new model will be one of five to launch in China through 2026.
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