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Tesla's German Automation Expert Klaus Grohmann Ousted After Clash With CEO Musk (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the difference-of-opinion dept.

According to Reuters, "Tesla executive Klaus Grohmann was ousted last month after a clash with CEO Elon Musk over the strategy of Grohmann's firm, which Tesla had acquired in November." Grohmann Engineer's automation and engineering expertise is being relied upon by Tesla to help it increase production to 500,000 cars per year by 2018. From the report: Tesla planned to keep Grohmann on, and Grohmann wanted to stay, but the clash with Musk over how to treat existing clients resulted in his departure, the source said. Grohmann disagreed with Musk's demands to focus management attention on Tesla projects to the detriment of Grohmann Engineering's legacy clients, which included Tesla's direct German-based rivals Daimler and BMW, two sources familiar with the matter said. "I definitely did not depart because I had lost interest in working," Grohmann said, without elaborating. A Tesla spokesman, asked about Grohmann's departure, praised him for building an "incredible company" and said: "Part of Mr Grohmann's decision to work with Tesla was to prepare for his retirement and leave the company in capable hands for the future. Given the change in focus to Tesla projects, we mutually decided that it was the right time for the next generation of management to lead."

3 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. Duh, by Spy+Handler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    BMW and Benz are Tesla's competitors. Of course Tesla is gonna want to "service" them as little as possible. What did he expect?

    If Mr. Grohmann wanted to continue providing excellent service to BMW, maybe he should've just kept his company and not sold it to Tesla.

    1. Re:Duh, by Jzanu · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Tesla isn't in the same league as BMW or Benz. Tesla is in the same league as the Yugo. They have terrible build quality, terrible reliability, a criminally negligent design, and just quite frankly they aren't even luxury cars.

      The quoted parent post is a perfect example of reality being suppressed by negative scoring. Slashdot should be better than that. Musk is treated like an idol, and his firms are treated as sacrosanct but they are simply businesses with a a lot of product failures due to inexperience and poor management.

    2. Re:Duh, by Dripdry · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Which is something most new businesses go through in order to mature: There are bumps in the road.
      Tesla isn't lauded for being the highest quality. Yet.
      They're lauded for disrupting the market in healthy ways.

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