The reductions, which amount to 7 percent of Tesla’s work force, were necessary for the company to remain viable, Elon Musk wrote in an email to employees.
Tesla will reduce its full-time work force by 7 percent in an effort to lower the cost of producing its Model 3 sedan and make it a mass-market vehicle, Elon Musk, the electric-car maker’s chief executive, told employees on Friday.
The least-expensive version of the Model 3 now available costs $44,000.Mr. Musk said in a companywide email that he wants to bring the price down to $35,000.
To do so, Mr. Musk said in the email, Tesla must improve the car’s design, increase production and shed thousands of workers. “There isn’t any other way,” he wrote.
Tesla shares were down about 9 percent in midday trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange after the announcement.
The cuts, which could put more than 3,000 people out of work, follow a 9 percent reduction in Tesla’s staff in June. Another of Mr. Musk’s companies, the privately held rocket maker SpaceX, said this month it would shrink its work force by about 10 percent.
Given the continuing uncertainty in global financial markets and signs that consumers are spending less, trimming costs and focusing on affordability is “a prudent thing to do” for a company that started out selling cars with an average price close to $100,000, said Romit Shah, a research analyst at Nomura Instinet.
In October, Tesla reported that the third quarter of 2018 had yielded its first quarterly profit in two years, and its largest ever, thanks to cost-cutting moves, delayed payments to suppliers and a surge in production and sales.
