Massachusetts may have fewer options for building EV charging stations after market leader Tesla pulled back this week.
On Monday night, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk abruptly laid off Rebecca Tinucci, head of the company’s charger station effort, and her entire 500-person unit, according to a report in The Information, which was confirmed by multiple Tesla employees posts on social media. Musk also cut Tesla’s public policy team which helped the company apply for government-funded station contracts.
Massachusetts recently selected Tesla, along with three smaller companies, to build EV fast charger stations along major highways using federal money from the 2021 infrastructure law, according to a notice obtained by the Globe. The Massachusetts Department of Transportation was in the process of negotiating contracts with Tesla and the other vendors to qualify for building stations, according to the April 22 notice.
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Musk, in a post on X, said the company would fulfill existing contracts but would curtail its expansion plans. “Sites under construction will be completed and we will add additional Superchargers anywhere where there are gaps,” he wrote.
Massachusetts has 838 fast charging ports at stations for electric vehicles. But the state needs to build about 9,000 more ports by 2030 to handle the expected growth in EVs required under the state’s climate goals. The state is slated to get about $60 million to build chargers under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program created by the infrastructure law.
MassDOT has not heard from Tesla that the company would pull out of the state’s NEVI charger program, a spokesperson said.
While 21 states have already awarded contracts using federal funds to build new stations — and some such as Maine and Ohio have completed stations — Massachusetts is at an earlier stage. After vetting the four companies to build stations, MassDOT plans to move forward with deals to build specific stations later this year.
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Tesla already owns more than 60 percent of the fast charging ports in the state. The company opened new stations in April in Foxborough, Lynnfield, and Provincetown. Unlike prior Tesla stations in Massachusetts, the three new stations include adapters so any brand of EV can charge, not just Teslas.
The company was also in the process of building sites in Dedham, Peabody, Plymouth, Worcester, Revere, Canton, and Lawrence, according to the website Supercharge.info, which tracks the market. With the layoffs at Tesla, some of the sites could be cancelled.
Builders said they had lost contact with Tesla. Don Gordon, president of Gordon Building & Excavating, who is under contract with Tesla to build six sites in New England, including in Revere and Dedham, said he does not know what will happen next. “Right now, we have no direction,” Gordon said. “We have nobody left there to reach out to. I’m up in the air, waiting for guidance myself.”
The Tesla pullback is likely to slow progress in transitioning away from gas-powered vehicles across the country because fears of lack of chargers are a major concern for drivers, analysts who follow the industry said.
Under state NEVI programs so far, Tesla has won the right to build 69 charging stations in 10 states around the country. That is 14 percent of the total and more than any other company, according to Loren McDonald, chief executive of research firm EVAdoption.
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“My assumption is that Tesla will proceed with all of the NEVI sites they have been awarded, though I could see them pulling out of a few that were felt not to be strategic locations,” McDonald said. “It seems likely that the company will no longer have the staff [and] resources to apply to the states, unless they outsource the process.”
The other three companies negotiating with MassDOT to build stations with NEVI money were units of the gas station and convenience store chains Applegreen and Global Montello, and engineering firm Weston & Sampson.
Around New England, Tesla has NEVI program contracts to build two EV charging stations in Maine. The state has not heard from Tesla that the company was backing out, a spokesperson for Efficiency Maine Trust said.
New Hampshire has awarded four NEVI contracts but none to Tesla. Rhode Island is not working with Tesla on its NEVI stations, either. Meanwhile, Connecticut is reviewing applications submitted earlier this year for its first NEVI stations; the state’s Department of Transportation declined to comment on whether Tesla applied.
Vermont’s transportation agency does “not have any insight at this time into how Tesla’s recent announcement may impact EV charging buildout in Vermont,” the agency said in an email.
Updated with comments from a builder and the state of Vermont.
Aaron Pressman can be reached at aaron.pressman@globe.com. Follow him @ampressman.