Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
Tesla‘s vice president of software engineering, David Lau, has told colleagues he plans to step down, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Lau’s team, who joined the Elon Musk-led company in late 2012 and was promoted to vice president in 2017, oversaw key software functions including vehicle systems, distributed infrastructure, automation controls and server-side manufacturing platforms.
His departure adds to a wave of senior exits at Tesla. Longtime engineering executive Drew Baglino and head of public policy Rohan Patel left a year ago. In October public policy director Jos Dings followed.
Zheng Gao, who spent eight years at Tesla leading its Autopilot hardware team and holds over 100 patents, left two months later in December to join Amazon-owned Zoox as head of hardware engineering.
Separately, Tesla on Friday introduced the regular version of its updated Model Y in the U.S. and Canada, expanding availability beyond the limited-run Launch Series. Deliveries are slated to begin later this month, according to the company’s website.
The Model Y Long Range All-Wheel Drive now starts at $48,990 in the U.S., a $1,000 increase over the previous model. In Canada, the vehicle is priced at C$69,990. Both versions now include a mobile charger.
Tesla shares slumped 10.4% to $235 on Friday, as U.S. equities posted their steepest weekly decline since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020.
Tesla’s performance in Europe’s largest auto markets remained under pressure in March. In Germany, deliveries dropped 42.5% from a year earlier to 2,229 units. France saw a 36.9% decline to 3,157 vehicles, while sales in the Netherlands fell 50% to 1,536.
The company sold 7,164 vehicles in the UK in March, up 2.4% from a year earlier, according to industry data released on Friday. The U.S. electric vehicle maker registered 12,474 cars in the country during the first quarter, marking a 6% year-over-year increase.
