Tesla story has been about overcoming adversity. Among the pioneers in electric vehicles, tesla has booming. Now we have seen the company come back down to earth. Now, layoffs, falling profits and recalls. More players in the ev game. So, can tesla recharge and get back on track . Tesla does not sell hybrid so they have nothing else to fall back on at the moment. This is cbs news bay area with elizabeth cook. Thank you so much for joining us today. Over the next half hour, we are diving into the trouble at tesla. We know the company has a big presence in the bay area economy. An expert will help us examine what is behind the struggles right now and also look toward teslas future and step back and look at the shift into electric vehicles overall. We will get well that in a few moments but first, here are todays news headlines. Police say four people were killed in a car crash in pleasanton. It happened that foothill road near stoneridge drive. It appears one of the victims was a student in the Pleasanton Unified School district. The district says it is providing counseling and support to students on campus. Investigators are trying to figure out the cause of this tragedy. There have been a number of deadly crashes in recent years at that crash site, including a christmas night crash in 2017 that killed twin teenage brothers and their friend. Police in daly city say there are no threats to the public after a car explosion there. Investigators found a propane tank inside a toyota sedan yesterday in the Westlake District at skyline and west line drives. They believe the blast was an accident. It is a job fair for candidates who often get overlooked, people who have served time in prison. This afternoon, Alameda County connected jobseekers with businesses and nonprofits and they offered support in the form of job training, social services and even a haircut and a headshot. San francisco has a brandnew park. This one is right on the way to the ballpark. The mayor and giants team leaders celebrated the grand opening of china basin park that lies across from oracle park on the opposite end of the cubby coat. The fiveacre park offers a number of attractions occluding a sprawling lawn, plazas, a dog zone and that statue. We are now hours away from the start of the nfl draft. The 49ers hold 10 picks this year including the 31st overall pick in the first round. Draft analysts say the niners can use that pick to fill their needs at offensive tackle and wide receiver. Lets get to your first alert weather now. Temperatures in the 70s, even the 80s are in the forecast but first, you got to prepare for a blast of wind, right . It is always something. Meteorologist darren peck is in our virtual view studio to time it out for us. With less in the way of the marine layer today and more breaks of blue sky, today looks better but does not feel any different than the last two days. We are going mid to upper 60s for daytime highs. We are all pretty much doing the same number that we had been doing but you will see more blue sky breakthrough today. If we use the forecast imagery, watch what happens. There will be a few light showers embedded. Very inconsequential but you can see them on here. Through the Late Afternoon today and more noticeably as we get into tomorrow, dont be surprised if you get a drop of rain out of nowhere. At the same time, you are also getting way more blue sky then you had for the past three days. It is a bit of a convoluted forecast in that way. Look at what is going on in the Central Valley. That is tomorrow afternoon. We are looking at clear blue skies, there are isolated thunderstorms over there and a few stray showers out here. Most of them have bad aim. I dont think the rain is what we will experience from this system. What we are going to experience from this system will be the northwesterly winds that pick up through the afternoon. While we are seeing those thunderstorms in the Central Valley , the winds have picked up for us. If we put these numbers on this, come in for a closer look. What are the winds like for you at 4 00 tomorrow . If you are along the coast, pretty noticeable. If you are inland, 25 Miles Per Hour breeze. It should not be too significant for the majority of us from a wind standpoint. That is friday. It will feel cold. That is the windchill factor. Then, saturday rolls around. The wind lets up a bit, not entirely but it gets less intense and we have a gorgeous day. That is saturday. More blue sky again. A few high clouds will come down as we get into saturday afternoon but it is not like marine layer gray. These are just the leftover clouds from that weak system moving through. Saturday will be a nice day but it will not be as nice as next week. When we look at the 7day forecast, you can see that on here. Low to mid 70s for the weekend and then low 80s by the time we get to the early and middle part of next week. We are learning more about some of the troubles facing tesla right now. Unfortunately, it means thousands of bay area workers are losing their jobs. Anne makovec has more the dip in sales leading to the companys latest efforts to cut costs. Nearly 3000 bay area workers will be among the mass layoffs announced by the electric model maker earlier this month. Tesla says more than 2200 workers in fremont are going to lose their jobs as well as almost 500 at several sites in palo alto. Earlier this week, tesla reported its largest drop in revenue since 2012, its First CorporateEarnings Report showed a 9 drop in revenue and a 55 drop in net income. Also, tesla is recalling more than 3000 newly launched cybertrucks. There was a possibility the accelerator can get stuck inside a piece of trim and cause the vehicle to speed up. The company will repair it for free. We spoke with the transportation editor at the verge, andrew hawkins, who says it is another hit against the company at a tough time. The model lineup is extremely old and it has one of the oldest model lineups in the entire industry. Obviously, there was a lot of controversy surrounding elon musk which does not do well itself. In a leaked memo to tesla staff last week, ceo elon musk spoke about the job saying there was nothing i hate more but it must be done. This will enable us to be lean, innovative, and hungry for the next cycle. Tesla has announced aggressive price cuts because of the slump in sales. The tesla model y, x, and s now selling for 2000 less. Musk says the model y will now cost less than 30,000 after a federal rebate and gas savings but all electric can be a tough sell these days. Things are starting to cool off a little bit. People are concerned about charging infrastructure, the amount of time it takes to charge cars. They see stories like teslas getting frozen in chicago during the wintertime. It discourages them and they dont feel like theyre ready to make the switch. Of course, tesla does not sell hybrid vehicles but while the pace of ev sales has dipped this year, the longerterm forecast shows continued Global Growth so we will see where tesla fits into that. Thank you. Tesla is not the only one seeing losses right now. Ford electric vehicle unit reported its losses soared in the first 12 45 . 3 billion. The ceo says the company is making changes to its ev business that will allow it to be profitable in the near future. Nationwide, ev sales were down 7 so far this year through the end of march. That has caused ford to delay production of its next generation electric f150 and a three row suv. Gm scaled down its 2024 ev sales projections by as much as half. Over the next five to seven years, we have about 25, 30 less ev buyers. That is a big wakeup call for the industry. Shoppers are saying that batteries need to last longer with a reliable charging network. How long are you going to wait to be able to charge your car . You dont really have a lot of choice. The infrastructure is not very good. We have been here for like 20 minutes so far. It says 43 more minutes. Two more years at least. While demand is down for evs, plugin hybrid sales are up more than 50 with some of those vehicles qualifying for those coveted tax credits. We will take a closer look at the frustration over not enough ev charging stations. Remember that range anxiety folks talk about . And, what california is doing to bridge that gap. A finance professor helps us break down what te today, we are breaking down teslas recent troubles and what they mean to the bay area workforce overall and the electric vehicle market. Joining me now live is julian vogel, an assistant best refinance at san jose state university. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having me. Lets start with teslas first quarter. What happened here . It was a rough quarter. They are have been increasing competition internationally. Tesla is no longer the Fastest Growing electric vehicle manufacturer worldwide. There has been the pausing of elon musks compensation package. There have been decreases in revenue due to price cuts. Overall, it was not a very good quarter. Early on, remember when we saw those long lines for teslas . People were waiting for years just to get their hands on one. Now it seems like it is coming down to earth. What are the main factors here . Are there more options of other ev cars . That does certainly play a role. Another factor is that the people that have waited in line to get an electric vehicle now do have one. There is a certain degree of market saturation as well. There is also, as we have seen in the previous report, we have seen that there are concerns about range. There are concerns about the charging infrastructure. I do believe that all of this is a factor in this led to the price cuts which indicates that the consumers are not as interested as they were previously for paying that much for these types of cars. Lets talk about the layoffs here. We are talking about thousands of employees that could potentially be losing their jobs. How does this all play out in the overall picture of tech layoffs in the region . What is especially concerning, when we look at where the layoffs occur. The layoffs do occur in fremont but they do also occur in palo alto, which is the engineering exporter of tesla. That means there is a lot of tech workers that are laid off which, comes on top of many, many thousands of tech workers being laid off in the bay area since the beginning of this year and also, most recently. I do think that does create a lot of troubles for tech workers since there are more companies letting go of tech workers and as a consequence, less Companies Hiring tech workers as well. Do you think it is a Market Correction or is this a blip in the road and it will come back . I do think it is hard to say at this point. It might be a Market Correction more toward international and electric vehicle manufacturers. In the case of tesla itself, i do believe it is a correction. Lets talk about elon musk. We all know he can be a controversial figure but how does that factor into teslas successes and failures . Do you think that car buyers really care about his erratic behavior . I do think they care about elon musk as a public figure and i do think they should. I also think that investors care a lot about elon musk. One of the biggest concerns before this quarter, before the Earnings Release this quarter was that elon musk was preoccupied with his role as the ceo of x, only known as twitter as well. That has not changed. There has not been any meaningful reduction in his work at x so this still remains. Additionally, the vp of Customer Relations announced in the Earnings Call that he will be leaving in a few months, which will mean that somebody has to pick up that slack. Also, elon musk has not necessarily had a history of a Successful Transition period in retaining the most crucial roles. We will be watching this. Julian vogel with san jose state. Thank you so much. Thank you. Despite the recent slowdown, california is still leading the way in the transition to evs but there is one big roadblock that may be keeping some consumers from actually making the switch. There is not enough chargers. You have heard about range anxiety. That is to keep the cars moving. David schechter shows us how california plans to keep up with the massive charging demand. If you are in california doing a story about electric cars, you have to rent an electric car, go for a cruise. 10 Miles Per Hour on the freeway. Not exactly what i had in mind. Like the speed of traffic in los angeles, the sale of electric vehicles in the u. S. Is really moving. Last year, americans bought 1. 4 million of them. More electric vehicles means fewer Greenhouse Gas emissions that warm our planet but there is a downside. There are not enough publicly available electric chargers to juice all of those cars up. Ive got an app. I am going to find is a charger. In california, the state with the most evs, finding a charger that is working and available can be a challenge. They are all in use. There are no chargers there. One way to address the charging gap is better maintenance of the charges we do have. The charger that you thought you would use to refuel your vehicle is actually inoperable. That is a problem. That is a huge problem. Walter thorne is with a Small Company called charger help. They train workers to service a variety of charging equipment owned by Different Companies and frequently they discover that a charger is out of order before the charging company even does. The pain is real. Jd power found 35 of ev drivers in miami had visited a charger where they were unable to actually charge. In denver and dallas, that number was 29 . Other Research Found 28 of the chargers in the San Francisco bay area did not function properly. Charger help collaborated with the federal government, developing a new standard that says chargers have to work 97 of the time. We know that reliable charging infrastructure is a critical piece of a Successful Transition. Right there. You see the sign . I am on the map but it is not on the map. Losing a little bit the patients right now. Federal lawmakers approved 5 billion to spur the construction of a National Network of 500,000 publicly available electric charging ports by 2030. That would help fill the gap but since the law passed, there has been a lot of plans but few chargers. Melissa a lot is an Energy Policy expert at columbia university. You cant just put a charger anywhere. You have to pick certain places and make sure that the infrastructure is there and ready to go. That takes time. To keep up with growing ev sales, experts estimate, in addition to the private chargers in homes and offices, the u. S. Will need 1. 2 million publicly accessible chargers by 2030. Today, there are about 160,000 which means we will have to build the equivalent of what we have right now every year for the next six years. When it comes to Climate Change, there was a lot riding on quickly building out the national charging network. The slower we go, the bigger the impacts of Climate Change that we will see. The city of los angeles is taking a novel approach to closing the charging gap, installing chargers on light poles on the city streets. The electric infrastructure is already there. At most, we will have to change fuses or do structural retrofit. The director of l. A. s bureau of streetlighting says his team has installed about 725 light pole chargers and says the citys streetlights can support a total of three or 4000 more. We will be the public option for people to have access to it on the rightofway for everyone. We should go back over there. Charger. We are charging, baby. What does all of this mean for california . A new study says the state needs about 250,000 new public chargers by 2030 and that would mean installing at least 41,000 new chargers every year to stay on target and meet demand. As we have seen, closing charging gaps like that will take lots of solutions, big and small. In february, californias Energy Commission approved a plan to invest nearly 2 billion to expand infrastructure for electric vehicles and that includes money for 40,000 new ev chargers across the state. The plan will also fund zero Emissions Technology at california ports. More curbside electric vehicle chargers could be coming to San Francisco. The city announced a Pilot Program that could get more plug in the stations onto the streets. The ultimate goal is by next year to see ev charging pilot stations showing up on curbs in San Francisco. We love a study in San Francisco but we would really love to see the chargers. We think we are getting close. Right now, 1250 public chargers are stationed around San Francisco. 37 are free to use. Tesla exploring the right healing market. A look into the planned feature and when it could be available. You can watch us anytime, anywhere on our streaming station, cbs news bay area. You can find is on the free cbs news app or on as tesla gets ready to roll out its own autonomous driving service, we are getting an early glimpse of what it might look like. These Images Released by the company show the app that will be used to access the service. You can see the screen is being used to call a car and then set the travel plans. Tesla is expected to unveil its robo taxi in august. Once those vehicles hit the road, they will be joining a right healing market dominated by uber and lyft. According to bloomberg, both companies have been recovering steadily over the past few years. They both next. Next. Stop. We got it . No. Keep going. Again. [ gasps ] next. If you dont pick one, i. Am i keeping you from your job . Next. Stop do we finally have it . Lets go back to the beginning. Are you. Your electric future. Customized. The fullyelectric audi q4 etron. Get exceptional offers at your local audi dealer. Its so fun to watch jessica in this space. This is a look at those clouds right now in realtime, but lets head underneath this cloud layer and take a look at our rainfall. [narrator] the virtual view studio, part of morning edition. Weekday mornings starting at 5 on kpix. Coming up tonight at 5 00 , a blast from the past. Blockbuster video with just one u. S. Store remaining. Find out how the movie rental chain is getting a sequel. That story and much more with Ryan Yamamoto and myself coming up today at 5 00. The cbs evening news is next right here kpix and local news continues on our streaming service, cbs news bay area. I will see you at 5 00. For 234 years in american history, no president was ever prosecuted for his official acts. Norah a landmark hearing as the Supreme Court considers whether donald trump has absolute immunity against criminal prosecutions from his time in office. If there is no threat of criminal prosecution, what prevents the president from just doing whatever he wants . Norah could it further delay his federal election