It's been more than a year since an entire key Tesla division was unceremoniously fired — following a purported disagreement between CEO Elon Musk and a team member — but the ex-Tesla employees haven't turned away from electric vehicles, per Electrek.

In May 2024, Tesla made international news when the automaker axed its Supercharger department. 

Tesla's Supercharger network is a critical component of the automaker's operations, and Car and Driver dubbed it "the gold standard" for EV drivers. In April 2024, Bloomberg decreed the Supercharger network a "serious" moneymaker, estimating it raked in $1.7 billion in 2023.

One month later, Reuters reported that the division responsible for this profitable segment of Tesla was cut, citing a disagreement between Musk and the team's leader, Rebecca Tinucci.

Tinucci was recently named CEO of Uber Freight, where she is also Global Head of Sustainability, as indicated in her bio on X. Freight Waves noted that Tinucci "spearheaded [Uber's] global electrification strategy" and worked across sectors to "advance zero-emission goals."

Tinucci's team is apparently following suit, moving forward with EVs after leaving Tesla behind.

Electrek reported that after the Supercharger division was fired, "a lot of companies started snatching up talent from the best EV charging team in the world." But three former team members got together to apply their experience to an intriguing new venture called Hubber.

Harry Fox, Hugh Leckie, and Connor Selwood were pivotal in building out Supercharger networks in the United Kingdom and Ireland. 

After they got pink slips from Tesla, they teamed up to solve what they call the "urban charging gap." Part of their stated goal is to encourage and facilitate EV adoption, and they identified city charging infrastructure as a key factor.

"We believe that abundant ultra-rapid charging in cities will unlock mass market adoption of EVs," Hubber's website reads. 

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It sounds slightly clinical as a concept, but Hubber's site features renderings of what proposed city charging stations would look like, and they're also focused on amenities. 

Restrooms, vending machines, fleet charging, and public charging appear on their mockups, along with solar panels atop a "retail unit." Fox, Leckie, and Selwood developed their initial designs as "essentially … [a] dream location" based on their Supercharger rollout experience.

EV drivers in the Electrek comments were thrilled both for the ex-Tesla employees and about the prospect of feature-packed charging stations.

"This is what the electric car community really needs, not a crowded media circus of a spaceship restaurant with dry bacon and one dirty bathroom," a reader replied, in an apparent reference to the new Tesla Diner in West Hollywood — which, it should be noted, does feature the largest collection of Supercharger stations of any singular Tesla location in the world, with 80 V4 stalls.

"I just came home from a trip to Canada and my Supercharger experience hasn't been great. There were many defective stalls at various Supercharger sites," another commented, highlighting demand for more robust EV charging options.

"This is a great idea. I'm so glad to see these talented and experienced people land on their feet," a third said. 

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