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Supply
Chain by the Numbers |
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- May 2, 2024
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Blood Bath at Telsa's Supercharger Unit; April PMI Falls Back into Manufacturing Contraction; Amazon Touts Same-Day Deliveries; Q3 Real GDP for Q1 Disappoints |
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| tG |
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500 |
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| That is about the number of former employees in Tesla’s Supercharger organization, which has built a vast network of public charging stations that virtually every major automaker is in the process of tapping into in the US. But that number of workers has changing dramatically, with the news this week that the entire unit was being shuttered. That shocking news comes in addition to the more than 10% staff cut ordered by CEO Elon Musk in mid-April. The move will of course slow the network’s growth, according to a person familiar the matter and speaking to Transport Topics magazine. The move is causing some degree of panic at Rivian, Ford, General Motors and other e-vehicles that are adopting Tesla’s charging connectors (with adaptor) for their battery -powered cars, giving customers access to the Tesla charging network. |
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That was the level of the US Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for April, as released Wednesday by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM). That score is just below the key 50 mark that separates US manufacturing expansion from contraction. What’s more, the US PMI had previously been in contraction territory for 16 straight months until it poked its head into expansion in March with a score of 50.3, but it didn’t last through April. Meanwhile, the New Order Index, which moved back into contraction territory after one month of expansion. It registered at 49.1, 2.3 percentage points lower than the 51.4 recorded in March, in a bad sign for future US manufacturing activity. |
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1.6% |
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| That was the annualize rate of US real GDP growth in Q1, according to the first estimate released late last week by the Commerce Dept. That was well below expectations, with economists surveyed by Dow Jones on average looking for an increase of 2.4% following a 3.4% gain in the fourth quarter of 2023. Meanwhile, inflation is still a problem. The personal consumption expenditures price index, a key inflation variable for the Federal Reserve, rose at a 3.4% annualized pace for the quarter, its biggest gain in a year and up from 1.8% in the fourth quarter. “This was a worst of both worlds report – slower than expected growth, higher than expected inflation,” said David Donabedian, chief investment officer of CIBC Private Wealth US. |
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That’s about what percent of orders globally that were shipped to Amazon Prime members in Q1 that arrived same day or next day. That according to an Amazon blog post early this week touting its same day delivery performance in the just ended first quarter. Amazon announced that nearly 60% of orders placed through its Prime membership program in the top 60 US metro areas arrived the same or next day. That is up from about 50% in the second quarter of 2023. Prime started out in 2005 offering free two-day shipping for over one million items, with an annual membership fee of $79. Jump to 2024, and the annual fee is now $139 – but with that comes ever faster delivery, as the numbers above attest, even though the promise is still two-day free. Now some 300 million items are included with Prime. Walmart and Target are trying to use their store networks for rapid fulfillment.
