NIO laid off 70 employees and closed an office in San Francisco

Chinese electric vehicle startup NIO has laid off 70 employees in two California offices, including in the company’s North American headquarters.

The company let go of 20 employees from the North American headquarters in San Jose, and 50 from NIO’s San Francisco office, which has been closed. The information comes from California’s Employment Development Department, and comes via The Verge, who were told by a NIO spokesperson,

“After four years of rapid growth, we’ve set up a global organization. However, fast development has also posed issues like repetitive functional departments, undefined work tasks, unclear work responsibilities, and insufficient work for certain people. We would like to solve them by optimizing management efficiency this year.”

NIO employs around 10,000 people worldwide, and 640 workers at its North American headquarters.

This is another bump in the road for the company, which reported a $1.4 billion net loss for 2018, and terminated its plans to build its own manufacturing plant in Shanghai.

NIO is selling its ES8 SUV in China and its smaller, less expensive ES6 SUV will soon be hitting the market there. The company introduced a concept sedan and a new fast-charging station last month.