Chinese electric vehicle maker Nio has laid off 70 employees in two Silicon Valley offices since early April, The Verge reported last Thursday, citing the company’s filing with California’s Employment Development Department.
Fifty employees in Nio’s San Francisco office, which housed some of its user interface and experience teams, were let go. The office has been closed too.
The other 20 individuals who were sacked were part of Nio’s North American headquarters and R&D center in San Jose, California, which was staffed by 640 employees at the end of 2018.
To explain the cutbacks, Nio said it was optimizing management efficiency.
The automaker made a net loss of RMB 9.6 billion (USD 1.4 billion) in 2018, nearly double the net loss in 2017, which stood at RMB 5 billion.
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