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I don't think line workers should be asked to sacrifice their health to make the company successful. It is highly unlikely they are getting any meaningful stock
by blackguardx 9y ago
I don't think line workers should be asked to sacrifice their health to make the company successful. It is highly unlikely they are getting any meaningful stock options or bonuses associated with their level of sacrifice.
It isn't the equivalent of a startup employee working through the holidays to ship code. The benefits of workplace ergonomics, not only to employee health but also to production speed, have been known for decades. Tesla doesn't have to reinvent the wheel here.
- zaroth 9y agoI imagine the stress level on the software engineers is equally insane and perhaps just as debilitating as the physical labor of the line workers. It's no justification, but IMO you simply can't get where Elon is trying to go without that level of sacrifice from the people carrying the load. Tesla apparently made a lot of basic mistakes in designing their initial production line, as you say, basic ergonomic failures. Now what we hear as they scale up for Model 3 is that it's people building machines that build cars. If there's a human actually on the Model 3 "line" then by definition it won't run fast enough. My own experience is that automation is asymptotic in that it takes orders of magnitudes more engineering to achieve progressively more "complete" automation. Not everything will be automated, and the whole line will run so hard that the parts which aren't will be absolutely brutal to keep up with. But I have absolutely zero evidence for this, it's just a hunch.
- emodendroket 9y ago> It isn't the equivalent of a startup employee working through the holidays to ship code. I agree but I think that scenario can also be pretty exploitative.