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California Opens Investigation into Tesla Workplace Conditions

291 points by danso 9y ago

danso 9y ago
Related: the two Reveal reporters who worked on the investigation are currently doing an IAMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/8d7khd/were_two_investigative_reporters_who_looked_into/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/8d7khd/were_two_inves...
- gniv 9y ago
  From that thread: > Have you investigated any other auto manufacturer? > (ajpreports) I haven't nor has Will. But maybe that's our next venture! That diminishes their credibility a lot in my mind. This is a type of investigation that should be done by people with experience in the area. Especially on a company that pushes the envelope like Tesla.
  - danso 9y ago
    So what are your feelings about Theranos, another hugely visionary/envelope-pushing Palo Alto company (valued as high as $9 billion) that was investigated by an East Coast reporter who has no medical, bioengineering, or entrepreneurial experience? https://www.propublica.org/podcast/how-a-reporter-pierced-the-hype-behind-theranos https://www.propublica.org/podcast/how-a-reporter-pierced-th...
    - gniv 9y ago
      I thought about this. I don't think the comparison is correct. Theranos was not delivering what was promising product-wise. Tesla is accused of hiding injuries. I don't know the truth here, but I would be surprised if the other car companies are behaving better. That was my point: How do these reporters know that the other factories do not underreport injuries the same way? If they have never done this before, they wouldn't know. So it appears as if they picked on Tesla.
      - coredog64 9y ago
        Probably because many other car companies have unions that hold them accountable.
      - djur 9y ago
        Are you suggesting that they shouldn't investigate Tesla unless they also investigate all other car manufacturers?
      - danso 9y ago
        It was only because of the WSJ reporting that we can say Theranos “was not delivering what it was promising product-wise”. Before the investigation, hundreds of millions of dollars had been invested by ostensibly sane investors, nevermind partnerships with Walgreens and Safeway. Using your standard, no one should have paid the WSJ investigation any attention until the reporter was thoroughly versed in blood tech. The Reveal reporters are making a claim about Tesla’s worker safety practices, and they have experience covering these issues. Why don’t you think that experience is relevant in the car making domain? More to the point, Reveal’s story isn’t claiming that Tesla is misreporting injuries more than other car makers. It claims Tesla is misreporting injuries, full stop. It doesn’t require comparison.
  - gniv 9y ago
    Five people downvoted but only one replied. I would appreciate a line explaining, since I didn't think my opinion was so controversial.
    - bdcravens 9y ago
      I think in general HN finds any idea that Tesla should get a free pass distasteful.
    - danso 9y ago
      I didn’t downvote. But I imagine people disagreed with your unjustified appeal to authority. It pretty much closes off any kind of journalism critical of Tesla.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Some auto manufacturer has to be their first. Why not Tesla?
    - gniv 9y ago
      You're in the schoolyard, shooting hoops. From time to time somebody throws the ball over the fence, and somebody has to run to retrieve it. You get annoyed, but move on. Then the new kid, nerdy, scrawny, with no friends, throws the ball over the fence. You beat him up. Why him? Well, somebody has to be first. Why not him?
austincheney 9y ago
Does Tesla have automation problems? They appear to be having atrocious labor conditions while putting out a very small quantity of product compared with absolutely everybody else.
- matte_black 9y ago
  I bet. I see this frequently in companies with high automation dependency. If your automation isn’t working correctly you accelerate full speed into a brick wall.
  - kistaro 9y ago
    That's Toyota, we're talking about Tesla.
    - avs733 9y ago
      This is absolutely and utterly false. Toyota's manufacturing is moving in almost the exact opposite direction of Tesla's and it is working much better.
      - icebraining 9y ago
        I think kistaro was making a joke about Toyota's infamous acceleration problem.
  - woolvalley 9y ago
    That feels like computing bugs in general.
- sf_rob 9y ago
  Musk in an interview last week said as much (re: automation). He claims that the Model 3 line was over-automated so now they're tearing out sections for rework while doing more with the labor on hand. (Although they're about to also install new sections from their German automation subsidiary so it goes both ways).
briandear 9y ago
Elon Musk is the Preston Tucker of our time — seems to get hammered from all sides while trying to break the status quo. I have no information to comment on the validity of any allegations, but it seems like Musk is continually under attack. I was a moderate Musk fan before, but now I am really hoping for his success. It seems to me that if you are pissing off everyone, you’re doing something right. I highly recommend watching the Coppola film “Tucker, A Man and His Dream.”
- Gargoyle 9y ago
  It's also notable that TSLA has a very large community of short interests. That kind of money can drive all sorts of stories in the press...
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    Yes but short interest is still dwarfed by traditional long positions. All the money wrapped up into long positions can also drive press.
    - greglindahl 9y ago
      Tesla has one of the largest communities of shorts, and a normal community of longs.
      - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
        Yes but that large community of shorts is still much smaller than the normal community of longs.
- throwahey 9y ago
  > It seems to me that if you are pissing off everyone, you’re doing something right. I'm curious, does that also apply to the POTUS?
  - craftyguy 9y ago
mc32 9y ago
Wonder if Alabama will see the opportunity this might represent for them. High tech and high relative pay.
- dbt00 9y ago
  Because being the low-regulation option worked out well for Arizona and Uber...?
  - mc32 9y ago
    Well, likely better than it would have in CA. Back on topic, Mazda, Toyota have plants there, they have the workforce and friendlier reg., which is a plus if you're a MFG.
    - bkcreate 9y ago
      There a lot more than you would think down here: Honda, Mercedes, Kia, Toyota, Mazda all have plants and many of their suppliers are also in state.
- ebikelaw 9y ago
  Alabama produces a million cars a year, in factories that are actually high-tech unlike Tesla’s. You think they are clamoring to bring in an automaker struggling to produce a handful of cars with double the industry injury rate?
  - Diederich 9y ago
    > actually high-tech unlike Tesla’s citation needed.
    - rconti 9y ago
      Having toured the Tesla plant a few months after touring BMW in Munich, they're worlds apart. I also toured the Fremont plant back in the NUMMI days. That said, I don't think it's necessarily a huge strike against Tesla; they're at a different scale and at a different stage in the life of the company.
draw_down 9y ago
Things really seem to be going haywire over there lately. It’s a shame.
chalkandpaste 9y ago
THIS IS FANTASTIC. I’ve had a friend, a specialist engineer doing failure analysis, who has been largely incapacitated from any work because of Tesla. He sustained an injury during a high urgency project (which failed, whodathunk) which required him to work 16 hour days for a few months. During the course of this, he sustained injuries to arms and legs due to machinery issues (the machinery at Tesla often has workers contorting into unnatural positions, I’ve heard). It’s been 2 years and my friend is unable to pay for the requisite operations and can’t get a cent out of Tesla. He is unable to work because of his injuries and so really has been confined to his home for 2 years now. I have no respect for Musk. An employer who has no respect for their employees, a leader who has no regard for those he leads, is morally bankrupt and seeks only their own good.
- komali2 9y ago
  With respect to you and your friend, I'm automatically skeptical of stories like this. We're on the internet, after all. Has your friend spoken to news agencies about this? Why not, if he/she hasn't? Surely any of the major news agencies would be watering at the mouth for a story like this.
  - StudentStuff 9y ago
    Huh? There are articles every week about injured workers at Tesla getting screwed over, its a core reason why the workers are attempting to unionize. Someone needs to stand up to Tesla and protect injured workers. Take a look for yourself: https://www.qwant.com/?q=tesla%20workers&t=news https://www.qwant.com/?q=tesla%20workers&t=news
    - josefresco 9y ago
      > There are articles every week I looked, it's an exaggeration to say every week.
  - mabufo 9y ago
    What are you skeptical about? That this person's friend is actually injured? That it happened because of tesla? People get injured at work. Maybe not where YOU work, but it absolutely happens. Also, the subtext of your comment - that this person OF COURSE would have contacted a news organization if their claim was legitimate is frankly very weird.
rdiddly 9y ago
"...an ideologically motivated attack by an extremist organization working directly with union supporters to create a calculated disinformation campaign against Tesla" vs. "...Tesla failed to report serious injuries on legally mandated reports to make its numbers appear better than they actually were." Now use Occam's Razor.
- jcwayne 9y ago
  > Now use Occam's Razor. Somehow I doubt that will result in less disagreement.
- api 9y ago
  They're both likely true. Unions, conventional automobile companies, and the oil industry are all terrified of electric cars. EVs mean less jobs, less parts, longer renewal cycles, and of course removing inflexibility from oil demand. EVs threaten industries collectively totaling trillions of dollars and in some cases even double digit percentages of nations' GDPs. It's absurd and naive to think these industries would do nothing. ... but Tesla is a corporation, and corporations act in their self-interest. Corporations (and governments and other large entities too) routinely omit negative information, cook their numbers, ignore problems, over-reach, and generally push boundaries in their race for profit, power, and status. As good as Tesla's mission is, I don't necessarily expect it to behave better than a standard issue corporation. Conventional auto industries only implemented safety in vehicles and in factories after being repeatedly whacked upside the head. They still don't hesitate to ignore safety overseas when they can get away with it, nor do they hesitate to destroy the economic well being of entire regions of the country to save a bit on short term costs or flout environmental regulations. Tesla is new, so they'll probably need to get whacked around a bit too. But I still hope they are successful because their mission is good for humanity in the long term. Continued reliance on oil is an existential risk to the human race.
  - kitsunesoba 9y ago
    Yes, I’m seeing a lot of assumptions that unions are purely (or at least mostly) forces of good, but that’s not necessarily true. Auto workers’ unions in particular have a reputation of being bullies, extortionists, and sometimes obstructionists. Unionization of Tesla may improve conditions for the workers (though it’s worth noting that many auto union member companies still have serious unaddressed issues) but it’d also likely slow the company to a crawl and rob it of much of its agility. I think that Tesla’s worker treatment problems should absolutely be addressed but I wouldn’t be so sure that unions are the answer.
usaphp 9y ago
> It was difficult to find employees to go on the record. Like a lot of tech companies in Silicon Valley, workers signed non-disclosure agreements. NDAs usually are put in place so workers don't share any trade secrets or proprietary technology. So some workers were scared to talk to us because of this NDA they sign for working at Tesla. Damn, so workers were afraid to speak up and spread the injury info because they were forced to sign an NDA and we’re worried about being sued. I think somebody needs to do something about this NDA situation, it’s getting out of control in SV
- PerryCox 9y ago
  NDAs are out of control everywhere. I understand they have a time and a place where they are useful, but most of the time they are being abused (ie. Stormy Daniels NDA, etc).
  - twblalock 9y ago
    No, most of the time they are rather unremarkable and don't cause problems for anybody. You hear about the outliers, not the thousands and thousands of NDAs that are never disputed.
    - stephengillie 9y ago
      The last 3 NDAs I've signed were entirely reasonable; I'm not allowed to tell you who our customers were, but that's all it covers.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  > I think somebody needs to do something about this NDA situation, it’s getting out of control in SV Not just in SV, it's all over the world. IMHO the right of protection for whistleblowers should be made a basic human right, in order to protect people worldwide who are afraid to speak out.
  - briandear 9y ago
    California law DOES protect whistleblowers. The law is extremely clear. Those laws even provide for damages due to retailiation.
IBM 9y ago
It's really surprising to me see posts critical of Tesla highly upvoted on HN these days. It tells me the narrative around Tesla is finally starting to break down, and naturally the stock price has declined from its highs as well. A few years ago most of the comments here would have been much more sycophantic. It's very refreshing to see. edit: Ok maybe it's not completely gone yet.
- netsec_burn 9y ago
  Because we all want Tesla to succeed. It's competition in an industry that needs what Tesla is trying to bring to market. It will also greatly benefit the American economy to be the first to mass produce inexpensive electric cars. So personally, I read comments like yours and wonder who you are and why you feel it is necessary to be critical of that motive.
  - leeoniya 9y ago
    so what you're saying is that selective information > all information. an ends justify the means, of sorts - a very myopic, startup-like mentality, IMO; Boz would be proud [1]. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/29/17178086/facebook-growth-memo-leak-boz-andrew-bosworth https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/29/17178086/facebook-growth-...
  - majormajor 9y ago
    I want the electric car transition to succeed, but if Tesla's becoming a bad actor in their quest to be the biggest winner, than I don't think that's helpful for the overall effort anymore.
    - freedomfries 9y ago
      > if Tesla's becoming a bad actor in their quest to be the biggest winner, than I don't think that's helpful It's still super helpful. We need to advance our tech at all costs. It's the only thing we have on this continent. We've gifted foreign nations with our manufacturing industries and gutted the American middle class, and the entrails have been used to lift 250,000 people a day out of poverty since 1990. This is a serious gift and a serious tragedy at the same time. Now there is nothing good about herniated disks from 16 hours of holding your arms over your head every day. I am not defending that. But you have to put it in perspective. Things are so damn good all the frigging time in America and Canada, _relatively speaking_, that we look at herniated disks from hard work like it's some great tragedy that should net each suffering worker $400,000 and a couple years off. But if you lived in China you'd be faced with taking zero dollars, or going to prison for complaining, or getting caught in one of the suicide nets on the sides of Foxconn. So what's it going to be, guy? Are we going to stifle our tech because we aren't willing to break eggs to make an omelette? Or are we going to let go of our hatred for the tall poppy and let him do his job? Let me finish by saying that Elon Musk inspired me to move to the big city and get a comp sci education 3 years ago, at this point I am now an intermediate-level dev with great prospects and without Elon Musk striking inspiration and courage in my heart I would be much more bitter and resentful and lame than I am now. So I will defend him to the end of the Earth for setting such a shining and glorious example for me to follow.
dollar 9y ago
This is why you shouldn’t put your business in California. There’s a legion of highly-paid bureaucrats who have nothing, I mean nothing, better to do than screw with you.
- s73v3r_ 9y ago
  So do you believe that working conditions are something that a state should be looking into?
- _rpd 9y ago
  It was a gamble when he was aiming for the ultra-high automation route - but now that he is reverting to the big labor route, it seems positively unwise.
mixmastamyk 9y ago
Don't know about Tesla, but have heard horror stories about SpaceX here in LA. 60+ hour weeks, butts in seats, whole depts fired/walkouts, sweatshop conditions, etc. Some folks are still not aware that these practices lower productivity. shrug
- ranman 9y ago
  Worked at SpaceX in LA on software. It was generally quite pleasant but you do put in a lot of hours. No one asks you to work overtime or work extra hours - it’s just a fun environment and you like your coworkers so you stay at work longer than you should. Most people who were there longer than I was ended up finding a healthy work / life balance that they could sustain... I don’t think the new folks do this because they’re obsessed with learning as much as they can. I left because the space industry moves at quite a slow pace compared to the rest of the software world and I was tired of working on one small piece of software while the world was changing around me... All in all? SpaceX was pretty wonderful and I don’t think anyone should judge employee happiness solely from hours worked. I was frequently encouraged to take some recharge time for me. This is just one data point and maybe we’re all only hearing the negative data points?
  - rubicon33 9y ago
    > I left because the space industry moves at quite a slow pace compared to the rest of the software world and I was tired of working on one small piece of software while the world was changing around me... Would love it if you could shed some more light on this point :) Was it that you were using an old programming language or something? It's hard for me to believe that the space industry didn't present some pretty awesome opportunities to use your brain. Sometimes building CRUD apps with the latest X framework is just too damn easy.
    - starpilot 9y ago
      The thing with mission critical systems is boring == safe. So conservatism is endemic in aerospace where stakes are high.
Animats 9y ago
"... ideologically motivated attack by an extremist organization working directly with union supporters to create a calculated disinformation campaign against Tesla. The piece even includes an interview with Worksafe – the same organization that the UAW enlisted to publish a negative report against Tesla last year, and whose board includes labor union officials and advocates."[1] - from Tesla's own site. Wow. That sounds like something Hannity or Trump would say. Is Musk losing it? The United Automotive Workers union is hardly an "extremist organization". [1] https://www.tesla.com/blog/not-so-revealing-story https://www.tesla.com/blog/not-so-revealing-story
- dmix 9y ago
  The blog post didn't call UAW extermist, that remark was clearly directed at Reveal the organization behind the article/campaign. Quite a big difference. UAW was only referenced in regard to the fact Reveal cited Worksafe in the article, an organization which previously pushed an anti-Tesla PR campaign funded by UAW. Additionally, the Reveal journalist said on Reddit that many of the people interviewed were indeed "union supporters" (the words Musk specifically used), but also said that not all of them were, such as Tesla's former safety manager. The "extremist" part may be debatable or an exaggeration, but the other parts had carefully chosen words and were not inaccurate.
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  Reveal won a Pulitzer Prize in this year for revealing how all around the country judges steered convicted drug offenders into rehab / thinly disguised private industry work camps. I guess that is pretty extremist if one is in favor of private industry work camps and judges benefiting from them. Nomination details: http://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/amy-julia-harris-and-shoshana-walter-reveal-center-investigative-reporting http://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/amy-julia-harris-and-shosh...
  - vsundar 9y ago
    > Reveal won a Pulitzer Prize in this year.... Turns out they were a finalist not the winners. The difference is here: http://www.pulitzer.org/page/frequently-asked-questions http://www.pulitzer.org/page/frequently-asked-questions (no. 23). 3 finalists are chosen by that category jury from the submissions and one winner is picked by the board from that. Good info though. Thanks.
Animats 9y ago
The real problem for Tesla is that their destiny is probably to be the next BMW - a good midrange luxury car maker, about #12 in the world on volume. That would be fine except for the excessive market cap. Tesla's market cap exceeded GM's at one point. The stock has to come down a lot if Tesla ends up at BMW's scale. Even with Tesla's most optimistic production estimates, Tesla will make far fewer cars than BMW in the next few years. Silicon Valley has a few other companies like that, Uber and Twitter being the most prominent.
- cagenut 9y ago
  the cars are a product demo. selling batteries by the gigawatt is the real biz. GE not GM.
  - almost_usual 9y ago
    People are already paying this price without it even being a certainty, that's speculation.
  - ckastner 9y ago
    Then you should back Panasonic, not Tesla, because they're the ones with the tech.
- justin66 9y ago
  The market cap is a bit of a mystery, but they've got some options for making money even if they stay around BMW levels in terms of auto production volume. There's no reason they can't compete well against in the automotive space against LG Chem, who makes batteries for cars like the Nissan Leaf and makes batteries, the entire powertrain, and the infotainment system for the Chevy Bolt. In the event their autonomous tech is ever any good, they could sell that. (today they could offer a steep discount and just sell big microprocessor-controlled guillotines or something) Superior tech can really kill Tesla, though, if they don't get with it. Little cylindrical batteries aren't necessarily the future in that space, it is definitely not a given that their autonomous tech will be a big winner, and BMW's inexpensive carbon fiber is a thing of awe and wonder that Tesla has no answer for. And there's always the outside chance that Toyota is onto something about fuel cells...
icantdrive55 9y ago
I don't know the whole story, but I am so glad he hasen't sold out his country/morals; and moved the whole operation overseas. It must be on his mind. At this point, I really admire the guy--on so many levels. (On a personal level, I despise foxey companies that exploit Globalism. Globalism? The rich have really brainwashed us?)
m4x 9y ago
The original Reveal article [1] didn't get much discussion here, but it's pretty damning. [1]: https://www.revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is-safer-but-it-left-injuries-off-the-books/ https://www.revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is...

291 points by danso 9y ago

Related: the two Reveal reporters who worked on the investigation are currently doing an IAMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/8d7khd/were_two_investigative_reporters_who_looked_into/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/8d7khd/were_two_inves...

gniv 9y ago
From that thread: > Have you investigated any other auto manufacturer? > (ajpreports) I haven't nor has Will. But maybe that's our next venture! That diminishes their credibility a lot in my mind. This is a type of investigation that should be done by people with experience in the area. Especially on a company that pushes the envelope like Tesla.
- danso 9y ago
  So what are your feelings about Theranos, another hugely visionary/envelope-pushing Palo Alto company (valued as high as $9 billion) that was investigated by an East Coast reporter who has no medical, bioengineering, or entrepreneurial experience? https://www.propublica.org/podcast/how-a-reporter-pierced-the-hype-behind-theranos https://www.propublica.org/podcast/how-a-reporter-pierced-th...
  - gniv 9y ago
    I thought about this. I don't think the comparison is correct. Theranos was not delivering what was promising product-wise. Tesla is accused of hiding injuries. I don't know the truth here, but I would be surprised if the other car companies are behaving better. That was my point: How do these reporters know that the other factories do not underreport injuries the same way? If they have never done this before, they wouldn't know. So it appears as if they picked on Tesla.
    - coredog64 9y ago
      Probably because many other car companies have unions that hold them accountable.
    - djur 9y ago
      Are you suggesting that they shouldn't investigate Tesla unless they also investigate all other car manufacturers?
    - danso 9y ago
      It was only because of the WSJ reporting that we can say Theranos “was not delivering what it was promising product-wise”. Before the investigation, hundreds of millions of dollars had been invested by ostensibly sane investors, nevermind partnerships with Walgreens and Safeway. Using your standard, no one should have paid the WSJ investigation any attention until the reporter was thoroughly versed in blood tech. The Reveal reporters are making a claim about Tesla’s worker safety practices, and they have experience covering these issues. Why don’t you think that experience is relevant in the car making domain? More to the point, Reveal’s story isn’t claiming that Tesla is misreporting injuries more than other car makers. It claims Tesla is misreporting injuries, full stop. It doesn’t require comparison.
- gniv 9y ago
  Five people downvoted but only one replied. I would appreciate a line explaining, since I didn't think my opinion was so controversial.
  - bdcravens 9y ago
    I think in general HN finds any idea that Tesla should get a free pass distasteful.
  - danso 9y ago
    I didn’t downvote. But I imagine people disagreed with your unjustified appeal to authority. It pretty much closes off any kind of journalism critical of Tesla.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Some auto manufacturer has to be their first. Why not Tesla?
  - gniv 9y ago
    You're in the schoolyard, shooting hoops. From time to time somebody throws the ball over the fence, and somebody has to run to retrieve it. You get annoyed, but move on. Then the new kid, nerdy, scrawny, with no friends, throws the ball over the fence. You beat him up. Why him? Well, somebody has to be first. Why not him?

austincheney 9y ago

Does Tesla have automation problems? They appear to be having atrocious labor conditions while putting out a very small quantity of product compared with absolutely everybody else.

matte_black 9y ago
I bet. I see this frequently in companies with high automation dependency. If your automation isn’t working correctly you accelerate full speed into a brick wall.
- kistaro 9y ago
  That's Toyota, we're talking about Tesla.
  - avs733 9y ago
    This is absolutely and utterly false. Toyota's manufacturing is moving in almost the exact opposite direction of Tesla's and it is working much better.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      I think kistaro was making a joke about Toyota's infamous acceleration problem.
- woolvalley 9y ago
  That feels like computing bugs in general.
sf_rob 9y ago
Musk in an interview last week said as much (re: automation). He claims that the Model 3 line was over-automated so now they're tearing out sections for rework while doing more with the labor on hand. (Although they're about to also install new sections from their German automation subsidiary so it goes both ways).

briandear 9y ago

Elon Musk is the Preston Tucker of our time — seems to get hammered from all sides while trying to break the status quo. I have no information to comment on the validity of any allegations, but it seems like Musk is continually under attack. I was a moderate Musk fan before, but now I am really hoping for his success. It seems to me that if you are pissing off everyone, you’re doing something right. I highly recommend watching the Coppola film “Tucker, A Man and His Dream.”

Gargoyle 9y ago
It's also notable that TSLA has a very large community of short interests. That kind of money can drive all sorts of stories in the press...
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  Yes but short interest is still dwarfed by traditional long positions. All the money wrapped up into long positions can also drive press.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    Tesla has one of the largest communities of shorts, and a normal community of longs.
    - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
      Yes but that large community of shorts is still much smaller than the normal community of longs.
throwahey 9y ago
> It seems to me that if you are pissing off everyone, you’re doing something right. I'm curious, does that also apply to the POTUS?
- craftyguy 9y ago

mc32 9y ago

Wonder if Alabama will see the opportunity this might represent for them. High tech and high relative pay.

dbt00 9y ago
Because being the low-regulation option worked out well for Arizona and Uber...?
- mc32 9y ago
  Well, likely better than it would have in CA. Back on topic, Mazda, Toyota have plants there, they have the workforce and friendlier reg., which is a plus if you're a MFG.
  - bkcreate 9y ago
    There a lot more than you would think down here: Honda, Mercedes, Kia, Toyota, Mazda all have plants and many of their suppliers are also in state.
ebikelaw 9y ago
Alabama produces a million cars a year, in factories that are actually high-tech unlike Tesla’s. You think they are clamoring to bring in an automaker struggling to produce a handful of cars with double the industry injury rate?
- Diederich 9y ago
  > actually high-tech unlike Tesla’s citation needed.
  - rconti 9y ago
    Having toured the Tesla plant a few months after touring BMW in Munich, they're worlds apart. I also toured the Fremont plant back in the NUMMI days. That said, I don't think it's necessarily a huge strike against Tesla; they're at a different scale and at a different stage in the life of the company.

draw_down 9y ago

Things really seem to be going haywire over there lately. It’s a shame.

chalkandpaste 9y ago

THIS IS FANTASTIC. I’ve had a friend, a specialist engineer doing failure analysis, who has been largely incapacitated from any work because of Tesla. He sustained an injury during a high urgency project (which failed, whodathunk) which required him to work 16 hour days for a few months. During the course of this, he sustained injuries to arms and legs due to machinery issues (the machinery at Tesla often has workers contorting into unnatural positions, I’ve heard). It’s been 2 years and my friend is unable to pay for the requisite operations and can’t get a cent out of Tesla. He is unable to work because of his injuries and so really has been confined to his home for 2 years now. I have no respect for Musk. An employer who has no respect for their employees, a leader who has no regard for those he leads, is morally bankrupt and seeks only their own good.

komali2 9y ago
With respect to you and your friend, I'm automatically skeptical of stories like this. We're on the internet, after all. Has your friend spoken to news agencies about this? Why not, if he/she hasn't? Surely any of the major news agencies would be watering at the mouth for a story like this.
- StudentStuff 9y ago
  Huh? There are articles every week about injured workers at Tesla getting screwed over, its a core reason why the workers are attempting to unionize. Someone needs to stand up to Tesla and protect injured workers. Take a look for yourself: https://www.qwant.com/?q=tesla%20workers&t=news https://www.qwant.com/?q=tesla%20workers&t=news
  - josefresco 9y ago
    > There are articles every week I looked, it's an exaggeration to say every week.
- mabufo 9y ago
  What are you skeptical about? That this person's friend is actually injured? That it happened because of tesla? People get injured at work. Maybe not where YOU work, but it absolutely happens. Also, the subtext of your comment - that this person OF COURSE would have contacted a news organization if their claim was legitimate is frankly very weird.

rdiddly 9y ago

"...an ideologically motivated attack by an extremist organization working directly with union supporters to create a calculated disinformation campaign against Tesla" vs. "...Tesla failed to report serious injuries on legally mandated reports to make its numbers appear better than they actually were." Now use Occam's Razor.

jcwayne 9y ago
> Now use Occam's Razor. Somehow I doubt that will result in less disagreement.
api 9y ago
They're both likely true. Unions, conventional automobile companies, and the oil industry are all terrified of electric cars. EVs mean less jobs, less parts, longer renewal cycles, and of course removing inflexibility from oil demand. EVs threaten industries collectively totaling trillions of dollars and in some cases even double digit percentages of nations' GDPs. It's absurd and naive to think these industries would do nothing. ... but Tesla is a corporation, and corporations act in their self-interest. Corporations (and governments and other large entities too) routinely omit negative information, cook their numbers, ignore problems, over-reach, and generally push boundaries in their race for profit, power, and status. As good as Tesla's mission is, I don't necessarily expect it to behave better than a standard issue corporation. Conventional auto industries only implemented safety in vehicles and in factories after being repeatedly whacked upside the head. They still don't hesitate to ignore safety overseas when they can get away with it, nor do they hesitate to destroy the economic well being of entire regions of the country to save a bit on short term costs or flout environmental regulations. Tesla is new, so they'll probably need to get whacked around a bit too. But I still hope they are successful because their mission is good for humanity in the long term. Continued reliance on oil is an existential risk to the human race.
- kitsunesoba 9y ago
  Yes, I’m seeing a lot of assumptions that unions are purely (or at least mostly) forces of good, but that’s not necessarily true. Auto workers’ unions in particular have a reputation of being bullies, extortionists, and sometimes obstructionists. Unionization of Tesla may improve conditions for the workers (though it’s worth noting that many auto union member companies still have serious unaddressed issues) but it’d also likely slow the company to a crawl and rob it of much of its agility. I think that Tesla’s worker treatment problems should absolutely be addressed but I wouldn’t be so sure that unions are the answer.

usaphp 9y ago

> It was difficult to find employees to go on the record. Like a lot of tech companies in Silicon Valley, workers signed non-disclosure agreements. NDAs usually are put in place so workers don't share any trade secrets or proprietary technology. So some workers were scared to talk to us because of this NDA they sign for working at Tesla. Damn, so workers were afraid to speak up and spread the injury info because they were forced to sign an NDA and we’re worried about being sued. I think somebody needs to do something about this NDA situation, it’s getting out of control in SV

PerryCox 9y ago
NDAs are out of control everywhere. I understand they have a time and a place where they are useful, but most of the time they are being abused (ie. Stormy Daniels NDA, etc).
- twblalock 9y ago
  No, most of the time they are rather unremarkable and don't cause problems for anybody. You hear about the outliers, not the thousands and thousands of NDAs that are never disputed.
  - stephengillie 9y ago
    The last 3 NDAs I've signed were entirely reasonable; I'm not allowed to tell you who our customers were, but that's all it covers.
mschuster91 9y ago
> I think somebody needs to do something about this NDA situation, it’s getting out of control in SV Not just in SV, it's all over the world. IMHO the right of protection for whistleblowers should be made a basic human right, in order to protect people worldwide who are afraid to speak out.
- briandear 9y ago
  California law DOES protect whistleblowers. The law is extremely clear. Those laws even provide for damages due to retailiation.

IBM 9y ago

It's really surprising to me see posts critical of Tesla highly upvoted on HN these days. It tells me the narrative around Tesla is finally starting to break down, and naturally the stock price has declined from its highs as well. A few years ago most of the comments here would have been much more sycophantic. It's very refreshing to see. edit: Ok maybe it's not completely gone yet.

netsec_burn 9y ago
Because we all want Tesla to succeed. It's competition in an industry that needs what Tesla is trying to bring to market. It will also greatly benefit the American economy to be the first to mass produce inexpensive electric cars. So personally, I read comments like yours and wonder who you are and why you feel it is necessary to be critical of that motive.
- leeoniya 9y ago
  so what you're saying is that selective information > all information. an ends justify the means, of sorts - a very myopic, startup-like mentality, IMO; Boz would be proud [1]. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/29/17178086/facebook-growth-memo-leak-boz-andrew-bosworth https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/29/17178086/facebook-growth-...
- majormajor 9y ago
  I want the electric car transition to succeed, but if Tesla's becoming a bad actor in their quest to be the biggest winner, than I don't think that's helpful for the overall effort anymore.
  - freedomfries 9y ago
    > if Tesla's becoming a bad actor in their quest to be the biggest winner, than I don't think that's helpful It's still super helpful. We need to advance our tech at all costs. It's the only thing we have on this continent. We've gifted foreign nations with our manufacturing industries and gutted the American middle class, and the entrails have been used to lift 250,000 people a day out of poverty since 1990. This is a serious gift and a serious tragedy at the same time. Now there is nothing good about herniated disks from 16 hours of holding your arms over your head every day. I am not defending that. But you have to put it in perspective. Things are so damn good all the frigging time in America and Canada, _relatively speaking_, that we look at herniated disks from hard work like it's some great tragedy that should net each suffering worker $400,000 and a couple years off. But if you lived in China you'd be faced with taking zero dollars, or going to prison for complaining, or getting caught in one of the suicide nets on the sides of Foxconn. So what's it going to be, guy? Are we going to stifle our tech because we aren't willing to break eggs to make an omelette? Or are we going to let go of our hatred for the tall poppy and let him do his job? Let me finish by saying that Elon Musk inspired me to move to the big city and get a comp sci education 3 years ago, at this point I am now an intermediate-level dev with great prospects and without Elon Musk striking inspiration and courage in my heart I would be much more bitter and resentful and lame than I am now. So I will defend him to the end of the Earth for setting such a shining and glorious example for me to follow.

dollar 9y ago

This is why you shouldn’t put your business in California. There’s a legion of highly-paid bureaucrats who have nothing, I mean nothing, better to do than screw with you.

s73v3r_ 9y ago
So do you believe that working conditions are something that a state should be looking into?
_rpd 9y ago
It was a gamble when he was aiming for the ultra-high automation route - but now that he is reverting to the big labor route, it seems positively unwise.

mixmastamyk 9y ago

Don't know about Tesla, but have heard horror stories about SpaceX here in LA. 60+ hour weeks, butts in seats, whole depts fired/walkouts, sweatshop conditions, etc. Some folks are still not aware that these practices lower productivity. shrug

ranman 9y ago
Worked at SpaceX in LA on software. It was generally quite pleasant but you do put in a lot of hours. No one asks you to work overtime or work extra hours - it’s just a fun environment and you like your coworkers so you stay at work longer than you should. Most people who were there longer than I was ended up finding a healthy work / life balance that they could sustain... I don’t think the new folks do this because they’re obsessed with learning as much as they can. I left because the space industry moves at quite a slow pace compared to the rest of the software world and I was tired of working on one small piece of software while the world was changing around me... All in all? SpaceX was pretty wonderful and I don’t think anyone should judge employee happiness solely from hours worked. I was frequently encouraged to take some recharge time for me. This is just one data point and maybe we’re all only hearing the negative data points?
- rubicon33 9y ago
  > I left because the space industry moves at quite a slow pace compared to the rest of the software world and I was tired of working on one small piece of software while the world was changing around me... Would love it if you could shed some more light on this point :) Was it that you were using an old programming language or something? It's hard for me to believe that the space industry didn't present some pretty awesome opportunities to use your brain. Sometimes building CRUD apps with the latest X framework is just too damn easy.
  - starpilot 9y ago
    The thing with mission critical systems is boring == safe. So conservatism is endemic in aerospace where stakes are high.

Animats 9y ago

"... ideologically motivated attack by an extremist organization working directly with union supporters to create a calculated disinformation campaign against Tesla. The piece even includes an interview with Worksafe – the same organization that the UAW enlisted to publish a negative report against Tesla last year, and whose board includes labor union officials and advocates."[1] - from Tesla's own site. Wow. That sounds like something Hannity or Trump would say. Is Musk losing it? The United Automotive Workers union is hardly an "extremist organization". [1] https://www.tesla.com/blog/not-so-revealing-story https://www.tesla.com/blog/not-so-revealing-story

dmix 9y ago
The blog post didn't call UAW extermist, that remark was clearly directed at Reveal the organization behind the article/campaign. Quite a big difference. UAW was only referenced in regard to the fact Reveal cited Worksafe in the article, an organization which previously pushed an anti-Tesla PR campaign funded by UAW. Additionally, the Reveal journalist said on Reddit that many of the people interviewed were indeed "union supporters" (the words Musk specifically used), but also said that not all of them were, such as Tesla's former safety manager. The "extremist" part may be debatable or an exaggeration, but the other parts had carefully chosen words and were not inaccurate.
stevenwoo 9y ago
Reveal won a Pulitzer Prize in this year for revealing how all around the country judges steered convicted drug offenders into rehab / thinly disguised private industry work camps. I guess that is pretty extremist if one is in favor of private industry work camps and judges benefiting from them. Nomination details: http://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/amy-julia-harris-and-shoshana-walter-reveal-center-investigative-reporting http://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/amy-julia-harris-and-shosh...
- vsundar 9y ago
  > Reveal won a Pulitzer Prize in this year.... Turns out they were a finalist not the winners. The difference is here: http://www.pulitzer.org/page/frequently-asked-questions http://www.pulitzer.org/page/frequently-asked-questions (no. 23). 3 finalists are chosen by that category jury from the submissions and one winner is picked by the board from that. Good info though. Thanks.

Animats 9y ago

The real problem for Tesla is that their destiny is probably to be the next BMW - a good midrange luxury car maker, about #12 in the world on volume. That would be fine except for the excessive market cap. Tesla's market cap exceeded GM's at one point. The stock has to come down a lot if Tesla ends up at BMW's scale. Even with Tesla's most optimistic production estimates, Tesla will make far fewer cars than BMW in the next few years. Silicon Valley has a few other companies like that, Uber and Twitter being the most prominent.

cagenut 9y ago
the cars are a product demo. selling batteries by the gigawatt is the real biz. GE not GM.
- almost_usual 9y ago
  People are already paying this price without it even being a certainty, that's speculation.
- ckastner 9y ago
  Then you should back Panasonic, not Tesla, because they're the ones with the tech.
justin66 9y ago
The market cap is a bit of a mystery, but they've got some options for making money even if they stay around BMW levels in terms of auto production volume. There's no reason they can't compete well against in the automotive space against LG Chem, who makes batteries for cars like the Nissan Leaf and makes batteries, the entire powertrain, and the infotainment system for the Chevy Bolt. In the event their autonomous tech is ever any good, they could sell that. (today they could offer a steep discount and just sell big microprocessor-controlled guillotines or something) Superior tech can really kill Tesla, though, if they don't get with it. Little cylindrical batteries aren't necessarily the future in that space, it is definitely not a given that their autonomous tech will be a big winner, and BMW's inexpensive carbon fiber is a thing of awe and wonder that Tesla has no answer for. And there's always the outside chance that Toyota is onto something about fuel cells...

icantdrive55 9y ago

I don't know the whole story, but I am so glad he hasen't sold out his country/morals; and moved the whole operation overseas. It must be on his mind. At this point, I really admire the guy--on so many levels. (On a personal level, I despise foxey companies that exploit Globalism. Globalism? The rich have really brainwashed us?)

m4x 9y ago

The original Reveal article [1] didn't get much discussion here, but it's pretty damning. [1]: https://www.revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is-safer-but-it-left-injuries-off-the-books/ https://www.revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is...