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Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

latimes.com

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Re: Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

#71

Post by rjmunro »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #4
nicolashahn wrote: post #2

Is the average auto company's safety record worse than slaughterhouses and sawmills?

Per the article they're "as much as 31% higher" than other auto companies.

That should be in the title of the article. "Safety incidents at Tesla plant were 31% higher than industry average in 2015".

Without the 31% higher, you'd expect a 50-50 chance of being above or below the average. 31% higher sounds like its might be statistically significant. You'd need other numbers to be sure - e.g. if there are only 1.53 incidents on average, then Tesla might be the unlucky factory that had 2 incidents instead of 1.

Re: Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

#72

Post by arjie »

theprop wrote: post #53

"The scores don’t account for severity, however. The injuries at Tesla appear to be related to long hours and ergonomic design." Not to say that any harm to your health should be avoided, but by auto industry standards (other than Tesla) to this day serious incidents involve losing limbs or death. I know they're pushing everyone at Tesla as the company is still losing a lot amount of money, but it's not clear that an…

In _Understanding Human Error_, Sidney Dekker points to a study done at the time (many decades ago) that within an industry, the guys with the most frequent small accidents had the least frequent big accidents. Of course at the time, it was not fully known that covering up small incidents would mean you almost inevitably faced a catastrophe.

Just an interesting thing.

Re: Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

#73

Post by DiThi »

Kluny wrote: post #65
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global warming. We're at or past the tipping point already, but electric cars and solar houses are definitely the direction we need to be going if we want to avoid disastrous and irreversible climate change. If-- if --Tesla can help make that happen, it'll be worth a lot of sacrifice.

I think it's a mistake to think that a more efficient personal vehicle can make the difference in climate change. The fundamental problem is that personal vehicles are NOT efficient, except on a personal level. A disruption in transportation is needed. Trains that are cheap and easy to install would do it. Something out of left field that hasn't been invented yet could do it. But improving cars can only ever be an in…

While I agree that efficiency won't make much difference by itself, you should see the bigger picture. Electrical vehicles allows people to use renewable sources. Autonomous driving allows people to buy less cars.

Long term they will also be more ecological to keep and maintain: They are simpler machines that break much less, and batteries are pretty much the only thing that will need replacement, which will eventually be 100% recycled using renewable energy.

Re: Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

#74

Post by [deleted] »

AKifer wrote: post #70

The title itself uses a basic framing technique intentionally written to fool you into a false conclusion. 1- "worse than slaughterhouses and sawmills" is more catchy than "better than X" (chose any X automaker) 2- Is the safety level of a slaughterhouses or a sawmill comparable to a car's ? They are things not in the same category, with different sophistication level and different purpose, how many times a day an av…

[deleted]

Re: Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

#75

Post by icc97 »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #68
leemailll wrote: post #7

>Charley Briese said his job involved pulling down a hanging drill three times a minute for 12 to 16 hours a day, causing severe tendinitis 12-16 hrs a day?

Are there no unions involved? Or was he making tons of money because of overtime so didn't care until it became a critical health problem? Sounds like both the employee and the employer were falling down on the job of ensuring safe working practices. Not to mention lax regulation.

Yes there are unions involved, from the 3rd and 4th last paragraphs:

> Alan Ochoa said long hours repeating the same moves over and over with a drill caused enough hand pain to prevent him from working. He was given an office job but said carpal tunnel injuries prevented him from typing on his laptop.

> Tesla has made improvements, he said. “But why did they change? They changed because of its union efforts.”

Re: Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

#77

Post by ahannigan »

Even the new title, "Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015".

Who cares? The very definition of "industry average" means that someone in the industry will be above or below the average. Why would I want to read about that? Why pick on Tesla? because they're popular?

Re: Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

#78

Post by exhilaration »

ahannigan wrote: post #77

Even the new title, "Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015". Who cares? The very definition of "industry average" means that someone in the industry will be above or below the average. Why would I want to read about that? Why pick on Tesla? because they're popular?

Why pick on Tesla? because they're popular?

To answer your last question, because two weeks ago Tesla said the opposite: https://www.tesla.com/blog/creating-the-safest-car-factory-i...

Re: Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

#79

Post by pj_mukh »

exhilaration wrote: post #78
ahannigan wrote: post #77

Even the new title, "Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015". Who cares? The very definition of "industry average" means that someone in the industry will be above or below the average. Why would I want to read about that? Why pick on Tesla? because they're popular?

Why pick on Tesla? because they're popular? To answer your last question, because two weeks ago Tesla said the opposite: https://www.tesla.com/blog/creating-the-safest-car-factory-i...

Did they claim otherwise about their 2015 numbers anywhere? The only thing they mention is about Q1 2017. The 2017 numbers seemed to have improved drastically, something the article recognises (but the HN headline does not :S).

Re: Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

#80

Post by stupidhn »

the_duke wrote: post #48

There have been numerous articles over the last few weeks, all in the same vain. And all with very click-baity negative headlines and articles that don't exactly seem like neutral reporting of an issue. I'd bet that there is some PR firm trying to drum up anti Tesla sentiments. (I'm not saying that there wasn't or isn't an issue at Tesla factories, but the kind of reporting stinks like PR campaign).

>I'd bet that there is some PR firm trying to drum up anti Tesla sentiments.

Anything anti-Tesla is part of some PR conspiracy. Meanwhile, 10 vapid, fluff-pieces from Electrek or random Musk tweets show up on the front page every week.

Have you considered that, perhaps, it's not all rainbows and unicorns with this company?

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