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Tesla employees say they took shortcuts, worked through harsh conditions

cnbc.com

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Re: Tesla employees say they took shortcuts, worked through harsh conditions

#61

Post by cptskippy »

fasicle wrote: post #53
cptskippy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Off the top of my head I can't imagine a reason why the tent would be such a great place to work. It's in Fremont California where the weather averages 49-69F with extremes being 42F and 79F. It's outside so constantly moving fresh air, and it's covered so no sun beating down. The ends of the tent appear to be open letting natural light in and allowing you to look out at the sky. Contrast that to a typical factory…

I worked in a factory for a couple of weeks putting radiators on Defenders [0]. The work was extremely boring (30 second task repeated 8 hours a day) but temperature / conditions were never an issue. Workers were looked after seemingly well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Rover_Defender

I guess my point is that the climate of the region is such that I don't see it being an issue to be "outside" and that it might be more pleasant than an actual factory, then again I'm ignorant to the dress code or actual temperature of a typical automotive factory.

Re: Tesla employees say they took shortcuts, worked through harsh conditions

#62

Post by close04 »

cptskippy wrote: post #31
close04 wrote: post #4

> In fact, we have a large number of employees who request to work on GA4 based on what they hear from colleagues and what they have seen first-hand Wonder if the Tesla spokesman has a desk there. Off the top of my head I can't imagine a reason why the tent would be such a great place to work. Equal maybe but certainly not better than a factory building that was not put up in a hurry to meet demands. In any manufactu…

> Off the top of my head I can't imagine a reason why the tent would be such a great place to work. It's in Fremont California where the weather averages 49-69F with extremes being 42F and 79F. It's outside so constantly moving fresh air, and it's covered so no sun beating down. The ends of the tent appear to be open letting natural light in and allowing you to look out at the sky. Contrast that to a typical factory…

Your description suggests the tent is actually better than the factory building in such climates (even ones with occasional below freezing temperatures). I have to ask why Tesla didn't go for a tent from the start. The logical conclusion is that the factory building provides necessary extras that still justify the incredibly high costs.

And the extremes you mention are still averages. So with an average low of 43F (~6C) in December [0] you may see minimums of just over 30F (-1C) so it's perfectly conceivable that it can get pretty uncomfortable to work. Same applies to summers, possibly to a lower extent.

[0] https://weatherspark.com/y/1076/Average-Weather-in-Fremont-C...

Re: Tesla employees say they took shortcuts, worked through harsh conditions

#63

Post by Angostura »

jerf wrote: post #33
adrr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we get away from the logical fallacies here? If you have a problem with the facts in the article list them instead of attacking the author/publisher.

I think people overestimate the fallaciousness of examining the motivations of the speaker. It only applies to the factual and logical matters; the fact that CNBC may or may not hate Tesla or Elon Musk does not affect whether or not tape was used to correct cracks in parts or whether or not people were asked to work in low-quality conditions on pain of firing, or any strictly logical conclusions you may draw from tho…

What makes you think that CNBC is particularly hard on Tesla?

Re: Tesla employees say they took shortcuts, worked through harsh conditions

#64

Post by close04 »

cptskippy wrote: post #52
supergauntlet wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird, I saw people elsewhere in the comments mention heatshrink tubing being substituted with electrical tape. Definitely does seem like a weird thing to base an article on especially when Tesla does lots of other things wrong.

> Definitely does seem like a weird thing to base an article on especially when Tesla does lots of other things wrong. The admission of willful ignorance here is rather astounding.

> The admission of willful ignorance here is rather astounding.

> then again I'm ignorant to the dress code or actual temperature of a typical automotive factory

That seems a bit ironic considering you said the above right after suggesting that the tent is actually better than the factory for the purpose.

Anyway, the tape not being used for electrical insulation or wiring protection but rather for structural integrity of certain parts that cracked still doesn't bode well.

Re: Tesla employees say they took shortcuts, worked through harsh conditions

#65

Post by dymk »

tyingq wrote: post #44
dymk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing happened to a lot of workers who worked with Asbestos. My dad, his brother, many of their friends got a few thousand bucks in the 80s if they agreed to never sue. A lot of them died a decade or so later from mesothelioma.

I'm especially disappointed with my case, as organic solvents are almost all historically known aggressive carcinogens. This was not a case of "not knowing" , even the 80's. I suspect similar for asbestos, coal dust, etc in that time period.

Asbestos was a known harmful substance since at least 1970, but it took until 1989 to fully ban it. A lot of companies knew the risks, but didn’t care, which is why you see 6 figure lawsuits still happening, finding the companies guilty of negligence.

Their defense is “we didn’t know!”, but luckily judges are seeing through that.

Re: Tesla employees say they took shortcuts, worked through harsh conditions

#67

Post by natch »

Lazare wrote: post #42

What I find interesting is how vigorously Tesla denies everything, always, even when they're clearly wrong. They lose a lot of credibility that way; I wonder if Musk[1] realises that if he admitted the things Tesla is obviously doing wrong, he might have a hope of convincing people about the ones they're not obviously doing wrong? And it's especially odd because so much of the article is just a bunch of nothing , but…

I don’t see how you get “vigorous denial” from the mild words Tesla said in its response. It’s like we didn’t read the same article. And you amp it up with “always”... is that really necessary? Your comment is adding heat and noise, not much else.

Re: Tesla employees say they took shortcuts, worked through harsh conditions

#68

Post by close04 »

cptskippy wrote: post #61
fasicle wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in a factory for a couple of weeks putting radiators on Defenders [0]. The work was extremely boring (30 second task repeated 8 hours a day) but temperature / conditions were never an issue. Workers were looked after seemingly well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Rover_Defender

I guess my point is that the climate of the region is such that I don't see it being an issue to be "outside" and that it might be more pleasant than an actual factory, then again I'm ignorant to the dress code or actual temperature of a typical automotive factory.

The temperatures you listed are close to freezing (sometimes below freezing). Are you sure working in a tent at those temps is "pleasant"? The chances of the tent providing the same levels of climate control as the factory building are close to none which is why workers had to use the radiators against company policy. And the policy makes sense given the clear danger of a fire.

Re: Tesla employees say they took shortcuts, worked through harsh conditions

#69

Post by kosievdmerwe »

mbrumlow wrote: post #5

> pressured to take shortcuts I work in software, and this happens all the time and it is not the end of the world. It normally means doing even more work later, or shipping without all the features. Its done by not coding in most cases. But this is a car. What sort of shortcut could you make when assembling parts to a car that has already had every part planed out? Edit: never-mind, I skipped a entire paragraph some…

It's disingenious to say it's just tape. Here's a paragraph from the article:

> Five people who work or worked in the tent in 2019 said they would frequently pass cars down the line that they knew were missing a few bolts, nuts or lugs, all in the name of saving time.

There are many more things discussed too under the heading "Other short cuts"

Re: Tesla employees say they took shortcuts, worked through harsh conditions

#70

Post by kosievdmerwe »

stefco_ wrote: post #9
mbrumlow wrote: post #5

> pressured to take shortcuts I work in software, and this happens all the time and it is not the end of the world. It normally means doing even more work later, or shipping without all the features. Its done by not coding in most cases. But this is a car. What sort of shortcut could you make when assembling parts to a car that has already had every part planed out? Edit: never-mind, I skipped a entire paragraph some…

What concerns me is that shortcuts in industrial manufacturing processes are often directly detrimental or even fatal to workers. Heavy industry uses toxic chemicals and large, powerful machinery; cutting corners around those things is actively dangerous. Using some electrical tape in places where you'd otherwise use shrink tubing is not a big deal. But like you said, trying to cut corners on a finished hardware desi…

They also supposedly left out bolts/nuts:

> Five people who work or worked in the tent in 2019 said they would frequently pass cars down the line that they knew were missing a few bolts, nuts or lugs, all in the name of saving time.

With other things mentioned under "Other short cuts" too

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