Tesla employees say they took shortcuts, worked through harsh conditions • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by swish_bob » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:53 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #49

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.

> Weird, I saw people elsewhere in the comments mention heatshrink tubing being substituted with electrical tape. Right, because like I said above, the prevailing paradigm is to skewer Tesla by extrapolating from any available datapoint. So people take "tape" and invent reasons for the tape that don't appear in the article. Some of this isn't the posters' fault, because the article is sensationalized and is clearly t…

It's particularly weird, because the people who're talking about Tesla using tape are the ones saying "it's heat shrink tape, guys, nothing to see here".

Whereas the people reporting the tape are saying it's standard electrical tape, used to hold cracked pieces of plastic together.

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

#82

Post by simion314 » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:54 PM UTC

Whatarethese wrote: post #71

simion314 wrote: post #46

>Tesla is able to build the safest and best-performing cars Am I out of date with the news? Are Tesla the safest cars? I am not a car enthusiast so I recall that Volvo has most safety features, did things change or is Tesla PR so deluded, at least I would use something like "one of the safest cars", provide some modesty,

Tesla's are inherently very safe because they have such a large frontal crumple zone with no engine and the floor is a solid battery which helps with side collisions. https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/04/watch-how-tesla-model-3-ea...

Are the safest though? I know that there are ICE cars witht eh engine at the back, and there are cars that are very safe in crash tests.

So your answer is not responding at my questions, I know there are probably cars that are for sure less safe then Tesla

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

#83

Post by tzakrajs » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:55 PM UTC

clouddrover wrote: post #76

travisoneill1 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that they vigorously deny things because they are not true? If even a fraction of the negative things about Tesla in the press were true then their cars would be falling apart on the streets and the company would be failing from low demand. In reality buyers love the cars and they just broke their delivery record again last quarter.

Teslas do have poor reliability: https://www.consumerreports.org/media-room/press-releases/20... And Tesla has cut corners with engineering decisions: https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27989/teslas-screen-saga-shows... Musk wants Tesla to out-Toyota Toyota, but it hasn't yet and probably won't: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2018/02/16/tesla-th... https://www.thedrive.com/tech/26955/inside-toyotas-takaoka-2...…

And that’s not even talking about how many cars they have bricked with over the air updates (probably thousands) leaving their owners stranded in the morning.

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

#84

Post by Kiro » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

taf2 wrote: post #6

Keep in mind this is from cnbc - they consistently push an anti-tesla position https://cleantechnica.com/2018/08/28/40-tesla-headlines-on-c... https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/9b71x0/40_tesl... And for more insight google “why does cnbc hate tesla”

And the HN crowd generally pushes a pro-Tesla position so it balances out. What I find more intriguing is how that aligns with the general "all companies are evil" sentiment I keep seeing here. Why are Tesla and SpaceX untouchable?

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

#85

Post by bildung » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

nkoren wrote: post #74

Angostura wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Anonymous anecdotes aside, the scandalous news they report is that Consumer Reports puts Tesla's reliability in the bottom half -- yes, shock and consernation, the BOTTOM HALF!!! -- of all automobile manufactures. Of course, 50% all automobile manufacturers are in the bottom half, and sure, it's not where you want to be. But none of the rest get special attention for being so. Want proof? Do a search for the the foll…

>* Anonymous anecdotes aside, the scandalous news they report is that Consumer Reports puts Tesla's reliability in the bottom half -- yes, shock and consernation, the BOTTOM HALF!!! -- of all automobile manufactures.*

Actually Consumer Reports placed the Model S at the third-worst of 29 positions, so at the bottom 7%. "Tesla Slips" is actually a pretty mild headline, considering they slipped 6 spots and 8 was the technical maximum.

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

#86

Post by dehrmann » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

sombremesa wrote: post #57

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…

What else do you expect from a company where an investor retconned himself into being a founder, including in the Wikipedia entry?

Would this be a good read on the founding of Tesla? https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-the-origin-story-2014-...

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

#87

Post by swish_bob » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:58 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #51

stonogo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. All automakers get scrutinized by someone. What's telling is your overreaction to it.

> All automakers get scrutinized by someone. Citation needed. I've never seen a story this thin (one photo of tape holding down a nonstructural plastic housing) run about another manufacturer. You have a counterexample?

> Six current and former employees supported their accounts of work in GA4 but asked to remain unidentified.

The shortcuts in question include using electrical tape to fix cracked plastic components, passing cars known to be missing bolts or lug nuts, and reduction of testing. This whole "it's one picture of tape, there's no _real_ evidence, sheeple!" bleating is getting wearing.

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

#88

Post by almost_usual » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:59 PM UTC

diegocg wrote: post #55

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…

"The most fundamental difference is thinking about the factory really as a product, as a quite vertically integrated product," said Musk. "It's treating it as more of an engineering and a technical problem as well," added Chief Technical Officer J.B. Straubel. "Which is the Toyota Production System," replied Johnson. "Yeah, we don't think so," countered Musk.

The fact his ego is this big is amazing. I would be shocked if I saw one vehicle on the road today manufactured by Tesla in thirty years.

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

#89

Post by refurb » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:59 PM UTC

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.

Organic solvents are by no means a carcinogenic class. Ethanol is an organic solvent and has very low toxicity.

Methyl ethyl ketone, like acetone, isn't all that toxic.[1]

[1]https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-09/documents...

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

#90

Post by cptskippy » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:59 PM UTC

close04 wrote: post #64

cptskippy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 integrit…

> 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.

When taken out of context, yes.

The factory comment I was responding to was questioning why factory workers would request to work in the tent. I was suggesting that it might be due to the pleasant climate in which the tent is located. I then acknowledged my ignorance to typical working conditions and how they might factor into that equation.

This thread revolves around a someone admonishing Tesla by comparing one fiction to another fiction at a competitor. Then, when the fiction is pointed out, the commentator again establishes they didn't read the article and then suggest we should still admonish Tesla for unspecified reasons.