121–130 of 163 posts
Hours after Electrek's story ran, three news organizations—TechCrunch, CNBC, and the Associated Press—all published stories stating that Tesla was still considering Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tulsa is a better choice for one reason: Being able to say "Tesla Tulsa." Or "The Tulsa Teslas." Or "I wanna test a Tulsa Tesla." Maybe instead of a tax break, the city could offer to change its name to Tesla. Cities have changed names fo…
Isn't this just Elon Musk getting into one of his superfluous fights, only this time California being the somewhat-random opponent? Musk has been completely unhinged the last few weeks, and it doesn't seem to be wise making such large decisions in anger, especially considering the reason for his anger is, even if justified, unlikely to reoccur. I'm quite the Musk fanboy, but he's always had this very strange anger is…
> Musk has been completely unhinged the last few weeks The most logical guess I can make is he on some new drugs that's starting to damage his brain. Some form of synthetic or maybe good ol heroin.
I get the feeling this was already planned. Freemont doesn't have much spare land to increase manufacturing capacity. California has to be more expensive (Labor, Regulations) than manufacturing in Texas. Even if you'd need to fly your R&D team between Texas and California, you'd still be saving money
In some vague "regulations" way, possibly, but the published hourly rates of Tesla Fremont workers are not especially high. (I just googled the average as being less than twenty dollars, which can't possibly be right, but I do remember the figure being low by autoworker standards) The thought that they might pay even less in Texas is depressing.
It's right. You don't go to Tesla to make tons of money or have a good work-Life balance, you're there to contribute to a passion project with like minded individuals with certain known sunk opportunity-costs: this includes salary. (The engineering and software people are paid well, or so I'm told, but most of the bulk is on the factory side.)
In terms of compensation its not great, but at least they're honest about it; you do get somewhat generous stock options if you stay/last there for over a year, really good health care plans, and depending on the department all the hours you could possibly want or handle. I knew going in my schedule would be 60+ hours, I just didn't see it happening within a swing-shift model so had to decline the offer.
Job security, however, is not exactly a given either. Mass layoffs have been a regular occurrence, one occured right after my first interview process and many have sought to unionize so its a contentious affair even to this day, as Germany ended up getting a Union due to strict EU/DE Auto Union pressure.
> The thought that they might pay even less in Texas is depressing.
Why? Cost of living differs quite a bit in the US. While in Texas in February for my SpaceX interview I knew I was going to have to go down in salary in relation to my current role, but I was assured by several locals that my salary estimates could net a 2-3 bedroom in town with no problem, whereas I have roommates back home.
Besides, where else would I want to be than at the Factory where feeling bad about salary figures feels entirely moot and misses the entire point of why you go to these places?
> I get the feeling this was already planned. Freemont doesn't have much spare land to increase manufacturing capacity.
It was, in February Elon was already teasing about where the new Giga factory was to be located, with Texas being mentioned. Fremont factory has been over capacity even before 3's assembly line change(s) and optimization. I don't if you can find it anymore but there were pictures of Employee parking being the most chaotic thing ever, cars taking every square inch.
The supply chain guys were all pretty sore about those days, but Tesla started bussing people in from the Woodland Park building and many people just commuted that way.
As 3's numbers started to get rolling things got more and more creative, and they ended up getting more parking/staging space near the area. That much was documented [1], and people even commissioned drone pilots to do regular fly-overs over the Factory as more and more progress was being made. I haven't looked, but I wonder if people are that excited about Y.
1: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/found-a-lot-of-model...
Isn't this just Elon Musk getting into one of his superfluous fights, only this time California being the somewhat-random opponent? Musk has been completely unhinged the last few weeks, and it doesn't seem to be wise making such large decisions in anger, especially considering the reason for his anger is, even if justified, unlikely to reoccur. I'm quite the Musk fanboy, but he's always had this very strange anger is…
Still? I can understand still being a fan of Tesla or SpaceX, but I'm suspicious of anyone that's followed Musk's behavior recently and is still like "that's my guy!"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Going full alt-right MAGA is going to cut his customer base in half, at least in the US and Europe. Putting my best effort to be charitable here: he could be opening up a whole new market that is opposed to tree-huggers, fuel efficiency and Priuses. Texas loves trucks, the Cybertruck will be henceforth known as the Freedom Cybertruck and the Texas Edition will come with a complementary "Come and take it" sticker. "…
this is an awesome take- musk has been playing 4d chess all along, getting hard-core conservatives to buy into renewable energy..
"But Musk is said to want to start construction extremely soon and aims to have Model Y vehicles coming out of the plant by the end of the year." That is just delusional.
I think the rule with Elon Musk is all his estimates are extremely optimistic and you need to multiply them by two or three to get closer to reality. But I'm sure it serves a purpose in giving his employees an aggressive target to aim at. Even if they miss it, at least they probably got there sooner.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://workinjurysource.com/workplace-injury-statistics-201... > States with Non-Fatal Workplace Illness and Injury Rates Above the National Average: > California > States with Non-Fatal Workplace Illness and Injury Rates Below the National Average: > Texas It's completely possible that Texas is less adversarial/bureaucratic or similar than California, but whatever they're doing is working. Though it could be cultur…
That statistic is nearly completely useless for comparison. For starters, it's measuring non-fatal illnesses. If your regulatory regime is converting otherwise fatal accidents to non-fatal ones, then you're going to have higher rates despite being safer. (Historically, this has happened: the introduction of helmets in WW1 caused head injury rates to go up... because people who otherwise died now lived with a head inj…
This actually helps to mitigate your other point, because all types of industries can have non-fatal injuries from things like overexertion or slips on wet floors but fatal injuries are dominated by dangerous industries like mining, transportation and agriculture that differ by state.
The fatal injury rate between states is quite incomparable in particular because motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death among working-aged people, and the rate will be higher in states that are more spread out because workers in all industries there log more vehicle miles for work (and at higher average speeds).
> Finally... there's no mention of the degree of difference at all.
Texas can't be worse if it's better.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
this is an awesome take- musk has been playing 4d chess all along, getting hard-core conservatives to buy into renewable energy..
This is a very charitable interpretation of Elon Musk's recent outbursts.
Isn't this just Elon Musk getting into one of his superfluous fights, only this time California being the somewhat-random opponent? Musk has been completely unhinged the last few weeks, and it doesn't seem to be wise making such large decisions in anger, especially considering the reason for his anger is, even if justified, unlikely to reoccur. I'm quite the Musk fanboy, but he's always had this very strange anger is…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But I'm sure it serves a purpose in giving his employees an aggressive target to aim at. Even if they miss it, at least they probably got there sooner. That only works until the employees quickly realize the estimates are impossible bullshit, and stop taking them seriously.
Well that’s where management steps in and doesn’t let you disregard the deadline. It makes for a miserable work experience but you can probably achieve a lot that way.
That's the kind of management that would go whip the sea for disobedience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerxes_I#Invasion_of_the_Greek...
> According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Xerxes's first attempt to bridge the Hellespont ended in failure when a storm destroyed the flax and papyrus cables of the bridges. In retaliation, Xerxes ordered the Hellespont (the strait itself) whipped three hundred times, and had fetters thrown into the water.