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

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

#111

Post by cptskippy » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

close04 wrote: post #62

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…

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 (~…

> Your description suggests the tent is actually better than the factory building in such climates (even ones with occasional below freezing temperatures).

No, the op was struggling to think of a reason why a worker might request to work in a tent.

I suggested that it might be due to the climate.

You're arguing that it's inconceivable that anyone in that climate might volunteer to work outside because one time in the last 4 years the temperature got down to 32F in the dead of winter in the middle of the night.

Have you ever been to Fremont? It's gorgeous year round.

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

#112

Post by tyingq » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 4:26 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #89

tyingq wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The two rounds of forms to sign are pretty curious then.

To counter your .gov link:

"The principal health effects most typically associated with organic solvent exposure include nervous system damage (central and peripheral), kidney and liver damage, adverse reproductive effects such as sperm changes and infertility, skin lesions, and cancer."

https://www.osha.gov/archive/oshinfo/priorities/solvents.htm...

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

#113

Post by bildung » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 4:27 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”

This kind of reasoning is how conspiracy theorists are born. I've only looked for Toyota, but 7 out of 10 headlines at CNBC were equally critical of Toyota ("Toyota recalls", "Toyota struggles", ...).

Here's an alternative theory: Perhaps you didn't pay much attention at how media works before, but now have a topic of interest with which you associate positive emotions (Tesla), and therefore suddenly the criticism becomes obvious to you - but only for this very topic. Your subconsciousness therefore has to alter it's previous mental model of the inner working of the media. But instead of throwing out the whole notion of the media being unbiased or neutral, your subconsciousness now just appends the new fact to the existing model: All media is fair and neutral, but not regarding Tesla. Kind of like a modified Gel-Mann amnesia effect.

But actual conscious investigation would produce more evidence that the media is always more critical. After all, no news site ever had headlines like "Today, again, thousends of airplanes took of and landed without a single casuality."

Just to be sure: This is not meant to sound condescending. It's just human. But the web makes it all too easy to find support for practically every idea ever, whether right or wrong. Which puts even more burden on us individually to observe our own internal heuristics.

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

#114

Post by simion314 » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 4:28 PM UTC

bancars wrote: post #109

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,

I guess “the car slamming itself into highway barriers” is the bar for safety nowadays.

The Tesla fans will tell you that he used the car wrong, and in a way they are correct , the fact that the driver did not survived in those Tesla crashes is not good though.

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

#115

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 4:29 PM UTC

almost_usual wrote: post #88

diegocg wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

[deleted]

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

#116

Post by alexpotato » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 4:30 PM UTC

dymk wrote: post #65

tyingq wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I found this out when my mom had asbestos in her house a couple years ago:

In cities, OUTDOOR asbestos levels can be higher than indoor level simply because asbestos is still legal to use in car brakes. Since so many cars still use them and the parts are actively "wearing" due to friction, this releases enough asbestos to up the levels above indoor.

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

#117

Post by bogonic » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 4:30 PM UTC

SEJeff wrote: post #91

angstrom wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also worth remembering that innovations in manufacturing are quite often 'short cuts' that have the same or better result with less process.

Agreed. I do wonder why people are downvoting me for pointing out the truth though. Breach of a legally binding contract is grounds for a civil lawsuit. This is how the country works!

I wonder why you can't understand that actions have consequences; and that if a company sues employees who resort to an external escalation path to address problems, that some customers will dislike and distrust that company in the future.

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

#118

Post by DanCarvajal » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 4:33 PM UTC

Whatarethese wrote: post #73

DanCarvajal wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like how every U.S. Tesla ever sold has been heavily subsidized with tax rebates? And how they actually got a U.S. Government loan? And how they got further tax credits from Nevada for building the Gigafactory there?

What you're describing is smart business.

So is lobbying for a bailout from Congress by that criteria.

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

#119

Post by rconti » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 4:33 PM UTC

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,

Yes, and to be honest, insanely out of date. I'm not telling you Teslas are the safest car on the planet, just that the "Volvo = safe" is, I don't know, maybe an early 80s mentality?

It ignores decades of changes and infinite nuance into how cars are tested and evaluated for safety. There are all kinds of measures under which a car's safety can be evaluated, and to boil it down to "Volvo has the most safety features" is far sillier than even Tesla touting themselves as the safest cars. (Teslas do fare very well in current crash tests, though).

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

#120

Post by DanCarvajal » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 4:34 PM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #36

DanCarvajal wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like how every U.S. Tesla ever sold has been heavily subsidized with tax rebates? And how they actually got a U.S. Government loan? And how they got further tax credits from Nevada for building the Gigafactory there?

As opposed to oil subsidies that are reported at $4 billion annually with estimates that they're actually somewhere between $10 and $40 billion? The tax rebates amount to ~$4 billion subsidy for a BEV manufacturer. Maybe we should just eliminate subsidies on both and see what happens.

"Maybe we should just eliminate subsidies on both and see what happens."

I am completely in favor of that proposal.