Robots are the future, but many people are concerned that the technology will endanger humans. A malfunctioning robot reportedly attacked an engineer at Tesla’s Giga Texas factory near Austin, adding weight to this warning.
According to the Daily Mail, the incident happened on November 10, 2021, in the section of the factory floor where the vehicle chassis is first assembled.
The incident raises new concerns about workplace safety and the dangers of automation.
The wounds
According to witnesses, the robot, which was designed to grab and move freshly cast aluminum car parts, pinned the Tesla engineer, who was programming software for other nearby robots. The engineer was injured in the back and arm, leaving a “trail of blood” on the factory floor.
The incident occurred a few years ago, and Tesla disclosed it in a 2021 injury report filed with Travis County and federal regulators.
The engineer did not require time off work, according to the injury report, which was submitted to keep tax breaks in Texas.
A brief entry mentions a “laceration, cut, open wound” suffered by a “engineer,” and the “cause object” is identified as a “robot.”
Is everything okay?
According to the report, an attorney for Tesla’s Giga Texas contract workers has expressed concern about under-reported injuries at the factory.
Attorney Hannah Alexander told the Daily Mail that Tesla’s reports to authorities did not accurately reflect instances of injuries. Alexander, who works for the non-profit Workers Defense Project, provided evidence in the form of a conversation she had with factory workers.
According to Alexander, the under-reporting will continue until a worker dies on September 28, 2021. According to a Travis County medical examiner’s report, the worker, a contractor named Antelmo Ramrez, died of heat stroke. This allegedly occurred while the construction worker was assisting in the construction of Tesla’s over 2,000-acre-long Giga Texas factory.
“My advice would be to read that report with a grain of salt,” she said.
“We’ve had multiple workers who were injured,” said Alexander, adding, “and one worker who died, whose injuries or death are not in these reports that Tesla is supposed to be accurately completing and submitting to the county in order to get tax incentives.”
Tesla has yet to issue a statement on the matter.
Tesla’s inadequate safety standards
Last year, the Workers Defense Project filed a complaint with the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) on behalf of Giga Texas workers. It was claimed that Tesla’s contractors and subcontractors provided false safety certificates to some of its employees.
Previously, state regulators and non-profit investigative journalism organizations expressed similar concerns about Tesla under-reporting cases.
An earlier report by the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Reveal team discovered that Tesla had misclassified a number of on-the-job accidents and injuries as ‘personal medical’ cases in order to avoid state regulators.
Another report by California OSHA investigators discovered that the company failed to report 36 injuries in its mandatory government filings in 2018.
