At Tesla’s Giga Texas factory, a robotic malfunction resulted in a harrowing incident where an engineer was attacked by one of the company’s robots. The attack caused serious injuries, leaving behind a trail of blood.
According to the Daily Mail, while working on software programming for non-functional robots, the engineer was pinned against a surface by a robot assigned to manipulate aluminum car components.
Its metal claws caused an open wound on the worker’s left hand.
“Two of the robots, which cut car parts from freshly cast pieces of aluminum, were disabled so the engineer and his teammates could safely work on the machines. A third one, which grabbed and moved the car parts, was inadvertently left operational, according to two people who watched it happen. As that robot ran through its normal motions, it pinned the engineer against a surface, pushing its claws into his body and drawing blood from his back and his arm, the two people said,” The Information reported.
Tesla workers acted quickly by activating the emergency shutdown button to stop the malfunctioning robot and protect the engineer from further harm.
This event was disclosed in a 2021 injury report filed with Travis County and federal authorities, which Daily Mail examined.
To keep receiving state-provided tax incentives, Tesla is legally obligated to report such incidents.
Although Tesla asserted that the engineer did not need time off after the incident, an attorney representing contract laborers at the plant proposed otherwise.
Indications of potential underreporting of workplace injuries bring into question the accuracy of official records.
Daily Mail reported:
The injury report, which Tesla must submit to authorities by law to maintain its lucrative tax breaks in Texas, claimed the engineer did not require time off of work.
But one attorney who represents Tesla’s Giga Texas contract workers has told DailyMail.com she believes, based on her conversations with workers there, that the amount of injuries suffered at the factory is going underreported.
This underreporting, the attorney said, even included the September 28, 2021 death of a construction worker, who had been contracted to help build the factory itself.
‘My advice would be to read that report with a grain of salt,’ the attorney, Hannah Alexander of the nonprofit Workers Defense Project, told DailyMail.com.
‘We’ve had multiple workers who were injured,’ Alexander said, ‘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.’
Just recently, Tesla revealed the second generation of its humanoid robot, Optimus Gen 2.
Optimus Gen 2 stands at a height of 5 feet 11 inches and weighs in at a light 121 pounds, shedding 22 pounds from the first model.
It’s not just its frame that’s been upgraded; this robot can reach speeds up to 5 mph, which is a substantial 30% increase in velocity.
