During a violent and deadly malfunction at the company’s Giga Texas production outside Austin, a robot attacked a Tesla engineer.
Malfunctioned Robot Attacked An Engineer in Tesla Factory
The machine meant to grab and move freshly cast aluminum auto components attacked a fellow employee, while two witnesses watched in horror.
The worker pinning two disabled Tesla robots when the robot sank its metal claws into his arm and back, creating a “trail of blood” across the factory floor.
The worker was programming software for the robots.
The event resulted in the victim’s left hand a “open wound,” documented in a 2021 injury report submitted to federal and Travis county officials. International press institution examined the record.
Texas Factory Incidents
The incident occurs in the midst of years of increased concerns over the risks of autonomous robots in the workplace, even though Tesla did not record any other robot-related injuries to regulators at the Texas factory in 2021 or 2022.
Some have questioned the quick adoption of the new technology in light of reports of increased injuries from robotic coworkers at Amazon fulfillment centers, murderous droid doctors, self-driving automobiles, and even aggression from robotic chess instructors.
According to the injury report, which Tesla required by law to provide to authorities in order to keep its generous tax breaks in Texas, the engineer did not need time off from work.
Underreporting
However, based on her meetings with workers at the factory, one lawyer representing Tesla’s contract workers in Giga Texas told DailyMail.com that she thinks the amount of injuries sustained there is underreported.
The lawyer claimed that this underreporting went so far as to cover a construction worker’s death on September 28, 2021, who had hired to assist in building the plant.
‘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.’
According to a Travis County medical examiner’s report, the construction worker, Antelmo Ramírez, died from heat stroke while working on Tesla’s nearly 2,000-acre Giga Texas facility.
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