A new report from CNBC talks to Tesla workers who say they were forced to take shortcuts to meet the company’s aggressive production goals.
Those shortcuts included using electrical tape to patch cracks on plastic brackets containing electrical components, and sometimes passing cars through inspection that were missing bolts, nuts, or lugs.
The employees interviewed also said Tesla encouraged them to work in harsh conditions. The bulk of complaints from employees developed from Tesla’s GA4 production tent, a makeshift assembly line constructed to hit an ambitious production target of 6,000 Model 3’s a week. Tesla continues to use the tent a year later.
A Tesla spokesperson told CNBC that the company hasn’t found evidence of electrical tape being used to make quick fixes in GA4, and would never officially condone or encourage it.
Employees interviewed by CNBC also provided photos from the assembly line to back up their accusations.
Tesla called the anecdotes “misleading” and said that they were unrepresentative of what it’s like to work at Tesla.
CNBC spoke to two former employees on the record for its report, and corroborated their account with six other current and former employees who asked to remain anonymous.