Blog Report: Tesla Employees Pressured to Take Shortcuts to Meet Production Goals

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.

 

[Spalding]

I get something else out of this. This makes Tesla seem like any established U.S. manufacturer - for all the good and bad that implies. Not that I think for a moment the reported problems are true. If there are defective cars out there, show me. No one has done that, and I highly doubt they will.

Instead, for at least the past century, this is the sort of grumbling report that gets tossed around easily in any big factory. Whenever a labor negotiation would be ongoing, this kind of report would get in the newspapers every day, as labor complained about one thing or another to help its position. And yes, Management would toss around similar complaints about labor. I don't mean to impugn labor or management.

The bottom line is this - talk is cheap, and people love to complain. And now that the Internet allows this sort of rumor to spread like wildfire, it's not at all shocking that someone might say something that sounds drastic while having a beer after their shift, and it gets picked up by the likes of CNBC - whose "reputation" is commonly discussed here.

 

[bobd]

I got my pd3 in Nov 18 and no problems yet. Is there any way to measure the % of complaints ICE cars get vs. Tesla?

 

[Electroman]

Mine is 13k win, picked up April, 15 months ago. No issues yet.

I am in a chat group with over 125 Tesla owners. Only 4 owners reported that they had to visit SC for some work, and that too cosmetic.

 

[A.N. Gineer]

There are shows that I trust, like GPS, or News Hour. Many here have slammed CNBC, MSNBC, of course FOX.
Are there others? When I say Trust, they don't LIE about facts and they represent both sides of the arguments.

Your confirmation bias is speaking. If you watched coverage of the last election, News Hour promoted particular candidates and outright ignored or slammed others. I do watch News Hour, The Beeb, and others. I used to like CNN and MSNBC until I woke up.

You can trust YouTube? Lol

Depends on the channel and if you're smart enough to read the comments - the Internet is good about calling out BS.

So much so that Big Media would like nothing more than for Youtube's independents and pundits to go away because it creates hordes armed with FACTS. AT&T gamed their ad complaints with that in mind, and tried starving these enclaves out. The community, however, stepped up with Patreon contributions so that channels like The Jimmy Dore Show could continue.

And, just as with TV, you can seek out biased channels for balanced perspective and outright LOL entertainment, channels like Paul Joseph Watson and Mark Dice.

Then there are channels like Young Turks that are completely full of bias and themselves, yet are still useful in alerting to news and in reading either blindly or with bias from other news sources. Again - comments route out the BS.

But, back to relevance. Transport Evolved and Bjorn Nyland are fantastic channels, Damien Maguire is excellent for hacking Teslas, Autoline Network is OK, Like Tesla is obnoxious but has useful info now and then if you ignore the Tesla pom-poms as is the case with HyperChange TV. Fullychargedshow is sometimes OK and other times I now think needs backup info as I don't trust them after their LightYear One coverage.

Bottom line is there are VERY FEW trustworthy sources and even those need scrutiny and balance. This is where Youtube shines -- because of the comments made by ANYONE (armed technically or with facts) vs subscriber/fans only.

 

[TeeEmCee]

Why do you believe the disparaging reports from disgruntled employees and not hear the same complaints from Model 3 owners from around the world? That's where reality is.

Not hear complaints? All my work here was in vain!

 

[ibGeek]

More of the same bullshit that keeps getting re-posted a couple times each quarter. It's simply not true. PERIOD!

 

[Hankmancini]

Love my model 3! A little over five months and not a single issue. And, it's truly a beautiful car!

 

[mobil-ai]

I bought my Model 3 June this year and drove it 600+ miles the very next day, experiencing both city and highway driving. Have enjoyed it since, including autopilot. No significant issues, certainly NO mechanical issues. Aspects of autopilot and the user interface need further improvements, which are likely to happen with future software updates.