Tesla Factory Workers Reveal Pain, Injury and Stress: 'Everything Feels Like the Future But Us' (theguardian.com) 255
Workers at Tesla's California car factory have been passing out and requiring rides in ambulances, the Guardian newspaper reported on Thursday. The conditions at the factory suggest the lengths the company is going to in order to meet its extremely ambitious production goals, and the tension employees feel between their pride in being part of the company and the stress and exhaustion the company's goals are causing them, according to the report. From the article: Ambulances have been called more than 100 times since 2014 for workers experiencing fainting spells, dizziness, seizures, abnormal breathing and chest pains, according to incident reports obtained by the Guardian. Hundreds more were called for injuries and other medical issues. In a phone interview about the conditions at the factory, which employs about 10,000 workers, the Tesla CEO conceded his workers had been "having a hard time, working long hours, and on hard jobs," but said he cared deeply about their health and wellbeing. His company says its factory safety record has significantly improved over the last year. Musk also said that Tesla should not be compared to major US carmakers and that its market capitalization, now more than $50bn, is unwarranted. "I do believe this market cap is higher than we have any right to deserve," he said, pointing out his company produces just 1% of GM's total output. "We're a money-losing company," Musk added. "This is not some situation where, for example, we are just greedy capitalists who decided to skimp on safety in order to have more profits and dividends and that kind of thing. It's just a question of how much money we lose. And how do we survive? How do we not die and have everyone lose their jobs?" The article also sheds light on the kind of manager Musk is. In early 2016, Musk slept on the factory floor in a sleeping bag "to make it the most painful thing possible. I knew people were having a hard time, working long hours, and on hard jobs. I wanted to work harder than they did, to put even more hours in," he was quoted as saying. "Because that's what I think a manager should do."
Good Thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Robots don't complain.
Re:Good Thing... (Score:5, Funny)
Tesla should automate the getting sick part so the humans can be more productive and increase shareholder value.
Re:Good Thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
Robots would complain if they got sick due to working conditions.
If you RTFA, and keep reading past the portion quoted in the summary, you will read that Tesla's workplace safety is actually 32% better than the industry average. So the headline and summary are very misleading.
From TFA: [Tesla's] record of safety incidents went from slightly above the industry average in late 2016, to a performance in the first few months of 2017 that was 32% better than average.
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Shut up and take one for the environment and a better life right?
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Unless they have the brain the size of a planet.... Or have a pain in the diodes on their left side.
Re:Good Thing... (Score:5, Funny)
Unless they access databases,
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Tesla is a member of MISRA (Motor Industry Software Reliability Association).
MISRA prohibits unions.
MISRA: Unions shall not be used. [misra.org.uk]
There is a discussion on Stackoverflow [stackoverflow.com] about the rationale for this restriction, and also some permitted exceptions to the rule.
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Access is a terrible database
Duh (Score:2, Insightful)
Overvalued flash in the pan company is running at a loss and grinding its employees to a pulp.
Tell me a new one.
Re:Duh (Score:4, Insightful)
More important, there's no real connection between startups that are obviously going to go bust and employee abuse. Tesla being new or losing money has nothing to do with it. It's Elon Musk that is the issue. [businessinsider.com] Companies with self-important assholes running shit treat employees like they treat furniture no matter their stage or revenue. I'm guessing Tesla employees are treated better than Amazon employees. [salon.com]
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i wouldn't say he's an 'issue'.
It could be worse, some MBA type could be running the company and decide that quarterly profits would be improved greatly if they sold off all their real-estate, production equipment, and instead focused on licensing their patents.
Re:Duh (Score:4, Interesting)
In terms of auto makers, 13 years is nothing. They've only been hyped up after Steve Jobs died because the media wanted a new Steve Jobs (Elon Musk).
The reliability of their vehicles isn't too hot. The cost is high, even when sold at a loss. Their entire design policy involves giving users beta cars the involve absurdities like seats being bricked by wonky firmware upgrades. Their mass-market model is delayed endlessly, and if/when it comes out they will not be able to manufacture it in volume.
They're simply not ready to play with the big boys. I'd compare it to Google thinking they could be an ISP. Yeah, some people are on Google fiber but a lot actually hate it, and Google has abandoned all plans at expansion because they realized they don't have the TRILLIONS it would take to buy all the infrastructure and lobbyists needed to get in on that game nation wide.
Google did have a positive impact by causing competition in areas they entered. Tesla has had a similar positive impact, with manufacturers clamoring to get a line-up of plug-in electric vehicles that have decent range. I'm glad both of them did what they did (just as I'm glad Apple got manufacturers to care about screen resolution ever since they coined the shitty "retina display" term).
But as far as being an actual success in the market? Nope. Not unless Elon and investors are willing to ride out another solid decade of pitiful (or even negative) results, battle against the states that make it illegal to sell Teslas (since they have no dealerships), figure out a way to profit from their sales and from their charging network, etc.
An AC down below called me a hater. I'd love for Tesla to succeed (despite my actual hate for Musk), even if I end up never being interested in their products. They bring competition and (possibly) innovation. I'm not aware of any other consumer electric vehicle with such a practical driving range, for example. I'm just a realist. Established industries are very, very, very hard to break into. Breaking into them by shitting hype and bleeding money rarely works. The establishment can outlast and outlawyer your investors.
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"They've only been hyped up after Steve Jobs died because the media wanted a new Steve Jobs"
Musk got "hyped" when SpaceX began successfully launching rockets and the Model S was revealed.
"The reliability of their vehicles isn't too hot. The cost is high, even when sold at a loss."
Reliability of the Model S is "average" according to Consumer Reports. Not bad for Tesla's first production car (Roadster was extremely limited). The cost is high, but they're not sold at a loss, unless they're lying in every SEC
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Flash in the pan is more accurate than you know.
The American auto industry is 127 years old. For the rest of the world it's roughly 209.
13 years is nothing compared to that record. Additionaly, rare-earth minerals aren't nearly as abundant as fossile fuels, and cannot be syntesized like fuel alcohol or biofuel can. Without any conservation effort the bottom is going to fall out of the market of batteries for *everything*. That means your cellphone is on a short time on this earth also.
Everyone drones on abo
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Communication is even older than the human species. This Internet fad will go away soon enough.
look. 13 years of loss. (Score:4, Interesting)
look. 13 years of loss. 50 bn market cap.
that is the zenith of overvalued.
at least musk is admitting that it's overvalued and making a loss :D. unlike his last years book shenigans.
Musk is an idiot (Score:2, Insightful)
Instead of sleeping on the factory floor to show solidarity, perhaps he should have spent his time better analyzing production lines for improvement. A good manager doesn't work harder, a good manager works smarter. Add a person here, add a person there, lighten the individual load. Cross train and move multidiscipline employees to various stations based on demand, then move elsewhere when demand lowers.
On top of all that, his vehicles are shit, but that's another story altogether.
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I'm sure Elon Musk is now sitting on a pile of money in his mansion crying over your insult.
Elon Musk is not an idiot. Maybe the people that bought his cars are; maybe the people overvaluing his company are... but you will have to do a lot better than that to convince me that he is.
Re:Musk is an idiot (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's pretty easy to sleep on a factory floor for the night when you can make up for it by sleeping in your yacht in the Bahamas the next night. There are probably a lot better ways he could have made the point. It's things like this that make me think Musk is really out of touch.
You confusing him with Richard Branson. Musk has 5 young boys. Sleeping on the factory floor is probably no more stressful than trying to get a good night's sleep at home.
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The stock is still climbing, so who exactly is he conning? If you bought 5 years ago at 30 bucks a share you'd be selling at 313 a share.
Some of you are fucking morons, you just say things that sound good but don't make any sense when compared to easily obtainable facts.
Re: Musk is an idiot (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. By GP's logic Ponzi schemes aren't a scam, because they keep going up.
Until they don't.
Re:Musk is an idiot (Score:5, Interesting)
he's riding high on his pile of money conning investors and duping buyers into his shit cars.
His buyers don't think his cars are shit. Tesla is #1 in customer satisfaction [consumerreports.org]. More Tesla buyers (91%) said they would buy again than any other brand. Porsche is #2 at 84%.
My wife has a Tesla, and she is very happy with it. However, I can't personally vouch for the quality because she won't let me drive it.
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"because she won't let me drive it"
Not even once? Are you allowed to sit in it? Do you sleep in separate beds, too?
Re:Musk is an idiot (Score:4, Insightful)
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Instead of sleeping on the factory floor to show solidarity, perhaps he should have spent his time better analyzing production lines for improvement. A good manager doesn't work harder, a good manager works smarter.
Add a person here, add a person there, lighten the individual load. Cross train and move multidiscipline employees to various stations based on demand, then move elsewhere when demand lowers.
A good manager is seen by employees working harder than those employees. If you question that, you're probably aliterate.
Are there other things that are also important? Of course. It has been widely reported that improvements in the production line are one of the things that Tesla is doing that differently than other automakers, because a lot more engineering work has gone into the cars themselves than the factories. Duh. Read moar peas.
On top of all that, his vehicles are shit, but that's another story altogether.
The vehicles get high ratings from people who actually own them.
Always Accepting Alliterative Association (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Manager Musk Must Mean More Money!
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Instead of sleeping on the factory floor to show solidarity, perhaps he should have spent his time better analyzing production lines for improvement. A good manager doesn't work harder, a good manager works smarter.
It's not about working smarter, it's about recognizing the hardships your employees go through, even if you as a manager can't do much short term because of the mythical man-month problem. Sometimes it's just crunch time and it's not very motivational when your boss goes home early while you're pulling an all-nighter.
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The Mythical Man-Month was a book written by someone personally responsible for one of the largest software projects the world had seen up to that point. He got some things seriously wrong, and reflected on them. Some of his ideas have proven to be wrong (no information hiding, chief programmer team), a lot have become common practice, and some people still need to learn.
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How cute, the idea that gas will go back above 3 dollars a gallon* outside of severe govt. interference within the next 50 years is hilarious.
*adjusted for inflation.
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This has all happened before and it will all happen again.
Lords of Kaaba, [wikipedia.org] hear our prayer!
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It's only as cheap as it is because of severe (and severely expensive) government interference. Or do you think the multiple wars in the Middle East were fought over human rights and imaginary WMDs?
Meanwhile in an old economy factory... (Score:3)
Re:i know people who worked in an old vehicle fact (Score:4, Insightful)
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I don't think many people just stumble into a Musk company. For the most part, you know what you're getting into, you believe that what you're doing is the future as much as Musk does, and you put in the hours to make it happen. I don't think someone who didn't actually believe in the goals would last long in any of his companies.
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This sudden media push against Tesla couldn't be part of a United Autoworker's Propaganda campaign to unionize Tesla. The UAW has nothing to lose when Tesla becomes the first company to fully automate car assembly (including the interior and wiring). Other automaker's would never copy Tesla's new automated assembly lines, reducing the number of autoworkers by a large percentage. Unionized Tesla employees would never go on strike to prevent increases in automated assembly. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Steve Jobs... (Score:2)
...Elon Musk, Bill gates...
If you want to perform for these guys, you gotta give it all. Sometimes - that price is just too high.
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"Ambulances have been called more than 100 times" (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's call it 120 time. In 3.5 years for 10,000 workers.
How far is that from the normal number of times that people in a modest sized city will call for ambulances?
Re:"Ambulances have been called more than 100 time (Score:5, Insightful)
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10^348 is larger than 100, but when people read "more than 100", it's designed to make people think "a little more than 100". If The Guardian meant 500, they should have written it.
That's still a rate of 0.017 ambulance calls per worker per year, which isn't much, compared to how many times that ambulances get called in cities of 10,000.
Did TFA compare that to GM, Ford & Chrysler?
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If you can find numbers that specific please do provide them. In my experience it is hard to get public numbers that specific; managers that need those numbers pay consultants for them!
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My guess from the descriptions is that most of these people were suffering panic attacks... thats a lot of panic attacks for a workplace.
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Re:"Ambulances have been called more than 100 time (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, we've had ambulances called to the office complex that I work from probably three times in the last year. If I look at the map of the parking lot there are about 400 numbered parking spaces, so assuming that some workers carpool or use some other form of transportation I'd guess there are around 450 employees.
So, for my workplace for one year is 3/450 = .667%
By contrast Tesla's workplace with your numbers is (120/3.5)/10000 = .343%
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The organization's main vehicle maintenance facility is based here, so the fleet vehicles are serviced there. At least one of the calls was because of a workplace injury, I think an employee fell off a ladder that was being used to get to a vehicle that was positioned up on a lift.
I know that another one was a heart attack.
Not sure about the third one.
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I couldn't get numbers just on workers, but I did find that in 2009 there were 28,004,624 medical transports resulting from 911 calls. Population that year was 306,800,000. That's one medical transport per year per 11 people.
120 transports in 3.5 years for 10,000 people is one transport per 23 people.
While workers are more healthy than the average person, they're also a lot more likely to accept a medical transport for things like dizziness where a person at home would likely just stop painting for the day
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True, but there probably aren't a bunch of pensioners working at tesla, you would want to look at the number of transports of people within a reasonable working age range.
Also you want to eliminate hospital to hospital transfers which may or may not be in your original data set.
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Tesla has quite a few veterans on the payroll. I wonder how many of those suffer PTSD events on the job.
And this is why labor unions are still a thing (Score:5, Informative)
Re:And this is why labor unions are still a thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Explains the timing of the story, especially considering that the number of ambulance transports is less than half the rate from the general population. Factory workers are healthier than the average person, but the job is also more dangerous than average. It would take a lot of additional numbers to show it being high. But it sounds like it must be high if they bothered to quote it in a story!
In my workplace experiences, the places with good worker treatment had more people advocating to join a union than the ones that treated their workers shitty. For various reasons, many of which are obvious, like that people who value being respected by their employers already quit the shitty jobs at a higher rate.
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The hospitalization rate for people aged 18-44 [ahrq.gov] is 78.9 per 1000. The rate for people aged 45-65 is 108.8 per 1000. So the rate for ages 18-65 is 2 / (1/78.9 + 1/108.8) = 91.5 per 1000.
Basically you're advocating that Tesla employees should unionize because Tesla is mistreating them by keeping them 30x healthier at work than they are at home.
Re:And this is why labor unions are still a thing (Score:4, Insightful)
"...Tesla is mistreating them by keeping them 30x healthier at work than they are at home."
-1.
Bad math, since you don't include the numbers for Tesla employees calling 911 from home, or otherwise get hospitalized outside working hours..
Re:And this is why labor unions are still a thing (Score:4, Insightful)
The full population rate includes the Tesla employees. The only at Tesla rate does not. But you would need to establish a link between their callouts from home and their work at Tesla for that to be useful information e.g. as a condition caused by their work.
But lets extrapolate. Lets say that they call the amulance at home at the same rate they do at work (unlikely since they aren't working anymore and have been removed from the alleged source of their morbidity). From an 8 hour work day we can triple the amount of callouts to 300 and keep the population the same at 10000. So now we're at 8.8 per 1000 people per year. That's still 10x better than the general population.
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As opposed to the lengths corporations go to employees from claiming a fair cut of the profits, which are very often outright criminal?
Yeah, two wrongs don't make a right, but battles are rarely won by those unwilling to get their hands dirty. And class warfare is the most enduring war in human history - anyone who says otherwise is almost certainly a PR flack for the rich.
Long Hours (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked in an Aircraft Depot for the F15 Fighter as a civilian. Many times during periods like the Gulf Wars we would often work 12 hour shifts 7 days a week. They usually tried to limit that to 2 or 3 weeks because eventually it took a toll on people. After two weeks it's like time starts to blur. You make more mistakes and people get very stressed. Several times people almost came to blows on the job. I remember one guy walking down the back of a fighter and he stepped over an air duct and almost went off the side to the concrete floor. I watched helpless as another guy reached up and grabbed his shirt and snatched him back. We all felt energized by the emergency and the overtime was great but I was glad for some time off. Damn I wish I was 30 again. 100 degree summer heat in a hanger climbing over and inside jets. It would kill me now.
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How many seizures did that overwork cause?
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That's not what I asked.
Re:Long Hours (Score:5, Funny)
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I had a T-shirt that said F15s were fighter aircraft and everything else was just a target.
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They just did it as an emergency effort to get some aircraft that were near completion of modifications back to their units. After that we scaled back. If it had continued I'm pretty sure there would have been some really bad stuff. Working around a weapon system that has 3000 psi hydraulics and lots of moving parts to be operational checked. I actually saw one worker get caught in a landing gear door once during a period of long hours. They couldn't get the door to close and she noticed that a connector wa
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Yep, they didn't have fall protection around them back in the 90s. Osha came in after 2000 and started wearing them out. Lots of changes.
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We had a few guys get heat stroke. One of the older guys had a heart attack and had to be hauled out in an ambulance. Several accidents with injuries and lots of close calls. Working that hard for that many hours will cause mistakes.
And rechargable cars won't work anyway. (Score:2, Interesting)
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It's very unsafe to continue driving more than a couple hours without a break. If you don't have time to drive there safely, you shouldn't be driving there at all -- it's not just you who you could kill, it's innocent people in another car.
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Unless, of course, it's the car doing the driving.
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FTFY.
You are showing your own ignorance and biases about EVs. Nothing more.
Plugging your car in at home and allowing it to charge overnight avoids all those annoying trips to the gas station.
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No, you are showing your ignorance what is wanted in the real world. Recharging a car in under 15 minutes is what is wanted, and there are fast charging systems being developed that can do that. No one wants to wait for more than an hour when taking a long trip or driving more than 200 miles in a day to recharge.
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So my driveway isn't "the real world"? When I park my electric vehicle and charge it overnight, does it transport itself to an alternative universe? Another reality?
I live with an electric vehicle. I suspect I know a lot more than you do about what's realistic.
Those long trips? They are the exception and, as you pointed out, even faster charging is coming soon.
Today, if you have a Tesla, you probably only need to wait about 30 minutes, and
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Not only "probably need a break", but should take a break (whether they "need" one or not). Long periods of driving without breaks are not safe. Your attention begins to wane. There's a reason why truck drivers are mandated to take periodic breaks.
If everyone had to stop for half an hour or so every several hundred kilometers, the highways would be a lot safer place; it's almost unfortunate that ranges keep improving, in that regard ;). But most people prefer to push themselves rather than stop.
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People don't want cars that take hours to refill. Stopping for gas is a pain in the ass, and it's quick. It's why hybrid gas sell better. How about swappable batteries standardized for all cars? These folks are sweating for something that won't fly.
Most cars don't actually go very far very often, I'd say almost every destination I go to by car is within ~100 miles. If it's further then it's often much further and I'd rather fly and use a taxi/rental. If you're drive long distances regularly then it's simply not the car for you. The problem with EVs is that when you're out of range and out of fast charging options you're really stuck. So what you mainly need are more charging stations so the worst that'll happen is a top-up at a 50+ kWh charging statio
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Just goes to show that management is (Score:2)
another skill that's also part talent. Only in this case the talent portion seems to be taken up with the ability for public performance and not so much with the ability to manage.
Look, common suffering only goes so far when you don't do anything to alleviate the conditions which lead to the suffering. So sleeping on the concrete is easily seen as nothing but a show for the workers not solidarity with them. Solidarity with them would to open examine why they're having to work so many extra hours and to find
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Solidarity with them would to open examine why they're having to work so many extra hours and to find some way to reduce them
Solidarity demonstrates that if there was a way to get himself off of the concrete floor he would be doing that thing. Solidarity is like dog-fooding your software, it means you have a vested interest in making it work because it's not an abstract problem, it's a problem you yourself face.
This message brought to you by... (Score:2)
Yet another hit-piece on Musk (Score:3, Interesting)
For a few years I was annoyed about the uniform adoration Mr. Musk was getting on Slashdot and in other circles. Then hit-pieces like this one started appearing...
Would the insufferable conditions described in TFA have been described at all — or described using the same terms — if he were still the Progressives' darling for championing "green" causes?
Or has the tone switched [theatlantic.com], because Musk is a Trump-administration supporter (sort of [theverge.com]) — and there is a well-organized smear and boycott [bloomberg.com] campaign against him as a result?
There is a lively discussion on whether or not Musk is a "Trump enabler" [nique.net] — but people, who've already concluded, that he is, will stop at, literally, nothing. Even poisoning the "haters" is becoming a thing [frontpagemag.com] — online smears are child's play...
Re:Yet another hit-piece on Musk (Score:5, Insightful)
Or has the tone switched [theatlantic.com], because Musk is a Trump-administration supporter (sort of [theverge.com]) — and there is a well-organized smear and boycott [bloomberg.com] campaign against him as a result?
Anyone who thinks the tone switched only recently hasn't been paying attention. People started grousing about Musk long before "The Donald" became a serious presidential contender.
Some perspective for our non US members... (Score:2)
Re:Some perspective for our non US members... (Score:4, Informative)
Huh?
So your conception is that you would drive for 9 hours and have two hours of stops.... but you would leave your vehicle unplugged during those stops? And then make two hours of charging stops, charging that you could have done during your already planned stop time?
The thing that makes your conception especially puzzling to me is that people already combine "recharging" and break / meal stops when driving gasoline cars. If they pull off the highway to get a meal, they'll also tend to fill up, or vice versa, since they've already had to take an exit, drive into the nearest town, and stop. The only difference with an EV is that you leave the vehicle connected to the "pump" while you're eating.
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Re:Some perspective for our non US members... (Score:4, Informative)
Please tell me you know how to use Google. [tesla.com] They're every ~100mi / 150km on almost every interstate in the US (more in more densely populated areas), and this is before the big planned expansion.
Where do you think that chargers are - in the middle of the woods? They're at highway exits, the same sorts of places you find gas stations and restaurants. Generally in the larger cities along the route, where such cities are present.
Click on any charger on the above map. It'll tell you what restaurants (and other things) are around the charger.
Learn to use Google. Period.
Unless you're looking for a vehicle for, say, a trip deep into Canyonlands or the like, it's not a problem. If you're a normal human being who takes interstates to near their destination and then travels less than a couple hundred kilometers off of their turnoff to their destination, there is no problem.
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In reality, there will be bathroom breaks, at least one meal, so add another 2 hours. Now, add two hours for recharge stops...
No. You're doing it wrong. The meal happens while you're charging. Especially since the Supercharger station is going to be literally next door to a restaurant. (It is in my town, right next to the interstate.) If you've got a family, bathroom breaks take 20 minutes easily, so again, stop at a Supercharger and plug in. 20 minutes from a Supercharger is quite a lot of energy. Do that twice in the day, on either side of lunch, and you're good. You're in El Paso, and probably still have a 30% charge.
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Now, it is a problem because the infrastructure just isn't there. Eventually, even the long charge times become less important since you will charge while you are in the bathroom or eating.
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How closely spaced do chargers need to be before you'll admit that the infrastructure is "there"?
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Why would you do that, considering that pneumatics (rubber tyres) wear out very quickly and you can't do anything meaningful while driving? Besides airplanes, Europe uses trains extensively, since steel wheels on steel rails last a long time and the traction can be easily electrified and run off hydro dams or nuke plants essentially for free, while pax peck their laptops, smartphones or books. It doesn't make sense to bridal carry your car coast-to-coast when you can easily rent one for the "last mile" if needed.
We have trains where the population density is high enough to support their operation, such as on the east coast; even then many lose money. Air travel is much more popular for other trips since a train would take all day when a plane might only take a few hours.
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ALL passenger travel loses money: airlines, buses, trains, all of it. That is not a worthwhile measure. The fact is that it moves lots of people while reducing pollution, congestion on the roads, and allowing passengers a degree of freedom from concentrating on navigating themselves so they can sleep, read, tweet, on contribute to the hegemony that is Facebook.
This is a very deep topic that goes beyond the scope of this discussion.
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Re: Typical Guardian (Score:2)
External environmental and social factors also influence how many job-site injuries occur. By your logic, number of ambulance calls is also a bad metric by which to judge how this factory's workers are treated.
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How do you expect a company to not be haemorrhaging money, when they're ramping up to be able to make 500000 cars in 2018?
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How do you expect a company to not be haemorrhaging money, when they're ramping up to be able to make 500000 cars in 2018?
The problem is if they can realistically recoup those losses and turn them into profits within the next few years.
If they're not at least breaking even by the time they clear the backlog of Model 3 reservations, I don't see how they'll survive
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So your conception is that because Musk wants to set an example for his employees and show that he's not "better than them", that means that during his waking hours he's not "organizing stuff"? What's he doing instead, playing Starcraft?
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And yet, the article is not referring at all to accidents due to the above sort of thing (vehicle impact injuries, squashed by fork-lifts, ...).
Safety can be achieved in different ways.