Tesla Robot Mauls Engineer in Texas Gigafactory Incident
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A Tesla software engineer suffered lacerations after being attacked by a manufacturing robot at the company’s Texas Gigafactory in 2021, according to reports citing documents and witness accounts.
The incident occurred during maintenance work on automated robots at Tesla's Austin facility, as detailed in an injury report obtained by the Daily Mail. While several machines were disabled for maintenance, one robot unexpectedly activated, , pinning the engineer against a surface before “pushing its claws into his body and drawing blood from his back and his arm,” two witnesses told the news website The Information.
The engineer also sustained a "laceration, cut or open wound" on the left hand, as noted in the injury report. Despite eyewitnesses describing significant injuries, Tesla's report to regulators indicated that the engineer required no paid leave for recovery. The company hasn't publicly commented on the incident.
Reports from individuals close to Tesla pointed out safety lapses and attributed multiple workplace injuries to technical glitches at the Texas plant.
An attorney representing contract workers at the Austin factory, Hannah Alexander, raised concerns about underreported injuries and fatalities at Tesla, mentioning a construction worker's death in September 2021, not documented in Tesla's reports submitted for tax incentives.
Alexander cautioned against trusting Tesla's injury reports entirely, highlighting potential discrepancies. Last year, Alexander and the Workers Defense Project filed a complaint with the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), alleging safety issues and unreported injuries at the Gigafactory. Tesla rejected similar accusations, referring to them as part of an "ideologically motivated attack."
Despite being fined by OSHA numerous times, mainly for violations at its California location, Tesla hasn't faced OSHA penalties related to the Texas factory, where the incident occurred.