Two years ago, a robot attacked a worker at the workplace at Tesla's Austin factory, causing him to be injured and bleeding, according to a new report. This is one of a series of events that took place in Austin, Gigad, where the plant was key to Tesla's goal of building electric cars for less than $25,000.
Tech News** The Information reports on a series of injuries that give us a rare glimpse into a part of the U.S. workplace that is often hidden — and what the future could look like as manufacturing becomes increasingly automated.
In Gigade, an engineer started working on three robots sometime in 2021, but didn't realize that only two were shut down, according to The Information, citing two unnamed witnesses. The third robot continued its motion, "pinning the engineer against a surface, pushing its claws into his body, drawing blood from his back and arms," the ** said. After another worker pressed the emergency stop button, the victim was able to break free from the robot's control and slide down a scrap metal chute, leaving blood trails in his wake, The Information said. (Tesla did not respond to Fortune magazine's request for comment on the incident.) ）
It's unclear if there has been any federal response to the incident, although Tesla has submitted a report to the county of "cuts, cuts, or open wounds" from workers as a result of the robot. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration under the federal Department of Labor, which is responsible for workplace safety, conducted only one annual inspection of Tesla's Austin plant in 2021 and 2022, most recently after a complaint was filed at a worker center about a subcontracted worker who was injured due to heat injuries at Tesla's factory, according to The Information. In comparison, Tesla's factory in Fremont, California, underwent nine safety inspections per year in 2021 and 2022 and four so far in 2023, the ** report.
More robots, more damage?Tesla's Austin plant appears to be more dangerous for workers than other auto factories, according to The Information's analysis of federal data. Last year, almost one in every 21 workers at the Austin plant was injured on the job — a number well above the median injury rate of one in every 30 workers at similar factories. (This group includes automotive manufacturing plants with 250 or more employees.) The injury rate at the Fremont factory is even higher, with one in 12 workers injured last year.
The events of 2021 are a wake-up call for future workers, breaking the first rule of robots laid down by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, which states that robots must not harm humans. Even more chillingly, a study published earlier this year by a researcher at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that over a 15-year period, 41 U.S. workers were killed in robot-related workplace accidents. The vast majority of these fatalities occur while maintenance is being performed on the robot. "These deaths are likely to increase as the number of traditional industrial robots used by U.S. companies increases, and as collaborative and coexistence robots, powered exoskeletons, and autonomous vehicles are introduced into the work environment," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Center for Occupational Robotics Research concluded.
In fact, many employers are leaning towards incorporating robots into the workplace. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made no secret of his desire for a fully automated factory, telling investors in 2016 that the factory floor he envisioned was an "alien warship" with no one on the production line. Rising inflation and increasing labor costs are also pushing many employers to automate their operations as they seek to improve their profit margins. According to Reuters, U.S. employers introduced a record number of robots last year. GXO Logistics is testing a humanoid robot that can lift boxes and place objects on a conveyor belt at a Georgia factory, with operating costs of $10 to $12 per hour, according to Bloomberg. To be sure, the results of research on workplace robots are inconsistent. Researchers at the Brookings Institution note that the introduction of robots could actually reduce the risk of injury — as long as dangerous or repetitive tasks are left to robots, such as cleaning up chemical spills, lifting weights, or drilling underground. On the other hand, if a large industrial robot is not designed to be able to detect people nearby, it can also introduce hazards.
At least one other large employer has a higher rate of injury to workers. Amazon, which employed 800,000 people in its warehouses at the end of 2021, had more than twice as many injuries from all causes as its rival Walmart, according to a Washington Post analysis. An Amazon spokesperson disputed the findings, saying in a statement: "It is wrong to claim that we are a lot worse than everyone else. The truth is, in terms of our recordable accident rate, we are roughly on par with the warehousing industry. The spokesperson, Maureen Lynch Vogel, added that the company has "reduced the rate of injuries that require employees to leave work by 69 percent" since 2019.