A Tesla engineer was injured after a malfunctioned robot attacked him in the company’s Giga Texas factory near Austin. The shocking incident now brought to light by a British publication almost resembled the scripts of James Cameron’s ‘The Terminator’ series movies.
According to reports, the injured person was attacked by a machine which was designed to grab and move freshly cast aluminum car parts.
The robot had pinned the man, who was then programming software for two disabled Tesla robots nearby, before sinking its metal claws into the worker’s back and arm, leaving a ‘trail of blood’ along the factory surface, reported Daily Mail.
The incident – which left the victim with an ‘open wound’ on his left hand – was revealed in a 2021 injury report filed to Travis county and federal regulators, which has been reviewed by Daily Mail.
Similar incident was not repeated at the factory but it raises concerns over the risks of automated robots in the workplace.
The injury report, which Tesla must submit to authorities by law to maintain its lucrative tax breaks in Texas, claimed the engineer did not require time off of work, Daily Mail reported.
But one attorney who represents Tesla’s Giga Texas contract workers has told DailyMail.com she believes, based on her conversations with workers there, that the number of injuries suffered at the factory is going underreported.
This underreporting, the attorney said, even included the September 28, 2021 death of a construction worker, who had been contracted to help build the factory itself.
“My advice would be to read that report with a grain of salt, the attorney, Hannah Alexander of the nonprofit Workers Defense Project, told DailyMail.com.
“We’ve had multiple workers who were injured,” Alexander said, “and one worker who died, whose injuries or death are not in these reports that Tesla is supposed to be accurately completing and submitting to the county in order to get tax incentives.”