Elon Musk says Tesla workers will be sleeping on the factory floor when new $25,000 EV...

[midian182]

WTF?! Tesla isn't having the best time right now. The EV giant missed its earnings and revenue forecasts during the previous quarter, while Elon Musk has warned that vehicle sales growth would be "notably lower" this year compared to 2023. However, the CEO believes the company's fortunes will be on the rise once again when the next-generation EV goes into production, reportedly in June 2025. That might be good news for investors, but Musk has warned that it will require workers to live and sleep on the assembly lines.

Speaking during Tesla's earnings call on Wednesday, Musk said he needs his teams of manufacturers and engineers to live and sleep at the Texas Gigafactory so any issues with the next-gen EV platform can be addressed quickly as production begins, "likely" next year.

"We really need the engineers to be living on the line. This is not sort of an off-the-shelf 'it just works' type of thing," Musk said. "That will be a challenging production ramp […] we'll be sleeping on the line, practically. Not practically, we will be," he added.

This might sound quite draconian, but sleeping at the facilities is something that often happens within Tesla's "ultra hardcore" work culture. The Verge reports that employees have been known to sleep on the floor after working upwards of 12-hour shifts.

This is my concern re Tesla voting control. Money doesn't matter if powerful technology goes awry. https://t.co/vJKrcx03Wg

– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 25, 2024

There have also been reports of Tesla staff fainting from dehydration and the company's many safety issues – one engineer suffered serious injuries when an autonomous machine at the Texas plant sank its metal claws into his back and arm. Musk himself once said he slept under his desk and on factory floors while spending "three years straight" pretty much living at Tesla's facilities.

Tesla's new mass-market electric vehicle, codenamed "Redwood," is described as a compact crossover, according to two people familiar with the matter (via Reuters). In contrast to most Western EVs, which tend to be expensive, the models will include a $25,000 entry-level variant. There are rumors that it could come without a steering wheel or any pedals to lower costs. Tesla's cheapest current vehicle, the Model 3 sedan, has a starting price of just under $39,000.

Tesla lost its crown as the world's biggest maker of EVs in the fourth quarter to BYD. The Chinese firm makes inexpensive electric vehicles, though it does not yet sell any in the US.

In related news, Musk gave Tesla an ultimatum earlier this month: increase his ownership in the company to 25% or he will cut back on its development of AI and robotics The billionaire already owns 13% of the EV giant, or approximately 411 million shares. However, it seems he won't be happy unless he's awarded another 12%.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/101646-elon-musk-workers-expect-sleep-factory-floor-when.html

 

[themastergoose]

If Amazon did this, it would be a huge scandal and make worldwide headlines (heck, they have indeed had their fair share of employment controversy over the years). But if Tesla do it, it almost comes across as hipster and trendy.

Perhaps sending him to Mars isn't a bad idea after all.

 

[yRaz]

I sleep at work sometimes but my SUV is fitted out for car camping. Whenever I work out of town, which is often, I sometimes pocket the money they give me for a hotel and just sleep in my CRV. That said, I hope these Tesla employees are compensated well. I work 7 days a week for nearly 9 months a year but then I get 3 paid months off. I'm all for the "make money while it's there to be made" but I certainly hope that Tesla makes it worth while for the employees to do that stuff. I do see work ethic declining in the US. Even in my industry where you can take home upwards of $60/hr somepeople still don't want to put the effort in. If I was a kid and someone told me I could take home $3000/week I wouldn't blink but now we have labor shortages nation wide.

 

[erickmendes]

Next year Musk will start to offer human sacrifices for the martian gods...

 

[winjer]

Someone should tell Musk that Apartheid and slavery is no longer a thing.

 

[hahahanoobs]

If this man falls it will be spectacular and I want to see it.

 

[takaozo]

Say what?
"There are rumors that it could come without a steering wheel or any pedals to lower costs."

Edit: what will they provide a PS5 controller?

 

[koblongata]

Someone should tell Musk that Apartheid and slavery is no longer a thing.

I used to sleep next to my computer, when you have a dream, it's nothing.
And you know they can leave if they want right?

 

[erickmendes]

Say what?
"There are rumors that it could come without a steering wheel or any pedals to lower costs."

Edit: what will they provide a PS5 controller?

Better a PS5 controller than a Xbox. Seems like subs also don't work well with Xbox controllers.

 

[takaozo]

Better a PS5 controller than a Xbox. Seems like subs also don't work well with Xbox controllers.

I was about to write Xbox controller, but I remember that Tesla's don't have the option to dive

 

[Thanthan]

I sleep at work sometimes but my SUV is fitted out for car camping. Whenever I work out of town, which is often, I sometimes pocket the money they give me for a hotel and just sleep in my CRV. That said, I hope these Tesla employees are compensated well. I work 7 days a week for nearly 9 months a year but then I get 3 paid months off. I'm all for the "make money while it's there to be made" but I certainly hope that Tesla makes it worth while for the employees to do that stuff. I do see work ethic declining in the US. Even in my industry where you can take home upwards of $60/hr somepeople still don't want to put the effort in. If I was a kid and someone told me I could take home $3000/week I wouldn't blink but now we have labor shortages nation wide.

You do realize that ‘Labour shortage’ tends to mean ‘low unemployment, and we can’t get any workers cause our terms are ****, but we wanna act like it’s the workers who are the problem’, right?

It’s not that ‘kids’ aren’t working, they just have options…

 

[Thanthan]

I used to sleep next to my computer, when you have a dream, it's nothing.
And you know they can leave if they want right?

This idea that people working an hourly wage should have a ‘dream’ isn’t just flawed, it’s sick. Even if the workers dreams somehow aligned with Tesla shareholders (may I just be… very doubtful on that point) , why should they sacrifice their social life , family and wellbeing for it when the company could just… hire more people? The ‘we all have a dream’ company mentality is just an excuse for CEO’s to underpay/overwork wage labour, even when the statement is actually true (see ‘mandatory unpaid crunch time’ in the video game industry…)

Now if someone WANTS to work a lot of overtime, by all means, let them. But forcing people to? **** off. Just use the money you save on overtime pay to hire more employees. Unless the reason you insist on overtime is that you don’t pay. In which case **** you.

 

[yRaz]

You do realize that ‘Labour shortage’ tends to mean ‘low unemployment, and we can’t get any workers cause our terms are ****, but we wanna act like it’s the workers who are the problem’, right?

It’s not that ‘kids’ aren’t working, they just have options…

Paid apprenticeship, zero debt, great benefits, pension. I don't know of a job where you get 3 paid months off every year. The main reason we can't get workers? Random drug tests and people want to smoke weed. If people can't give up drugs to make a decent wage amd have their education paid for then, frankly, they don't deserve it. I'm pro marijuana but I think even if it is legalized we should still test for it because it shows strength of character and motivation.

 

[wiyosaya]

Just abusive!

Paid apprenticeship, zero debt, great benefits, pension. I don't know of a job where you get 3 paid months off every year. The main reason we can't get workers? Random drug tests and people want to smoke weed. If people can't give up drugs to make a decent wage amd have their education paid for then, frankly, they don't deserve it. I'm pro marijuana but I think even if it is legalized we should still test for it because it shows strength of character and motivation.

That's you and your situation. Just how you are comparing your apple to Tesla workers' lemon, I have no idea.

Musk can go **** himself and the Tesla he rode in on.

As I see it, Musk seems to think the problems that Tesla is having are related to the workers he's hired. He has no capacity to look inward for his problems. As I see it, Musk is the problem.

 

[axiomatic13]

"Sleeping on the floors?" That not a positive flex there, Elon. That's means you intend to overwork them. Unionize. Tesla workers need to unionize ASAP.

 

[yRaz]

Just abusive!

That's you and your situation. Just how you are comparing your apple to Tesla workers' lemon, I have no idea.

Musk can go **** himself and the Tesla he rode in on.

As I see it, Musk seems to think the problems that Tesla is having are related to the workers he's hired. He has no capacity to look inward for his problems. As I see it, Musk is the problem.

He was referring directly to my situation. If people working at Tesla wanted to quit and join my industry, they could. Next year I'm going to Arizona and staying there until 2028 because there aren't enough people to do the work. I saw a billboard where the Carpenters union was advertising for for apprentices and that used to be a union where you had bribe a business agent to get in. If the trend of people leaving the trades continues it is estimated that there could be 1,000,000 job openings by 2030. When I started in 2004 people had to fight to keep their jobs. Now construction companies are offering things like free breakfast in the mornings, overtime after 7 hours in a single shift and multiple paid breaks. when instarted in this industry in 2004 you use to have to work 40+ hours to get overtime and you got one unpaid break a day and that was your lunch break.

So when I see people complain about how much they hate their jobs o look at them like they're *****s. pick a trade, call the local union hall and if you can pass a drug test then you can have a job the next day.

So that's why I said I hope they're making good money and if they aren't being compensated well then they're *****s for putting up with it. There are better jobs out there that don't require a college degree. There are hundreds of thousands of jobs out there that will pay you better and treat you better which really makes me scratch my head why we're so short on skilled labor. I get more paid time off in a single year than most people have off over their entire careers.

So these people are either *****s and deserve it or they're well taken care of and it's worth it.

 

[BuckarooBonzaii]

He should at least provide cots. Next we'll see apartments being built close to factories within walking distance. Maybe some may like living in these apartments.

 

[Nobina]

Compensation for working overtime is almost always not worth it. People are not robots and sleeping on the floor sounds like hell. Governments, if they were any good, would have laws preventing this ****. If you want to live in a factory and get extra money you should be able to but the rest should be left alone. Switching jobs is not easy, "you're free to leave" comments can only be made by the worst kind of scum.

 

[Endymio]

Someone should tell Musk that Apartheid and slavery is no longer a thing.

Someone needs to learn what words mean. Giving someone a free choice to work under certain conditions is the exact opposite of slavery. There are quite a few jobs around the world that require workers to sleep on the job site. If you don't like that job -- find another one. As for the absurd "apartheid" reference, I actually laughed at loud. Where did that one come from?

Finally, I'll note that, unlike most other billionaires who shun hard work with a vengeance, Musk himself slept on the factory floor -- in a sleeping bag no less -- in the early days of Tesla.

 

[kiwigraeme]

I sleep at work sometimes but my SUV is fitted out for car camping. Whenever I work out of town, which is often, I sometimes pocket the money they give me for a hotel and just sleep in my CRV. That said, I hope these Tesla employees are compensated well. I work 7 days a week for nearly 9 months a year but then I get 3 paid months off. I'm all for the "make money while it's there to be made" but I certainly hope that Tesla makes it worth while for the employees to do that stuff. I do see work ethic declining in the US. Even in my industry where you can take home upwards of $60/hr somepeople still don't want to put the effort in. If I was a kid and someone told me I could take home $3000/week I wouldn't blink but now we have labor shortages nation wide.

I think it was you talking about work life balance , and you got it a bit wrong . Yeah as a "kid" I would work huge hours - but here's the proviso , a short term goal , eg buy a house with huge deposit, or get enough to travel the world for 5 years non-stop .
The young are thinking about work life balance , especially if they think home ownership is impossible . Obviously you could buy south Detroit , other side of tracks Alabama, Missouri and Mississippi .
If I was in your shoes , and didn't have immediate dependants I retire earlier and live on the road - So many options , Alaska, Canada, lower 48 , Baja Mexico , Yucatan
1001 things to do , you will be fit as , even if unfit climb small hills in Sedona , and hike a few riparian gorges for a week or 2 , if overweight fat will melt off , knees will become mighty - by the time you get to Moab you will be a mountain goat even if 75 years old . Could do it cheap as , just get a pressure cooker for dry beans and local veggies, fruit and nuts , your health levels would skyrocket

 

[yRaz]

I think it was you talking about work life balance , and you got it a bit wrong . Yeah as a "kid" I would work huge hours - but here's the proviso , a short term goal , eg buy a house with huge deposit, or get enough to travel the world for 5 years non-stop .
The young are thinking about work life balance , especially if they think home ownership is impossible . Obviously you could buy south Detroit , other side of tracks Alabama, Missouri and Mississippi .
If I was in your shoes , and didn't have immediate dependants I retire earlier and live on the road - So many options , Alaska, Canada, lower 48 , Baja Mexico , Yucatan
1001 things to do , you will be fit as , even if unfit climb small hills in Sedona , and hike a few riparian gorges for a week or 2 , if overweight fat will melt off , knees will become mighty - by the time you get to Moab you will be a mountain goat even if 75 years old . Could do it cheap as , just get a pressure cooker for dry beans and local veggies, fruit and nuts , your health levels would skyrocket

I get to do too much cool stuff to retire and now that I'm not a kid I'm not asked to do the super physically demanding stuff anymore. Also, I get travel constantly as it is. In 2019 lived in key west for 5 months and got a job as a bar tender.

But what's really important to me is that I get to travel around the US building on critical infustructure. If you've been in the north east US in the last 20 years you've probably been on a bridge that I contributed to or in a building I worked on. It's not all cocaine and butterflies but the work that I do has a real impact on millions of people's lives.

And next year I'm getting sent out to Arizona to help build factories, roads and houses for America's plan to expand its industrial capacity. Frankly, I don't even care about the money anymore. I get high off of hanging from bridges and skyscrapers. I also enjoy training apprentices, it reminds me of being a kid trying to learn a trade. I see kids do so much stupid stuff these days that when I actually get to work with one that wants to go into the trades it restores *spme* of my faith in humanity.

 

[Scshadow]

Title is clickbait. The article specifically quotes Elon mentioning engineers and production ramp up of a new line. So this is not all the Tesla workers and it's not all the time. I don't think this is all that crazy. Ramping up a production line means the key engineers need to support all production shifts so that problems can be addressed immediately in real time. Like an on-call but you have to be on-site. Until a certain baseline is established and a normal production cycle is achieved, this is not entirely unreasonable. With proper compensation and accommodation, this is completely valid.

 

[yRaz]

Title is clickbait. The article specifically quotes Elon mentioning engineers and production ramp up of a new line. So this is not all the Tesla workers and it's not all the time. I don't think this is all that crazy. Ramping up a production line means the key engineers need to support all production shifts so that problems can be addressed immediately in real time. Like an on-call but you have to be on-site. Until a certain baseline is established and a normal production cycle is achieved, this is not entirely unreasonable. With proper compensation and accommodation, this is completely valid.

I've been in that position before where a jobsite ran 24/7 and people took turns as a consultants that would be on the jobsite 24/7 to monitor things or solve problems. Although the rule is you can't be in a jobsite for more than 72 hours straight without a health and safety inspector making an exemption. Longest I've ever heard of someone being on a job straight was 11 days.

Fun fact, on jobs where they expect people to work like that they have to have atleast 1 nurse. Those nurses, in my experience, have almost always been former military medics.

 

[kiwigraeme]

I get to do too much cool stuff to retire and now that I'm not a kid I'm not asked to do the super physically demanding stuff anymore. Also, I get travel constantly as it is. In 2019 lived in key west for 5 months and got a job as a bar tender.

But what's really important to me is that I get to travel around the US building on critical infustructure. If you've been in the north east US in the last 20 years you've probably been on a bridge that I contributed to or in a building I worked on. It's not all cocaine and butterflies but the work that I do has a real impact on millions of people's lives.

And next year I'm getting sent out to Arizona to help build factories, roads and houses for America's plan to expand its industrial capacity. Frankly, I don't even care about the money anymore. I get high off of hanging from bridges and skyscrapers. I also enjoy training apprentices, it reminds me of being a kid trying to learn a trade. I see kids do so much stupid stuff these days that when I actually get to work with one that wants to go into the trades it restores *spme* of my faith in humanity.

Yeah must be a buzz seeing things have created in the wild . Plus sounds like you have a lot of "up" time on your job . Ie not much extra fluff, or doing crazy amounts of paperwork for a business you own , lawyer contracts etc - If someone else ( company you work for handles all that stuff ) , then that's a huge drag gone and off time is off time , unless you want to puzzle a great solution .
SW is real nice , I always suggest people go to the 4 corners , lots of national parks, history . nature - Real John Ford land

 

[nulll]

Disgustingly disingenuous misrepresentation of what was said jokingly regarding the "Hardcore" nature of the Tesla engineering staff regarding their devotion to perfecting the project redwood next gen vehicle that was discussed in the earnings call. The entire conversation is publicly available for anyone to listen to, which considering the preposterous nonsense being propagated regarding its contents across the web today is well worth anyone's time to primer themselves on lest they be washed away on a profitable tide of sensationalized nonsense.

Earnings call begins at 8:30 for those interested in unadulterated facts.

For those interested in why this earnings call was a "train wreck" for the short to medium term investors I would suggest the interview done by Yahoo finance with Dan Ives. As a bull for the stock he stands the most to lose by being maximally critical at this time which certainly was during this interview. These contravening forces lead to a brutally objective take.

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/video/tesla-needs-communication-margins-pricing-153150438.html