Getty The Tesla plant in Austin, Texas.
A Tesla engineer at the company’s Giga factory near Austin, Texas, was attacked by a robot that pinned the man before injuring him with its metal claws, according to a report in The Information.
In November 2023, The Information first reported on the 2021 incident, citing safety concerns at the Tesla plant in Texas.
That report was followed by one in the Daily Mail, which described the robot attack at Tesla’s Giga factory as a “brutal and bloody malfunction.”
The robot was supposed to be moving aluminum car parts, the Daily Mail reported, when it sank “its metal claws into the worker’s back and arm,” leaving a “trail of blood.” The incident dates to 2021 but is just coming to light now.
Here’s what you need to know:
The Robot Was ‘Inadvertently Left Operational,’ Reports Say
GettyThe Tesla Giga factory in Texas.
According to the Information story, the engineer was “programming the software that controls manufacturing robots” when the attack occurred.
Two of the robots had been disabled for safety reasons, the site reported, but the third, the one that injured the worker, was “inadvertently left operational.”
According to The Information, the robot “pinned the engineer against a surface, pushing its claws into his body and drawing blood from his back and his arm.”
The Information reported that the engineer fell down a chute “designed to collect scrap aluminum and leaving a trail of blood behind him.”
There Were No Other Robot Injuries Reported at the Plant in 2021 & 2022, Reports Say
Getty A Tesla dealership in Austin, Texas.
An attorney who represents workers at the plant believes that injuries are going underreported. Still, there were no other robot-related injuries reported at the plant in 2021 and 2022, according to Daily Mail, which quoted attorney Hannah Alexander as saying, “We’ve had multiple workers who were injured, 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.”
However, the Daily Mail reported that the worker who was attacked by the robot did not need time off from work.
According to KXAN, The Workers Defense Project has filed two cases “with the U.S. Labor Department over worker pay and training” as the Giga factory was constructed.
According to the New York Post, injury reports filed with the federal government said “that nearly one out of every 21 workers at the Giga Texas factory got hurt last year.”
One Study Found That Robots Reduce Worker Injuries
GettyView of the inside of the Tesla Giga Texas manufacturing facility.
One study found, however, that robots actually can reduce worker injuries.
According to the site Business Insurance, a University of Pittsburgh study found that robots “may reduce workplace injury rates but noted that workers exposed to robots are more likely to suffer adverse mental health effects.”
That site reported that the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration “found only 48 cases of robot-related accidents between 1984 and 2021, while National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health researchers identified 61 robot-related fatalities between 1992 and 2015.”
A casualty risk control director, David Barry told Business Insurance: “All robots know is to complete a program. Unfortunately, people will mistakenly enter areas where robots are because they don’t have the training and processes in place to know the lockout tag standard applies to robots.”