
Tesla employees say Gigafactory problems worse than known - ugwigr
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/25/tesla-employees-say-gigafactory-problems-worse-than-known.html
======
fermienrico
I recently interviewed for Tesla's module department. Module engineering is
essentially the gear between engineering and manufacturing. They're the heavy
lifters. They're the front line grunts. They're the ones accountable for
everything - LVM to HVM feasibility, process development, metrology, selection
of suppliers, qualifying the manufacturing cell, process control and
sustaining(operations, efficiency, continuous improvement, training etc.) and
troubleshooting lines down situations.

The interviewer was very polite and told me this is probably the most
demanding job at Tesla, especially at this time of the company's state when
they're ramping up the production lines for Model 3.

I was intrigued and went to second round interview, and it eventually led to
an offer. That is where things got interesting. Tesla needs to invest heavily
in their Module engineers. The pay package was extremely disappointing and I
am not willing to let go of the golden years of my life (late 20's) for this
kind of a job unless it is heavily incentivized. I've had similar demanding
job offers from oil companies, but at least they offset with a very compelling
pay package (15% Alaska bonus, 4 weeks off, presumably amazing yearly bonus).

~~~
dkersten
It boggles my European mind that 4 weeks of holidays is considered a lot...

~~~
ryanwaggoner
It’s not really considered a lot for many corporations in America. Not to
mention government workers, who often get even more. All military personnel
get 30 days (6 weeks), for example.

What’s mind-boggling to me is that Europeans can’t help but continue to make
these smug comments, when your minimums are usually either 4 or 5 weeks, and
the average isn’t much more.

Yes, Americans work too much and don’t get enough vacation. But for software
developers in particular, the overall comp in America is WAY better than for
Europe. I’ll happily trade a week or two off (if I even have to) for double
the salary.

~~~
themagician
There are very few companies that give four weeks paid vacation. Can’t be more
than 10%.

Two week is the status quo, and that’s after you earn it. Silicon Valley is an
anomaly.

~~~
paulcole
2 weeks + 10ish federal holidays is pretty standard for professional white
collar office jobs. Works out to about 4 work weeks.

~~~
themagician
VS 4 weeks plus holidays in many European counties.

No matter how you cut it, we absolutely suck at time off. And even when
companies offer it people don’t take it because the culture discourages it.

He’s right to be smug about it. We need to change the culture here.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Yes, and smugness from Europeans is the way to do that.

It’s also unfair to consider things like vacation time, parental leave, and
universal healthcare (the prime topics for smug) without also considering
economic growth rates, employment levels, and overall comp, _particularly for
white collar workers_.

The story in America vs the EU isn’t one of their paradise vs our hellscape.
It’s one of inequality. Life for the poor or middle class in America sucks
compared to Europe. But if you’re lucky enough to be an employed white collar
worker in America, you don’t have it much worse, if at all, than the average
white collar European. Open to data proving otherwise.

For what it’s worth, I too want more vacation time, better parental leave, and
universal healthcare in the US. But they come at a cost, and we shouldn’t
pretend otherwise.

~~~
stuaxo
I'm not smug, I think the workers in the US get a shitty deal. It's a major
reason I wouldn't want to work there. (The same reason I wouldn't work in the
games industry in the UK).

~~~
ryanwaggoner
That’s a common misconception. Many workers in the US get screwed. But
definitely not all. Software devs in the US are almost unquestionably better
off when you take total comp into account.

------
true_tuna
Tl;dr I hope they upgraded the the DB backing their battery manufacturing
process.

I had a buddy who worked at Tesla. The first step of the battery manufacture
process involves a robot taking a little cell out of the box, discharging it,
charging it back up and testing to see if it shows the right voltage. Super
easy quality control test. But all that needs to be written to a database. The
database was hosted on a vm using a shared raid array of spinning disks. Their
battery manufacturer process was literally gated by a slow ass disk drive. My
buddy pointed this out. Asked that they just throw an SSD in there (we’re
working on it). Followed up, asked if he could just do it himself (no).
Followed up a third time asking for the authority to fix the problem (no).
Finally quit in disgust because they refused to solve a simple problem so how
are they going to solve hard ones?

~~~
ysleepy
Was it limiting the testing in some way? In can't really imagine it was.

Changing working things in a critical phase of the core business without
reason does not seem like a good idea.

I agree the setup seems bad and should be addressed, but if there are better
things to do maybe do those first.

~~~
true_tuna
They had to slow down the robots so they didn’t outpace the database. Slapping
an SSD in a database increases write speed by 4X. They probably could have
increased battery production by 15% for a total of $99. Slow database meant
slow robot meant slow battery pack production meant slow car production.
Replacing a working thing might be bad, but when your expert says your thing
can be drastically improved with a trivial upgrade, you should do it.
Especially if it’s in the critical path of production. You can’t know
everything, but you can employ experts. But they can’t help you if they’re not
empowered.

~~~
thedoops
Was this a bottleneck to the end product? If at some point in the process
there's a different bottleneck, I'd expect it to be reasonably construed as
dangerous. That being said it sounds like an ownership problem. Red tape made
from past fires (not the pink slip kind ) can easily become the real problem
in a complex operation like this.

------
jccooper
> It's looking more and more like the official reason for the layoffs - "…As
> with any company, especially one of over 33,000 employees, performance
> reviews also occasionally result in employee departures" \- doesn't hold
> water.

Why not? If you can't find 2% dead wood at your company you're miraculously
good at hiring or are not looking very hard. Stack ranking companies tend to
use 5-10% as the bottom tier subject to "yank".

I'm not saying it is just performance reviews, because I have no more idea
than whomever wrote the article what's really going on inside Tesla, but the
idea that it couldn't make sense for a big employer like that to do a small
round of firings doesn't hold water.

~~~
adamnemecek
Stack ranking is stupid. Eventually you'll be firing good people. Idk why
people think that Jack Welsh had good management practices or that GE is a
company to aspire to.

If nothing else, GE has 300k employees. Your company probably doesn't.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
“Idk why people think Jack Welsh had good management practices...”

 _Prior to Mr. Immelt GE was headed by Jack Welch. During his tenure at the
top of GE the company created more wealth for its investors than any company
ever in the recorded history of U.S. publicly traded companies. GE’s value
increased 40-fold (4000%) from 1981 to 2001. He expanded GE into new
businesses, often far removed from its industrial manufacturing roots, as
market shifts created new opportunities for growing revenues and profits. From
what was mostly a diversified manufacturing company Mr. Welch led GE into real
estate as those assets increased in value, then media as advertising revenues
skyrocketed and finally financial services as deregulation opened the market
for the greatest returns in banking history.

Jack Welch was the Steve Jobs of his era. Because he had the foresight to push
GE into new markets, create new products and grow the company. Growth that was
so substantial it kept GE constantly in the news, and investors thrilled._

That’s why.

Source: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2015/04/15/ge-a-
tot...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2015/04/15/ge-a-total-
leadership-failure/#7a43845b5699)

~~~
walshemj
Wasn't he disgraced for having a gold plated shower on his company jet?

~~~
ryanwaggoner
No idea. Also, you may be using “disgraced” a little liberally here. Pretty
sure Welsh is still held in extremely high regard in the business world.

~~~
walshemj
Depends if you get caught the press and politicians can be brutal especially
if the economy needs a whipping boy. See the presidents club furore in the UK
some "well respected" business men are no longer held in such high regard.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Yes, but he clearly is held in high regard. So there may have been some dust
up about that years ago, but no one really remembers or cares. I can’t even
find any reference to it, so you may be thinking of someone else.

------
ggm
Anti union company finds workers need investing in.. Who knew?

------
omgwtfbyobbq
So layoffs in Fremont and Roseville are somehow causing Tesla employees at the
Gigafactory to become less experienced?

[https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/13/4819750/](https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/13/4819750/)

Yeah... OK.

------
dang
Url changed from [http://media.thinknum.com/articles/teslas-production-
plagued...](http://media.thinknum.com/articles/teslas-production-plagued-by-
inexperienced-workers-after-they-laid-off-700/), which quotes heavily from
this yet links not to it.

~~~
JeremyBloom
Hi, I'm the author of the piece in question, and, being a professional, of
COURSE I linked to the CNBC article. Twice. When I introduce the CNBC
material, in the first paragraph, and again when I introduced the (fully
credited) blockquote. Just saying....

------
Shivetya
recent reddit post where an owner was on his second attempt to take delivery
of a III
[https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/7t0uul/inspect...](https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/7t0uul/inspect_for_major_panel_gapalignment_defects_at/)

the annoying part was the take it or leave it that they felt they received,
apparently the first car was worse

~~~
Spooky23
Just take it to an independent third party repair shop.

~~~
kuschku
That isn’t possible for Teslas – Tesla does not offer manuals or replacement
parts, and if a third-party is found to have modified the car, Tesla reserves
the right to remotely disable it.

~~~
protomyth
I thought that was illegal in the US? How exactly are they getting around the
Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act?

~~~
omgwtfbyobbq
It is illegal as far as I know, and I've never heard of Tesla remotely
disabling a car unless it's been stolen.

The only thing I've read about is them not doing in-warranty repairs and/or
recalls on salvage vehicles, but that's normal. They'll apparently recertify a
salvage car for $3k-$6k though, if an owner really wants support.

------
lumberjack
>Which leaves only one possible reason: the layoffs could only have been a
Union-busting move,

Is that legal?

~~~
leereeves
No. There are a number of open complaints about Tesla's union-busting efforts
at the National Labor Relations Board.

But nothing's been proven yet and Tesla claims the complaints are "entirely
without merit".

------
pooya13
The author argues that they are not careful enough and not taking their time
to fully inspect the battery packs, while saying that they should stop taking
their time and ramp up the production already! Appears to me that she would
blame Tesla either way.

------
pfarnsworth
Elon Musk is spread out way too thin. He should never have bought SolarCity,
and he needs to relinquish SpaceX entirely. He needs to be laser-focused on
getting the Model3 out of the door because his whole company depends on it.

I think people are sensing a hell of a lot of weakness, and if Tesla starts
running out of money, he could literally find himself and the company
bankrupt, especially if banks stop lending money because it looks like a bad
credit risk.

This feels like the type of company that could crumble down to single digits
in stock value because of some catastrophic set of financial issues.

~~~
philwelch
I’d rather Musk give up owning a car company than give up working on the most
plausible near-term route for humans to enter low earth orbit that doesn’t
enrich the Putin cartel.

