
Tesla vs Alameda County [pdf] - xoxoy
https://wholemars.com/alameda-lawsuit.pdf
======
creato
Neighboring counties have already allowed work like construction to resume. Is
a car factory really that different in terms of risk? Just based on the sheer
size of the facilities, I can't imagine the density of people is that high,
and due to at least some of the work going on, ventilation is probably good.

It definitely makes sense to keep businesses like bars and restaurants closed
given their nature as a "hub" in the graph of human contacts, but we also need
to allow what work we can to continue as long as it doesn't contribute to
significant spread of the virus.

At the same time, last I saw, car sales had fallen off a cliff. Is there much
point to aggressively reopening if those cars can't be sold? But that's a
question for Tesla to answer, not Alameda County.

~~~
steelframe
> ventilation is probably good

I'm not clear on what ventilation being "probably good" means in the context
of reducing SARS-Cov-2 exposure to a safe level. What if the air is
recirculated and the filters don't capture enough of the virus?

~~~
xyzzyz
Nobody knows anything for certain. We do not even have good data on mask
effectiveness. The basis of all the restrictions is already a gut feeling/whim
of the governors, not any concrete scientific data about what works and what
doesn’t. Asking whether air conditioning system is good enough doesn’t make
sense if we don’t even know what’s good enough. Nobody is doing any studies in
that direction anyway, so we’ll never know.

I don’t know if lockdowns and restrictions make any practical difference or
not, but people affected are definitely justified in complaining about large
degree of arbitrariness in all of it. For example, NYC is still running subway
and never stopped through all of it. Sure, people are relying on it to get
places in New York, but so is everyone else in this country relying on their
job to make a living, and yet many of their jobs were banned just like that.

~~~
dominotw
New infections in NY i heard are majority 76% from ppl staying indoors. Not
sure how are they are getting it, from recirculated air in apt complexes?

~~~
amalter
Last measured antigen rate in NYC was north of 20%. My bet is almost all
“essential” workers have been exposed and that part of the “herd” is immune.

Who does that leave but everyone else, who are still shopping, going for
walks, exercising, doing laundry in communal facilities and all the other
minutiae of life that cannot be paused.

I’ve seen this comment a few times and don’t see the mystery. The virus has
saturated the mobile and now is finding vectors into the less mobile.

This is a feature, not a bug, since the pickup rate is hopefully under the
critical care capabilities.

~~~
dominotw
> I’ve seen this comment a few times and don’t see the mystery.

Well, its not clear to me what "people who are staying indoors" means. I am
exclusively inside my apt for last 8 weeks and have groceries delivered and
workout on my bike trainer/zwift indoors.

I feel like there should be some distinction between, 1. mostly staying
indoors 2. exclusively staying indoors.

If second group of people are getting it, then yea its mysterious.

------
dmode
Sigh, it is kind of embarrassing for me that I was a fan of this guy and even
own a Tesla. Elon has gone off the rocks quite and bit and now is a straight
up loon. He is now full on spreading FUD, which is weird considering the
amount of FUD That was spread against Tesla for a while

------
dang
Two threads on this already:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23126517](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23126517)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23127552](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23127552)

Not sure this is likely to go any better.

~~~
xoxoy
It’s the actual lawsuit though. Much more substantive.

~~~
dang
Yes, and the hope is that it would support a better thread.

------
rrss
Is this legal argument actually any good?

It seems like the major claim is that Alameda County's order "overrides an
express order of the Governor of California," which doesn't make much sense to
me. Newsom's order said that _individuals_ working in critical infrastructure
sectors are exempt from staying at home. I don't see how Alameda County saying
Tesla must stay closed contradicts Newsom saying Tesla employees could go to
work, if their workplace was open. Seems sorta weaksauce to interpret an
exemption for individuals from a stay at home order as a order than Tesla must
remain open.

Anyway, seems like a mess, will be interesting to see what happens with this.

~~~
pmorici
The exemption for individuals is so that they can go to work what good would
it be if their work place was closed?

~~~
rrss
My thinking is that the exemption allows for counties to have the opportunity
to allow those businesses in critical infrastructure sectors to stay open. The
order says that employees "may continue their work," and Tesla's lawsuit seems
to interpret that to mean that Tesla must stay open.

I'm obviously not a lawyer, I'm just interested in if the argument in the
complaint is likely to get them anywhere.

------
contemporary343
I am curious how Tesla employees feel about this, and more generally Musk's
continuous and baffling insistence that the coronavirus is no big deal. (Heck,
it seems like until and unless this wipes out > 10% of humanity it seems like
he'll keep saying 'no big deal')

It's one thing if your company and its CEO acknowledge the seriousness of the
situation and develop a plausible contingency plan, including masks and random
asymptomatic testing. But he seems rather unconcerned about such pedestrian
matters and has decided it's a nothingburger and all hype.

Has Tesla actually proposed a reasonable plan to do this while Alameda county
is seeing a spike in new cases?

~~~
Traster
A decent CEO would've explained the precautions to local government officials,
persuaded them it was the right thing to do and then kicked in a donation of
500,000 masks or something. Instead, Musk is tweeting conspiracy theories and
going on Joe Rogan. It's just incompetence. Even if the Tesla factory does
have real and effective measures to reduce the risks, no one is going to trust
Elon Musk.

------
danso
Off-topic: I haven't downloaded many legal PDFs lately, but whatever legal
software was used to make this one seems to obfuscate the text? The PDF seems
like a normal text PDF (as opposed to scanned images), and you can highlight
lines of text, but copy-pasting it results in gibberish; find-text-in-document
is likewise borked. Using `pdftotext' generates a mostly empty file, though
Google Docs conversion manages to extract and preserve the text.

I bring this up because the document has several URLs which are non-clickable
and non-copy-pastable. I know PDFs can be encoded in away in that the visual
layout of the content is completely different to the underlying data, this was
just the first time I've seen such obfuscation.

edit: here's a normally-behaving copy of the PDF from one of the SF local news
stations:

[https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/wp-
content/uploads/sites/1...](https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/wp-
content/uploads/sites/15116056/2020/05/Tesla-Incorporated-v.-County-of-
Alameda-5-9-20.pdf)

Assuming the TV station has uploaded the PDF straight from the source (Tesla's
lawyers, or the county court system), then maybe the site wholemars.com re-
processed its copy of the PDF? In any case, the text/data obfuscation is
pretty interesting and I sure hope it doesn't become a standard practice!

(I don't blame the OP for posting the wholemars.com link; that was the first I
saw of the lawsuit too, at least on Twitter)

~~~
Operyl
I have to wonder if there's any rules that would be violated by crap like this
in the courts. It's 100% to prevent other lawyers from copy-pasting things,
and that's absurd since it's defeated by OCR. It's extremely not accessible to
the blind as a result.

~~~
netsharc
It also makes it invisible to search engines. Google "Tesla COVID-19 lawsuit"
and this PDF will not show up...

~~~
Operyl
The curious thing is not _everything_ is obscured. Namely, `Attorneys for
Plaintiff Tesla, Inc. ` isn't.

Either is `Identifying Critical Infrastructure During Covid-19`

So eventually this is probably going to get indexed by Google.

EDIT: It is already!

[https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Identifying+Critical+Infr...](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Identifying+Critical+Infrastructure+During+Covid-19%22+%22tesla%22&oq=%22Identifying+Critical+Infrastructure+During+Covid-19%22+%22tesla%22)

EDIT 2: Why the downvotes already? I was pointing out that not all text is
obfuscated in the text, namely COVID and Tesla are not. So it _is_ going to
get indexed to some extent, it seems. If you want to downvote me, at least
give me the courtesy to reply to your reasoning for it!

EDIT 3: You can check it yourself. Open the PDF, ctrl+f tesla, the only
sentence unobscured shows up. ctrl+f for Covid-19, only one unobfuscated
occurrence..

~~~
danso
What Google is indexing appears to be the original and normally behaving PDF
(before processing by wholemars.com):[https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/wp-
content/uploads/sites/1...](https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/wp-
content/uploads/sites/15116056/2020/05/Tesla-Incorporated-v.-County-of-
Alameda-5-9-20.pdf)

(the submitted link for this thread should probably be changed to the
sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com hosted version of the PDF)

But yes, I do agree that not all the text in the wholemars.com version was
obfuscated. Seems like the metatext and boilerplate stuff was left as is in
this processed version.

------
KarlKemp
Edit: I was a little late in noticing a "show more" link at the bottom of the
list that Google gave me for [16 critical infrastructure sectors] and found
"Transportation Equipment Manufacturing" is also among the 16. So consider the
below moot.

In spite of my sympathy for Tesla in general and maybe even their wish to
resume operations in particular, their arguments, as I understand it, doesn't
seem to be very convincing?

It appears to hinge on the categorisation, with Tesla's view being that they
belong in the "Energy Sector", which is among the "16 critical infrastructure
sectors" exempt from any requirements to shut down.

While I guess you can draw a connection of Tesla with the energy sector if
you're doing so in a complete vacuum, it is entirely obvious that, when the
"energy sector" was exempt from closure, it was based on a definition that
under no circumstances would include Tesla. I. e.: power plants and gas
stations obviously need to stay open for reasons that just don't apply to
manufacturing cars.

~~~
netsharc
Yeah, IANAL, but this document doesn't sound to have been written by someone
punching arguments, it sounds more like a whiny teenager.

On top of page 2 it somehow claims a car factory is permitted to operate
because this FAQ says so:

>My business installs distributed solar, storage, and/or electric vehicle
charging systems – can it continue to operate?

> Yes, this is permissible construction activity and must comply with the
> Construction Project Safety Protocols in Appendix B of the Order. Businesses
> may also operate to manufacture distributed energy resource components, like
> solar panels.

I guess they're going to go to court over the definition of "distributed
energy resource components". Tesla cars are consumers (also storers) of
(electrical) energy resources, but a gas-powered car does the same for energy
stored in gasoline. If they let this in, then I could argue that my battery-
powered phone is also an "energy resource component"...

~~~
pmorici
That isn't their argument they are presenting that as an example of how the
county isn't being reasonable by saying one thing then acting contrary to
their publicly stated guidance. Their core argument begins on page three
paragraph 8 and is more about the county claiming to superseded the authority
of the State and Federal government when they don't have the legal basis to do
so.

------
georgeburdell
For what it's worth, Fremont, the city where Tesla is located, appears more
sympathetic to the company

[http://www.fremont.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=1768](http://www.fremont.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=1768)

------
newacct583
I don't know that this is that notable, is it? Surely there are dozens or
hundreds of suits all over the country from businesses quibbling over their
non/categorization as essential?

It's a pandemic. No one wins here. No policy can be completely fair. Hell, I
have opinions about everything and I genuinely don't know that I can find one
about this situation. Obviously Tesla (and every employer) wants to open. The
county wants people to stay home. Some exceptions get made. Should Tesla be
one? Meh.

~~~
aguyfromnb
You don't think a controversial, SV darling CEO _suing_ to allow his non
essential business to open amidst a pandemic is notable?

What about his public attacks on the civil servants involved in determine the
rules for public safety?

What about the fact he's decrying "unelected officials" and "fascism" in the
US,while praising the CCP and expanding Chinese production?

It's unbelievable people continue to defend this man here.

~~~
pmorici
If the factory is operating safely in China w/o employees getting sick why
isn’t it possible in the USA?

~~~
newacct583
Objectively it's because the Chinese outbreak is well controlled at this point
without lockdown measures. Alameda isn't there yet, though the Bay Area is
closer than many areas in the US which are still growing.

~~~
pmorici
The Chinese outbreak was much less controlled when they allowed the China
factory to reopen.

------
jacknews
how is car manufacturing 'critical infrastructure'?

Is the case number, 'Case 4:20-cv-03186' significant?

~~~
pmorici
The list of critical infrastructure industries is outlined in this federal
government document...

[https://www.cisa.gov/publication/guidance-essential-
critical...](https://www.cisa.gov/publication/guidance-essential-critical-
infrastructure-workforce)

It lists among other things...

"Workers critical to the manufacturing, distribution, sales, rental, leasing,
repair, and maintenance of vehicles and other transportation equipment
(including electric vehicle charging stations) and the supply chains that
enable these operations to facilitate continuity of travel-related operations
for essential workers."

~~~
jacknews
I don't think this really covers manufacture of general consumer passenger
vehicles.

The intent is clearly to maintain transportation capability for genuinely
critical workers (healthcare, food distribution and sales, police and
emergency, etc). If their tesla breaks down, there is no need to manufacture a
new one, they can just grab one from the sales lot.

~~~
pmorici
It definitely does, you are reading way to much into it. Look at the full
list. How do you think all the other essential workers are going to get to and
from work?

~~~
jacknews
Well i don't think they are going to buy a new car for the purpose. Even if
they did, there are many already-manufactured waiting to be sold.

~~~
pmorici
I feel like you are confusing your personal opinion and preferences with what
the document says in writing.

~~~
jacknews
I think you are reading the document too broadly.

------
elwell
Suing the government for COVID closure only six days after tweeting "Minecraft
has amazing legs"

------
yalogin
Tesla compared to their competition is actually doing very well even during
the pandemic. So Musk would not be hurt even if its shut down. It’s
disappointing that a man of science, who understands data is throwing a fit
like this.

~~~
netsharc
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends
on his not understanding it."

― Upton Sinclair, a once failed candidate for the Governor of California

------
ProAm
Just move then, dont threaten, don't sue. Just make the change, its cheaper
and faster.

~~~
youeseh
It's cheaper to sue and win.

~~~
ProAm
Not with the government. If you win you now have soured relationships that
will last terms and terms.

