Tesla faces third safety investigation from state agency in California

By Eric Brackett Updated July 16, 2018

Tesla is currently under multiple investigations by California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health for workplace-related injuries. The first involved an accident which left a factory worker hospitalized with a broken jaw. This accident occurred on April 9 and was first reported by Bloomberg.

Tesla has since issued a statement saying that the injured worker was a contractor who was not under the company’s supervision.

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“This injury involved a worker who had been hired by an independent contractor and was performing a procedure that had been developed by and was under the supervision of that contractor,” Tesla said. “This contractor was also responsible for reporting the injury, which they did.”

Earlier this year, the Center for Investigative Reporting detailed a number of injuries it claims occurred at Tesla’s factory. The injuries include back pain, stress-related injuries, and severe headaches, which one worker claimed were caused by fumes from an adhesive. The report also says that Tesla’s 2016 injuries exceeded the industry average and that it failed to report certain injuries as required by state law.

Following the report, Tesla released a blog post disputing some of the claims in the story. The company says the Center for Investigative Reporting incorrectly counted some injuries which occurred off-site and had relied on inaccurate information.

However, in July, it was revealed that there were actually three active investigations into safety-related issues at Tesla. California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health has recently opened an investigation after receiving a complaint from one of the company’s workers at the firm’s Freemont-based factory. A spokesperson for the state’s industrial relations board told Jalopnik that the investigations were ongoing, but could not provide any additional details at this time.

Tesla has not commented on this most recent investigation but Elon Musk has admitted that Tesla is currently working out issues in its production process. Musk said the work had kept him sleeping at the factory on some days.

About a year ago, I asked Doug to manage both engineering & production. He agreed that Tesla needed eng & prod better aligned, so we don’t design cars that are crazy hard to build. Right now, tho, better to divide & conquer, so I’m back to sleeping at factory. Car biz is hell …

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2018

In addition to these safety investigations, a federal agency is currently investigating Tesla for a Model X crash, which occurred while the car was in auto-pilot.

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