On the early morning of December 28th, Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded to the incident of Tesla's Texas factory robots injuring people. He stated on the X platform, "It is shameful that the media (mainly referring to the Daily Mail) have uncovered the damage caused two years ago by a simple industrial Kuka robotic arm (found in all factories) and hinted that it is now caused by the humanoid robot Optimus Prime."
According to the Daily Mail of the UK, two years ago, a robot attacked a Tesla engineer in a workshop at Tesla's Austin factory, causing him to bleed uncontrollably. The factory is located near the capital of Texas, Austin, USA and is Tesla's largest factory, which is also key to achieving its goal of $25000 for low-priced electric vehicles.
This robot injury incident was disclosed in Tesla's 2021 work-related injury report submitted to Travis County and federal regulatory agencies. Tesla explained in the report that the victim's left hand was injured, but the injury was minor and did not require rest time.
In late November, the technology media The Information provided a detailed introduction to this incident, which has been extensively reported by multiple media outlets in the past two days.
The Information reported that two Tesla employees witnessed the process of robots attacking their colleagues. The design purpose of this robot is to process newly cast aluminum automotive parts. When the engineer was programming software for two nearby Tesla robots that had malfunctioned, another robot suddenly pushed the engineer to the ground, extended its metal claws towards the engineer's back and arms, and left an open wound on his left hand. After a worker pressed the emergency stop button, the victim was able to escape the control of the robot and then fell into the scrap metal tank, with bloodstains behind him.
This incident has raised concerns about robot safety issues from the outside world. According to Reuters statistics, the number of robots introduced by American employers reached a historic high last year.
In 2019, Wal Mart sent a robot army to more than 1500 large stores, equipped with thousands of automatic shelf scanners, unpacking machines, artificial intelligence cameras and other machines to replace or cooperate with workers to complete work. Since then, retail and technology employers have introduced a large number of robots in the workplace, attempting to achieve full automation of business in order to increase profits.
There are reports suggesting that the introduction of robots into Amazon warehouses has made the work of workers even more dangerous. Although these robots greatly improve the automation and efficiency of Amazon warehouses, higher automation level fulfillment centers will have a higher rate of work-related injuries. As early as 2018, a serious robot accident occurred at Amazon's large automated warehouse in New Jersey, USA, resulting in 24 employees being injured and taken to the hospital, and more than 50 employees being affected. The reason is that Amazon robot accidentally punctured a can of bear repelling spray.
Compared to retail giants, Musk sees fully automated workplaces as his dream. As early as 2017, Tesla began vigorously promoting automation reforms, hoping to establish automated factories centered around machines. According to The Information, workers in Tesla Austin and Fremont seem to be more vulnerable than those in other automobile factories. Austin, Texas, is Tesla's largest factory, and Fremont is Tesla's earliest factory.
However, Musk insisted at Tesla's 2023 shareholder meeting that Tesla is the best performing company in the industry in terms of factory safety, or rather the company with the lowest per capita injury rate.