Tesla faces investigation of safety procedures after workplace injury

The New York Times has reported that Tesla is under investigation by California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health for a workplace injury which left a factory worker hospitalized with a broken jaw. The 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 Tesla’s supervision.

“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 week, a report from the Center for Investigative Reporting issued a report detailing a number of injuries which it claims occurred at Tesla’s factor. 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 found in the story. The company says that the Center for Investigative Reporting incorrectly counted some injuries which occurred off-site and had relied on inaccurate information.

However, Elon Musk has admitted that Tesla is currently working out issues in its production process. Musk said that 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

The Division of Occupation Health and Safety has acknowledged that an investigation is underway. However, it refused to comment any further on the matter until the investigation has been concluded.

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