Former Tesla employee claims he is a whistleblower

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-whistleblower-20180621-story.html

by greedo • 8 years ago

56 64 8 years ago

latimes.com

0xbxd• 8 years ago

LA Times is not available in Europe. Does anyone know a way of how to access the article?

edit:// Seems to be available in Google Cache at ( http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6Zh46Sr... ).

As suspected, more of a press release than anything else. Just because the name "Tesla" is in it this gets upvoted?

edit2:// This is the original article which has much more detail and is overall better:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/06/20...

erikb2• 8 years ago

Just in case non-European people wonder, here's what we get presented with instead of the article:

Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.

tomp2• 8 years ago

What a shitshow. They could just disable cookies instead, or display text-only versions of the articles instead of this passive-agressive behaviour.

Grangar• 8 years ago

Prefix the URL with outline.com/ ;)

whatyoucantsay4• 8 years ago

Talk to your representatives and let them know the pain the vague and overreaching GDPR causes you. Perhaps, in time, law makers will undo some of the harm they've caused.

Until then, invest in a VPN that lets you appear to be from elsewhere.

zzzeek2• 8 years ago

Why not talk to the LA Times and encourage them to be GPDR compliant? For everyone, not just EU citizens.

zzzeek2• 8 years ago

Musk sounds like an unhinged conspiracy theorist and everything I hear about this company leads me to continue to wish for traditional automakers to take over the great innovations he's pushed forward with mass produced, fully electric and highly automated cars, and bring it up to scale in a safe and reasonable way.

jstanley• 8 years ago

I'd like to see someone selling a fully electric car that isn't highly automated.

I don't want cruise control, lane following, stability control, automatic braking, automatic collision avoidance, anti-lock brakes, etc.

I just want a brake pedal connected directly to the brakes, and a throttle pedal connected directly to an ESC, and a motor connected directly to the wheels.

I don't want a computer controlling everything from behind the scenes, and I certainly don't want it "cloud-connected" or otherwise reporting to the mothership.

Is that too much to ask? It should be much cheaper and easier to make than other electric cars, but nobody is doing it.

amarant• 8 years ago

Yes, it's too much to ask. I'd like to be able to walk on the streets where I live without having to worry about you hitting me with your car because your phone rang. more automation is clearly the way to go, although I'll grant that tesla hasnt exactly done a great job of it. waymo seems to be on to something though :)

karthikb• 8 years ago

Base model Leaf or Electric Smart? You’ll still get cruise control (you don’t need to use it), ABS (proven to save lives, but you can of course pump the brakes if you wish) etc.

adrinavarro• 8 years ago

You don't want ABS? How about no airbag either? And doing away with safety belts as well?

The bulk of the cost of producing an electric car comes from battery packs, and cost is also increased because the reduced production numbers cannot achieve higher costs saving from mass production. But all of that is changing every day towards cheaper electric cars.

Pretty much all you mention is actually cheap to include, because it's shared with traditional vehicles, so it's not a major driver in car cost. Actually: if you're going to make a car expensive, then throw in some stuff that people with money (who will actually buy the vehicle) will appreciate.

But you can also get a Smart Fortwo EV, a Bolloré Bluecar, a Mitsubishi i-MIEV… Which are rather basic vehicles and they're electric. The Chevy Bolt is a pretty good middle ground too, if you're in the U.S.

Have you actually looked into the EV market beyond Tesla, with an actual intention of acquiring a vehicle, or are you just thinking out loud?

Someone12343• 8 years ago

You're more or less describing a golf cart.

The reason computer controlled is used is because in order for electric vehicles to be efficient they need a special transmission, nobody has designed a fully mechanical transmission that compares to computer controlled (not least of all because mechanical transmissions are reactive, not proactive, meaning you're always less efficient than you could be, because that very inefficiency is what drives the transmission to shift).

You'd also lose regenerative braking which is a major "win" for electric vehicles.

walshemj• 8 years ago

Sounds like car that will kill the average driver quicker that an old school 911.

hwillis• 8 years ago

Skipping ABS and ESC is a mistake. They're essentially standard, save thousands of lives per year, and ESC is already mandatory in the EU.

Having an efficient electric motor requires a computer controlling it. A standard ESC (VSI topology) is an indirect command on its own and the power depends on transient conditions. The controller doesn't know much about the motor and doesn't account for nonlinearities that cause loss under acceleration. The driving experience is the same as a subway train.

To run a motor at maximum efficiency under all load conditions you need a computer in the loop, running vector/field-oriented/direct-torque control or something similar. It's not an insignificant loss otherwise, particularly with induction motors. It's also a flat-out requirement for some of the best motors- the EV industry is moving towards permanent magnet assisted reluctance motors, which are ~10% efficient without computer control.

jacknews• 8 years ago

I think "narcissist" is the more appropriate term.

He's personally promised 5k model 3s a month (on behalf of everyone working at Tesla, but let's face it I'm sure in his mind he is Tesla), he's personally now living at the factory in order to "ensure it happens". And so if they can't actually deliver, it's on him.

Therefore, start blaming saboteurs, dark forces of established rivals, and so on, because his out-sized ego can't possibly suffer a deflationary embarrassment like not achieving this rashly promised target.

tigershark• 8 years ago

the goal is 5k per week by the end of June, not 5k per month. Tesla is already well over the 5k per month.

IBM• 8 years ago

You don't have to wish for it, that's what's happening.

rich-w-big-ego• 8 years ago

  Martin Tripp ... spoke out after seeing "some really scary things" ... including dangerously punctured batteries installed in cars

Yeah, right. How, exactly, does a batter get "dangerously punctured" at any point in the manufacturing process?

pjc50• 8 years ago

Mishandling? Jamming it in something? Dropping a screwdriver on it?

ainiriand• 8 years ago

Yes, that can happen, but it wont pass the controls.

Fricken4• 8 years ago

In February, a misprogrammed robot that handles battery modules repeatedly punctured through the plastic housing (called a clamshell) and into some battery cells, the employee said, adding that instead of scrapping all the modules, some were fixed with adhesive and put back on the manufacturing line. According to internal documents Business Insider reviewed, this foible affected more than 1,000 pieces.

http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-model-3-scrap-waste-hig...

ebikelaw2• 8 years ago

You can kinda make that sound bad, and it might have been bad, but reworking pieces is standard practice in many industries. "Fixed with adhesive" sounds like a hack but there are many wonderful adhesives.

brogrammernot• 8 years ago

Have you seen or spent time inside a modern factory?

There’s often a handful of units per line that end up being bad, even great manufacturers deal with less than 100% yield from their processses.

mchannon• 8 years ago

Someone has obviously never used a forklift.

greedo• 8 years ago

Screws fall out all the time; the world's an imperfect place.

JakeWesorick• 8 years ago

Were his actions in line with being a whistleblower? Was what he release evidence of the punctured batteries? I thought he was making direct code changes to the Tesla Manufacturing Operating System.

Someone12343• 8 years ago

That's what Tesla claimed. Tesla also said he was leaking multi-gigabytes of information to "sources unknown," and implied it was the oil/gas/competitors. Turns out it was Business Insider and other news media.

cjhopman2• 8 years ago

Turns out it was Business Insider and other news media.

And that they knew that when making the "sources unknown" claim.

danso• 8 years ago

Musk's email of the allegations didn't go into specifics:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/18/elon-musk-email-employee-con...

I was dismayed to learn this weekend about a Tesla employee who had conducted quite extensive and damaging sabotage to our operations. This included making direct code changes to the Tesla Manufacturing Operating System under false usernames and exporting large amounts of highly sensitive Tesla data to unknown third parties.

For all we know, these code changes to the Tesla system could have been the code needed to exfiltrate the data and info that he allegedly leaked to media as a whistleblower.

frgtpsswrdlame• 8 years ago

I think I'm just gonna sit back on this story. Tesla has proved itself to be untrustworthy repeatedly but Mr. Tripp seems like he's doing whatever it takes to avoid going to prison. The truth is the first casualty here.

jsmthrowaway• 8 years ago

One does not end up in prison from a lawsuit. Tesla cited the criminal codes in question to try to make that happen, but only the government can bring criminal cases, and criminal cases aren’t brought on unproven allegations in a civil lawsuit. If they were serious about putting him in prison, Tesla would have discussed referrals to law enforcement in their communications and we’d likely be hearing from district attorneys by now, given the attention on the case.

Martin Tripp ending up in prison is extraordinarily unlikely, even if Tesla is 100% correct. That you even considered the possibility means that Tesla’s strategy of sprinkling the word “illegal” throughout the complaint to paint a criminal picture worked.

drivingmenuts• 8 years ago

I think it's more likely that Musk wants to know who received the information and will plan accordingly from there. Additionally, it will scare others to keep them from releasing information.

gcb03• 8 years ago

tesla is going to crash and burn all because musk is more worried about his ego above quality, employees, and even consumers.

he could use a vacation or something.

Fricken4• 8 years ago

Musk has hired a former Enron prosecuter to help him crush this little man:

https://www.law.com/therecorder/2018/06/20/tesla-brings-on-f...

erikb2• 8 years ago

The funny thing is that Musk is literally destroying his public image with this. I mean, who will believe his nice nerd image if he's standing with blood stained face laughing about the crippled dead body of this ex employee of his. Not many better ways of public image suicide out there.

telchar• 8 years ago

Oh come off it. If he's indeed a saboteur he will garner very little pity from losing a lawsuit. Since when do we support people who allegedly use industrial sabotage against the very companies pushing the boundaries of reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions? Your overblown imagery is ridiculous.

gcb03• 8 years ago

history time for ppl who think this is rare:

VW plant, making their top of the line model. solder arm robots have two air input hoses. one wide, high pressure and slow response that is the "power". another nibler but fast response that is the actuator and only moves a small part that open/close the power valve.

the hoses were switched in one chassis line robot. causing the strong power line to simply hold the actuator always open. the small line was going to the " power" input, effectively controlling the soldering arm movement with the low power normally used only for the control valve.

it did solder the chassis. was it up to spec? hardly. did all the chasis went down the line without more than a visual inspection? yep.

lovich• 8 years ago

Were the two hoses keyed so that they couldn't be switched? If not, that could be sabotage but it could just as easily be human error.

If you are relying on humans catching every mistake you are going to have mistakes happen. You need to make it so that it requires active effort to fuck up if you want avoid issues

gcb03• 8 years ago

from what I recall in the history (heard from the husband of a college friend, he was the person that fixed the thing) the person who did the mixup went to a lot of trouble to fit the hoses in the wrong way.

shashanoid• 8 years ago

So, Tesla brought on a white collar defense specialist (some say the best in the country) to file charges against a whistleblower - excuse me - a disgruntled employee?

I am beginning to think Feds are onto it. Tesla isn't fighting this blue collar worker, they expect a fight with the Feds and SEC.

univalent• 8 years ago

What a mess. Even if Musk decided to go the route of suing this person why did he publicize it himself? What is to be gained for him in the court of public opinion?

koreyb• 8 years ago

Same as Apple; as a warning to other employees.

thisisit• 8 years ago

I really looking forward to the actual trial and evidence provided by Tesla. This can actually make or break Musk and maybe Tesla's image. They have insinuated in the mail that this might be an act of sabotage by oil/gas companies and/or short sellers. If Musk/Tesla can't prove those allegations they will be labelled as someone who cries wolf at the first sign of trouble.

Former Tesla employee claims he is a whistleblower

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