Elon Musk has repeatedly shown that he isn’t hesitant to experiment with ground-breaking technologies via his ventures like Space X and Tesla. He has been using robots to assemble his cars at his manufacturing plants.
Recently, an assembly robot was claimed to have gone berserk in what sounded like a low-budget sci-fi movie.
.
The episode happened in Tesla’s Giga Texas plant.
The machine was meant to grasp and transfer newly cast aluminum automobile components. Instead, it grabbed a coworker while two onlookers gasped in terror.
A ‘trail of blood’ ran over the surface of the facility as the robot trapped the guy, who was updating software for two adjacent malfunctioning Tesla robots. The robot buried its metal claws into the worker’s back and arm.
A 2021 injury report submitted to Travis County and federal officials showed the event left the sufferer with an “open wound” on his left hand.
The incident occurred when worries about the dangers of autonomous robots in the workplace have been at an all-time high, even though Tesla did not record any additional robot-related injuries to authorities at their Texas plant in 2021 or 2022.
Although not extensively detailed, Tesla’s 2021 Annual Compliance Report for the facility does include the assault.
According to the account, the engineer was able to free himself and then plummeted down a chute used for collecting scrap metal, leaving a trail of blood behind him. An open cut and a laceration were seen on his left hand. According to the article, he avoided taking time off from work.
The assembly robot, programmed to retrieve and transport aluminum automobile components, was never taught to snatch people.
According to Tesla, the engineer needed “zero” days off work to heal from the wounds sustained on his left hand.
However, the two eyewitnesses who were present at the incident shared a terrifying account, saying an emergency “stop” button had to be pushed as the injured Tesla engineer struggled to get free.
According to filing data on injuries that resulted in lost time or job changes, approximately one out of every twenty-six workers at Tesla’s Texas plant had a severe injury on the job in 2022.
One in every thirty-eight workers had such an injury at another significant US car manufacturing facility.