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Tesla ‘sabotage’ at Fremont Factory was due to a racial justice protest, claims report
Earlier this month, reports emerged that Tesla had terminated an employee at the Fremont Factory over what acting general counsel Al Prescott described as an act of “sabotage” that resulted in the facility’s operations being disrupted for a few hours. New details have now emerged suggesting that the disruption may have been caused by a racial justice protest over Breonna Taylor’s grand jury decision.
In his email to Tesla employees, Prescott stated that an employee at the Fremont Factory had attempted to “maliciously sabotage” a part of the facility. The acting general counsel did not provide many details about the incident, though he stated that the quick actions of Tesla’s IT and InfoSec teams helped prevent further damage to the facility. Prescott also shared that the employee in question was terminated over the incident.
News publication Protocol was recently able to retrieve an email from a Tesla engineer telling several colleagues that the disruption of the Fremont Factory was the result of a “peaceful direct action protest” following the grand jury decision to not charge any of the officers involved in the controversial killing of Breonna Taylor, a full-time ER technician who was fatally shot in her Louisville, Kentucky apartment on March 13, 2020, by plainclothes officers.
In his email, which was sent on September 30, the engineer noted that he wanted to offer a “brief explanation of my behavior that day and how my role at Tesla fits within the broader movement for racial, social, and economic justice.” He also asked his colleagues to forward his message to others in the factory “to whom you feel I owe an explanation.” The engineer shared some of his own experiences with police harassment in his email as well, stating that he has been pulled over, handcuffed, stopped and frisked, and even had guns drawn on him.
“I have done a substantial amount of work over the years to heal from those personal traumas. Unfortunately, the events of 2020 have punctured new wounds and old scars. But this is not about me, this is about a system that has little to no regard for Black and Brown bodies. This is about shutting down technocratic oppression in order to open up this nation’s bodily and spiritual wounds,” the engineer wrote.
While the engineer did not directly admit that he was behind the “sabotage” of the Fremont Factory’s operations, he did state in his message that such acts of “protest” usually happen as a way for people to express their pain and confusion.
“Direct action protests within the workplace often occur as a means of expressing the pain and confusion felt daily in the lives of oppressed people. As a Tesla employee, I often wonder where my role sits to advance the causes of Black and Brown liberation all while economically benefiting from the exploitation of historically marginalized Black and Brown labor on stolen Chochenyo Ohlone land,” the engineer added.
Ultimately, the engineer admitted that he does not know what will happen to him next, though he noted that he hoped that his actions would be “a catalyst for genuine change” within Tesla. He remarked that he understood that he was speaking “from a position of privilege” and that “those privileges can easily be stripped away.”
“To conclude, I have been asking myself: is Tesla a place where people who have experienced profound intergenerational trauma can work and thrive? I still don’t know the answer to that, but the next few days will acutely reveal that for me,” the engineer added.
A Tesla employee, who spoke with Protocol on the day of the incident, noted that the email’s author had been in a conference call with about a dozen engineers about the disruption. During the call, the email’s author reportedly informed that other engineers that he had resolved the issue, which led to another participant in the conference to joke if the outage was a prank. Just as noted by Tesla’s acting general counsel, the Fremont Factory was indeed returned to full working order within a few hours.
H/T Drive Tesla Canada.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk reiterates Tesla Optimus’ most sci-fi potential yet
Musk shared his comments in a series of posts on social media platform X.
Elon Musk recently reiterated one of the most ambitious forecasts for Tesla’s humanoid robot, Optimus, stating it could become the first real-world example of a Von Neumann machine. He also noted once more that Optimus would be Tesla’s biggest product.
Musk shared his comments in a series of posts on social media platform X.
Optimus as a von Neumann machine
In response to a post on X that pondered on sci-fi timelines becoming real, Musk wrote that “Optimus will be the first Von Neumann machine, capable of building civilization by itself on any viable planet.” In a separate post, Musk wrote that Optimus will be Tesla’s “biggest product ever,” a phrase he has used in the past to describe the humanoid robot’s importance to the electric vehicle maker.
A Von Neumann machine is a class of theoretical self-replicating systems originally proposed in the mid-20th century by the mathematician John von Neumann. In his concept, von Neumann described machines that could travel to other worlds, use local materials to create copies of themselves, and carry out large-scale tasks without outside intervention.
Elon Musk’s broader plans
Considering Musk’s comments, it appears that Optimus would eventually be capable of performing complex work autonomously in environments beyond Earth. If Optimus could achieve such a feat, it could very well unlock humanity’s capability to explore locations beyond Earth. The idea of space exploration becomes more than feasible.
Elon Musk has discussed space-based AI compute, large-scale robotic production, and the role of SpaceX’s Starship in transporting hardware and materials to other planets. While Musk did not detail how Optimus would fit with SpaceX’s exploration activities, his Von Neumann machine comments suggest he is looking at Tesla’s robotics as part of a potential interplanetary ecosystem.
News
Tesla China January wholesale sales rise 9% year-on-year
Tesla reported January wholesale sales of 69,129 China-made vehicles, as per data released by the China Passenger Car Association.
Tesla China reported January wholesale sales of 69,129 Giga Shanghai-made vehicles, as per data released by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). The figure includes both domestic sales and exports from Gigafactory Shanghai.
The total represented a 9.32% increase from January last year but a 28.86% decline from December’s 97,171 units.
China EV market trends
The CPCA estimated that China’s passenger new energy vehicle wholesale volume reached about 900,000 units in January, up 1% year-on-year but down 42% from December. Demand has been pressured by the start-of-year slow season, a 5% additional purchase tax cost, and uncertainty around the transition of vehicle trade-in subsidies, as noted in a report from CNEV Post.
Market leader BYD sold 210,051 NEVs in January, down 30.11% year-on-year and 50.04% month-on-month, as per data released on February 1. Tesla China’s year-over-year growth then is quite interesting, as the company’s vehicles seem to be selling very well despite headwinds in the market.
Tesla China’s strategies
To counter weaker seasonal demand, Tesla China launched a low-interest financing program on January 6, offering up to seven-year terms on select produced vehicles. The move marked the first time an automaker offered financing of that length in the Chinese market.
Several rivals, including Xiaomi, Li Auto, XPeng, and NIO, later introduced similar incentives. Tesla China then further increased promotions on January 26 by reinstating insurance subsidies for the Model 3 sedan. The CPCA is expected to release Tesla’s China retail sales and export breakdown later this month.
News
Tesla’s Apple CarPlay ambitions are not dead, they’re still in the works
For what it’s worth, as a Tesla owner, I don’t particularly see the need for CarPlay, as I have found the in-car system that the company has developed to be superior. However, many people are in love with CarPlay simply because, when it’s in a car that is capable, it is really great.
Tesla’s Apple CarPlay ambitions appeared to be dead in the water after a large amount of speculation late last year that the company would add the user interface seemed to cool down after several weeks of reports.
However, it appears that CarPlay might make its way to Tesla vehicles after all, as a recent report seems to indicate that it is still being worked on by software teams for the company.
The real question is whether it is truly needed or if it is just a want by so many owners that Tesla is listening and deciding to proceed with its development.
Back in November, Bloomberg reported that Tesla was in the process of testing Apple CarPlay within its vehicles, which was a major development considering the company had resisted adopting UIs outside of its own for many years.
Nearly one-third of car buyers considered the lack of CarPlay as a deal-breaker when buying their cars, a study from McKinsey & Co. outlined. This could be a driving decision in Tesla’s inability to abandon the development of CarPlay in its vehicles, especially as it lost a major advantage that appealed to consumers last year: the $7,500 EV tax credit.
Tesla owners propose interesting theory about Apple CarPlay and EV tax credit
Although we saw little to no movement on it since the November speculation, Tesla is now reportedly in the process of still developing the user interface. Mark Gurman, a Bloomberg writer with a weekly newsletter, stated that CarPlay is “still in the works” at Tesla and that more concrete information will be available “soon” regarding its development.
While Tesla already has a very capable and widely accepted user interface, CarPlay would still be an advantage, considering many people have used it in their vehicles for years. Just like smartphones, many people get comfortable with an operating system or style and are resistant to using a new one. This could be a big reason for Tesla attempting to get it in their own cars.
Tesla gets updated “Apple CarPlay” hack that can work on new models
For what it’s worth, as a Tesla owner, I don’t particularly see the need for CarPlay, as I have found the in-car system that the company has developed to be superior. However, many people are in love with CarPlay simply because, when it’s in a car that is capable, it is really great.
It holds one distinct advantage over Tesla’s UI in my opinion, and that’s the ability to read and respond to text messages, which is something that is available within a Tesla, but is not as user-friendly.
With that being said, I would still give CarPlay a shot in my Tesla. I didn’t particularly enjoy it in my Bronco Sport, but that was because Ford’s software was a bit laggy with it. If it were as smooth as Tesla’s UI, which I think it would be, it could be a really great addition to the vehicle.
Elon Musk reiterates Tesla Optimus’ most sci-fi potential yet
Tesla China January wholesale sales rise 9% year-on-year
