„For comparison: Converted to the number of employees, this is three times as many emergencies – in a similar period of time – as occurred, for example, at the Audi factory in Ingolstadt.“
Of course each emergency is one too much, but I wonder what are the sample sizes? Are the counts statistically significantly different from each other? Another thing to consider: Emergencies are rare events and so a small difference in circumstances can make the outcomes vary substantially. Is a well oiled manufacturing pipeline like a Audi factory comparable to a new factory that has not rounded all sharp corners yet?
> Is a well oiled manufacturing pipeline like a Audi factory comparable to a new factory that has not rounded all sharp corners yet?
I wonder about this as well. It would make sense that a brand new factory that is rapidly growing would experience more safety issues. No idea if this is a reasonable increase though.
Well ... or the owner of the company operates on Zucks quote of "Move fast and break things". When break does not mean software or money, than this is no longer a fun quote.
I would expect fewer safety issues, since learnings from previous years can be taken into account during design, which isn't easy to do in existing factories.
Both effects could be in place at the same time, in which case you would expect a higher rate of workplace accidents initially, and a lower rate in the mid- to long-term.
Until either of us finds studies on this topic it's meaningless speculation, because I honestly can't imagine more accidents, even initially, if things are done as they should be.
3x as many emergencies per employee (not total, per employee) would be at least moderately alarming even if the numbers were 0.003 accidents per employee at Tesla and 0.001 accidents per employee at Audi.
I wouldn't get too hung up on statistical significance here. Whenever someone brings up statistical significance, I always like to ask: "significant with respect to what? by what standard?"
However it might be interesting to consider whether 3x is normal for all new production facilities. But that's a separate question.
Even though p-values can be hacked, they are very useful when they aren't. At p = 0.1 I'd ignore the finding because there would be a 10% chance it was explained by random chance. p = 0.01 would pique my interest. p < 0.001 I'd accept it as true, but I'd still watch out for systematic biases such as comparing new to old factories.
Right, if you're at the point of constructing some kind of principled estimate of variation in the data then I think you have a pass to at least talk about "significance". But in that case I'm sure you're aware that this requires a particular hypothesis test in mind, not just an abstract notion of "significance", and that p-values interpreted as "strength of evidence" are problematic.
Tesla don't need to invent safety standards they only need to implement them.
BTW you can't compare the first year of the Audi factory with the first year of Tesla because the Audi factory is much older and back then totally different safety standards existed.
> Tesla don't need to invent safety standards they only need to implement them.
Safety standards aren't some black and white thing where you can meet them by exactly following some rules set down in a rulebook.
If you know something is dangerous (or a reasonable man would have known), you can't do it, even if there isn't a specific rule against it. And often you learn things are dangerous through experience.
And often you learn things are dangerous through experience.
Yes, this is exactly the point people are making. Tesla has had the opportunity to learn from the experiences of other manufacturers and should be applying those lessons as they begin operations.
What's Audi's excuse? 1/3 of a large number is still a pretty big number, and they don't have the excuse of being in their first year of operation. If there are pitchforks out for Tesla there should also be pitchforks out for Audi.
Not necessarily a bad thing. There's often a strong negative correlation between incident rate and fatality rate, a pattern found across many industries (airline, oil and gas, manufacturing etc.)
For example, are more incidents reported by British Airlines or Aeroflot? Now, which would you rather fly on?
In this case, Tesla-Germany-to-Audi-Germany, it would be more like an Aeroflot-to-Orenburzhie comparison, or a BA-to-easyJet comparison, in that reporting rates for any important metric should be assumed to be close enough between them to be valid.
I get your point, but the article also states that
"documents from the rescue centers also documented that Tesla boss Elon Musk’s factory requested an ambulance or helicopter 247 times in the first year after opening alone."
So this is not simply about incidents in the sense of some hickup that is worthy of reporting, but incidents where probably people gut hurt.
Hence I'm not sure if the airline comparison really applies here.
247 per year isn't too surprising: assuming 5 day weeks, that's about one per day, and wikipedia says the site has 10k people, so that's better than my record of 5 hospital visits for medically significant reasons in the last 30 years.
(Tripped and fell onto the ashes of a fire aged 10, knocked unconscious by a trampoline aged 11, testicular torsion in 2005, hit by an inattentive driver at low speed in the late 00s, 20mm by 1mm by 1mm gouge along a finger from opening a tin of tomatoes during lockdown being the only one on this list where I went by tram instead of ambulance).
(Not that this means they're fine or there's no room for improvement; it's just that this feels like a rerun of the memes about Foxconn and suicide nets, as both completely lack a sense of scale for the workplace place and how much everywhere else also fails, and also as an attempt to demonise rather than to be the "rising tide" that is supposed to "lift all boats").
And now I reread that list, I realise I forgot the fire incident had my mum or her friend drive me to the hospital by car, so that's 3 ambulances in 30 years for 5 relevant hospital visits.
„For comparison: Converted to the number of employees, this is three times as many emergencies – in a similar period of time – as occurred, for example, at the Audi factory in Ingolstadt.“