Go deeper - join us!
Being vindicated isn’t always a win. Sure, it’s nice to see someone that dealt you a bad hand get knocked down a peg or several, but it’s more of a tinfoil lining to your situation. Tesla’s recall of their Cybertruck in the face of stock falling might be that for their newly displaced ex-employees.
Initially, I only planned to cover how Tesla handled a 10% global layoff situation. Business Insider reports severance pay for cast off employees, including some senior executives, was lower than the mandated 60 days’ pay that comes with less than the same amount of notice.
“Some employees learned they’d been affected only after turning up for work on Monday. Some were told by security that if their ID badges didn’t work, they no longer had jobs,” said the coverage of the CEO’s apology to former employees missing their money, also noting:
“The mass layoffs come as Tesla faces a sharp slowdown in sales and rising competition from domestic manufacturers in China, its most important market outside the US.”
Put a pin in that part.
We can still take a lesson from this—that a public apology is no sin, and that getting people’s money right is not an option even though they don’t work for you any more. And some of the newly unemployed might take a little smirking solace in the ongoing issues with the trapazoidesque truck finally prompting a recall.
NPR’s coverage states:
“Tesla is recalling the new Cybertruck to fix a defective pedal pad that could cause accelerator pedals to get stuck in the depressed position, raising the risk of a crash.
That would leave the accelerator stuck in the “on” position — something that has happened at least twice. When a driver hits the brake pedal, the truck will stop even if the accelerator is depressed. No injuries or crashes have been reported.”
The culprit named was soap—as in, to fit the grippy portion of the pedal to the metal, soap was used to slide the pad on properly. It’s reported as unauthorized, but it’s not without precedent! Apparently, even Boeing uses soap industrially, and they’re doing…oh. Oh right.
I’m happy that no one’s been hurt or worse, but there are mistakes all over this—chiefly, making being be so driven towards production that people feel the need to “make do”.
The report to NHTSA describes the addition of soap as “unapproved”, meaning that no testing was done on the sudsy substitute’s suitability for the assembly line and final product. There’s nothing like a culture of ‘Get these out at all costs’ to make people on every level willing to risk customer safety. That attitudes as a whole didn’t start with Tesla, but no matter the size of the business, managers at every level need to be able to say that losses are acceptable in the face of extreme likelihood of catastrophic failure. Floor employees need to feel safe in running issues up the ladder and knowing that issues can be remedied before getting out of the gate.
We have to be able to do better. And frankly (here’s where the pin we put in comes back out), the repeated cringey coverage of the company is a big part of what’s prompting the drops in sales.
Cult of personality can only bring a business so far. The next time Tesla’s in the news it might not be for a schadenfreude-filled laugh at how you can’t drive the Cybertruck in the rain, or something laypersons would call a common sense issue (which by the way does not absolve manufacturers and other businesses from certain standards). It might be deadly in a way that can’t be excused by other circumstances.
Take your time in seeing how your business is running in that regard. Because once it gets up to the point of governing bodies the brakes will be pumped. Be smart and don’t skid yourself.
