Tesla Worker Knocked Unconscious by Robot, Lawsuit Claims

According to a civil complaint obtained by The Independent, engineer Peter Hinterdobler was helping a colleague remove a robot’s motor during a planned disassembly two years ago. But then, the “robot’s arm suddenly and without warning released with great force,” sending the 8,000-pound counterbalance weight into Hinterdobler. It's the second suit in as many months filed by people who worked a a notorious Tesla facility in California — and not the first time a Tesla employee has reported being seriously injured by a robot while on the job.

Reminder, [Elon is explicitly against industry standard safety precautions in Tesla factories.](https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-reportedly-head-butted-car-at-teslas-factory-2018-8) [SpaceX also leads the industry in worker deaths and injuries](https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/18/spacex-worker-injury-rates-at-starbase-outpace-industry-rivals/) In part because [Elon discourages the use of high visibility clothing because he doesn't like the way it looks](https://tech.yahoo.com/science/articles/elon-musk-told-spacex-workers-181406484.htm)

Damn, lucky goose. Enjoy your settlement money lol.

Always practice lock out, tag out kids.

Bet the stock goes up on the news.

The Air Force showed us some pretty gruesome slideshows and made a LOTO believer out of me.

Air Force? Ha, any railroad top that

Quite a few bisected folks. Some headless folks. A lot of damaged limbs. Some clips of people turning into pink mist. I’m sure other people have seen worse things, but that was enough for me to pay attention.

Standard practice at a Tesla facility...as in no safety standards.

They also hate providing respirators where they are necessary. Somehow a visor face shield with no connection to the head is viable for fine aluminum particulate LMAO.

They have their own in house version of OSHA and somehow people think that is ok.

Yea it's called...."oh your hurt...yea you never worked here and we never heard of you".

Sounds like he f'd up to me. Honestly I'd be embarrassed if I did that rather than sue. What grounds? Give me several million dollars as the company didn't stop me from being stupid?

Unfortunately even if locked out in this case the guy and his co-worker f'd up in a basic way. The motor also has the brake holding the arm and once they disconnected the motor gravity took over. Gee it's a shame the training explains this as does the manual. I guess being willfully incompetent is worth millions of dollars in compensation. I can see why they won't settle he doesn't have much of a case.

Incredible to me that people still want to work for him despite this and all the nazi shit

A key part of LOTO is knowing all energy storage media in the system, and knowing that they’re de-energized. I’m not attempting to assign blame in this case, but it certainly looks like there were failures on multiple levels.

It’s actually called EHS and they say “it’s fine we said so. So trust me bro”

Stop and turn off all energy sources including all potential sources. Stamping machine maintenance without proper safety blocking used. Stamping machine was stopped in the top position with no blocks. Eventually slipped down and squish! Worker was cut in half.

“Do no harm, my ass.” - AI robots

Bullish

elon isn’t gonna fuck you

Found Musks account

Ah, so Elon likes the “high visibility” in high visibility clothing to work just as well as the “full self driving” in Full Self Driving. It’s all making sense now! /s

It's really not as simple as "wanting" to work for him, at least in NV. Cost of living in northern NV has skyrocketed so much in the last 10 years. Nobody wants to work a monotonous job on a production line for 12 hours a day, but you can easily get a job there with no experience at double the states' minimum wage with benefits.

Those workers are going to be breathlessly ill in a decade

Safe conditions for workers wasn't a lie, it was an "aspirational goal".

Why do they need those. I thought Optimus is totally building Tesla and solving all the world's problems...

Praise Musk🤪

Elmo, is that you?

While LOTO seems like a no brainer to most people exposed to it. If Tesla isn't providing that training they wouldn't know any better.

Yep. Not just training, but monitoring for compliance as well. Which is why any employer has to make sure their ass is covered when anything goes wrong.

> the company didn't stop me from being stupid Yes! The reason you *have* safety procedures is that eventually someone will make a bone-headed mistake. Now there's a gradient of blame assignment between "Victorian orphan crushed by power loom" and "Forklift-jousting while drunk on a Saturday", but that's for the courts and safety inspectors to determine.

Worse you found person who actually trained to repair those robots.

At the same time cutting the brakes on your car and being shocked it doesn't stop when you hit the brake pedal. This guy is literally suing because he removed the brake and was supposedly surprised that it didn't hold. Not that he should get nothing, several million is expensive for "just because" I'd even be ok with him getting several million under the condition that he is required to spend the rest of his days as a spokesman for lock out tag out as well as why follow ing safety and manufacturing instructions is critical.

Sure, because illiterates are trained in robotics.

So why didn't you know removing the motor and brake assembly? You seem surprised yet I am supposed to bow down before your genius. One always knows when they have won ana argument when the opponent cannot defend their position instead is reduced to insults or nitpicking gramor or punctuation. Why just admit your talking though your @$$ or maybe your like Elon, got to be "right" otherwise you have to shut down any meaningful conversation. Maybe you should bring some meaningful insights into the subject and let your superior intellect impress me.

Coupled up, dragged for a mile, lost his arm because “diesel locomotives” are diesel-electric and 660 volts isn’t enough to kill you if it goes hand to shoulder. Yeah, we could probably trade horror storys. Now the guy on the carrier who stood up after getting farted out a jet engine, that’s nuts.

you really hate your fellow human eh?

Lol, yeah sure. Whenever a company does work at the company at which I work I MUST hand them out papers and receive confirmation that they have acknowledged OUR safety guidelines. Because if I do not and their technicians, as example for doors, cooling, AC or whatever else we do not do ourselves, get hurt they are not legally fucked. We are. Because, despite the fact they should know we must ensure they do. And that is common practice.

Non-Union shop, and no equivalent safeguards/training. Sad.

And that is why it's Elon's fault that the worker removed the brake holding the robot arm up? Sorry to knock down your strawman argument but that is irrelevant might as well blame Elon for Joe Biden's unwillingness to cancel student loan debit.

Ultimately it's a failure in safety culture. They weren't following proper procedures for servicing the robot arm. Given how it's extremely not an isolated incident it's relevant. If Tesla had about the same record of safety as other car makers and this accident happened I would say it wasn't the CEO's fault but there is an extremely clear pattern and a long history of evidence where that pattern is coming from.