Do you understand I actually worked in the plant? Did you google "Mother Muckraker"? There's a lot that went on when Toyota decided to close NUMMI and Tesla moving in. I have yet to go into the shady circumstances which Tesla got the NUMMI plant.
The video is marketing material which is used to hype up their product. It has nothing to do with truth. It's a sales pitch.
When that plant made Corollas and Tacomas, they used very similar robots which welded just as fast. The stamping machines are nothing new. The Corollas also used rolls of steel in the stamping line. There's nothing new. The rest of the Model S is put together by hand no different than any car electric or gas.
What they don't show you are the workers who have to install parts in the middle of the car where they have to bend over and over again which will eventually hurt their back. What they don't show you are the workers who are laid off once they get hurt on the job. Tesla lays them off because unlike NUMMI, the workers do not have a union contract.
What is new is the sales pitch. The sales pitch is delivered as if Musk was selling a piece of electronic gadgetry from Silicon Valley. All Musk needs with his sales pitch are true believers who will spread his sales pitch as Gospel and he's found plenty of marks who believe.
Off the top of my head, here are other lies from Musk used to pump up the stock price:
--Roof so strong, it broke testing machine - testing company is not mentioned nor type of test
--Adding .4 to the government rating of 5 stars for "5.4 star" "highest ever" rating.
--Promoting non-GAAP profits to cover their Q2 GAAP loss
--Releasing the paper napkin engineered Hyperloop as a red herring right after promoting non-GAAP profits.
--$500/month "lease" when the real numbers are around twice that.
Fact: #Tesla has only turned a profit once for Q1 2013. And the only reason they even turned a profit (once) was from sales of electric vehicle pollution credits from the government. Without those credits, Tesla would've posted a loss.
And no, electric cars are not the answer to lowering greenhouse gases. About half of the electricity in the U.S. comes from coal fired plants. You're just replacing one type of pollution with another. And now, Tesla is trying to sell their cars in China. China's electricity is 70% coal which will only add to their already deadly pollution levels.
The answer to lowering greenhouse gases is driving less and using public transportation, bicycling and walking. That will require a huge public works program to redesign our cities. Selling status symbols under green cover is not going to do it. What will work is a civic minded American public who is willing to pressure our government to take the radical action of a huge trillion dollar public works program.
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