ajpreports

Hi there. Great question. It was difficult to find employees to go on the record. Like a lot of tech companies in Silicon Valley, workers signed non-disclosure agreements. NDAs usually are put in place so workers don't share any trade secrets or proprietary technology. So some workers were scared to talk to us because of this NDA they sign for working at Tesla. But we were just asking about their experiences at the factory. Once we were able to talk to some people, then others started to talk to us. So word of mouth was helpful and public records---always public records.

Thank you! Will and I made sure our reporting was solid, meaning fact-checked, before we presented Tesla with what we found. We knew what we had was valid so when the company pushed back we stood our ground. So if the reporting is sound, then everything should be okay.

Hey! Will has been reporting at Reveal, on and off for the past 13 years. He's been covering labor and workplace issues. Uber and Tesla are just one of the many companies he's covered. And I've been reporting on Tesla's workplace issues since last year at KQED. I also was on the Silicon Valley desk for a bit at KQED.

Hi there. I had been looking into Tesla since last year when a factory worker, Jose Moran, published a blog post about poor factory conditions. So I started doing small little stories at KQED about Tesla and what the workers had been facing. But so many people I talked t say so many of the same things: the factory was chaotic, injuries were happening all the time, etc. So I got my hands on some public records (Cal/OSHA violations against Tesla) and took it to Reveal. Will Evans jumped in and it spun off from there!

Thanks for your questions! Yes auto-pilot issues came up. In the opening of our audio story, Will took a ride in a brand new model 3. He interviewed the owner of the car who mentioned that the car had almost crashed into another car, hit a guardrail and ran off the road while in auto-pilot mode. But for this story, we focused on worker safety conditions. But we are always up for more reporting!