well what's happening inside the
taxpayer-funded Tesla factory in South
Buffalo is the operation still a ray of
sunshine in the wake of recent layoffs
and a lackluster demand for solar panels
and tonight two former Tesla workers say
there's trouble in River City or in this
case
Tesla's case Riverbend the news 4
investigates team and Luke Moretti take
a closer look unacceptable for the
inefficiencies and glaring deficiencies
that I saw Dale wither all and Dennis
Scott are painting a grim picture of
Tesla's Giga Factory - in South Buffalo
they say production is at times torpid
and that there is a lack of supervision
and a lot of downtime for workers we had
people who literally would do about five
minutes work right to the phone five
minutes of work right to the phone five
minutes of work right to the phone good
question both men are out of a job there
are among 50 Tesla employees at the
Riverbend site recently laid off and a
global cost-cutting move there is an
emergency there in Buffalo there's a lot
at stake here for taxpayers 750 million
dollars in state subsidies used to build
out the factory and equip the operation
this is the centerpiece of Governor
Cuomo's Buffalo billion economic program
so what does the future hold for Tesla
and this enormous building Dale whither
all says based on his time with the
company the solar panel operation lacked
management supervision and a sense of
urgency basically they don't even
provide any resources to run the
operations it starts at the upper level
and there really isn't anything down
from that upper level to the floor
Tesla disputes that telling News 4
that's untrue and that the opinion of a
handful of people out of hundreds
doesn't reflect the fact that there's
leadership on every shift daily shifts
start up meetings and regular roundtable
discussions with associates but wait
there's another issue there is no 800
employees there then
Scott questions the employment numbers
put out by Tesla the company reported
gigafactory to had about 800 employees
on site at the end of 2018
about half panasonic and half Tesla but
these former workers dispute that Tesla
actually employs around 400 people if
you took all of our chefs and I think
Dale and me could agree at least on this
there's about 50 people maybe it does 60
people per shift there's four shifts you
do that math that means there's got to
be 200 are you going to tell me there's
200 people up in the front office but
Tesla maintains that employment numbers
reported to the state for 2019 will be
about 800 total on-site that number is
important because the state can impose
stiff penalties if the company fails to
meet employment goals like having 1400
plus employees by April 2020 if that's
going to happen the electric vehicle
maker will need to step on the pedal
when it comes to solar panelproduction I
was told the production goals for solar
modules with 40 homes a week at the end
of 2018 and 200 at the end of 2019 for
four homes for solar modules and the
best in my tenure there during my
employment that I saw four solar modules
was probably four homes a week
Tesla won't comment on the production
rate but does say the initial numbers
will be low before drastically ramping
up to match customer demand according to
the company there were periods of time
when new equipment needs to be installed
and the line cannot be active both Dale
and Dennis say even though their
employment was short-lived they were
thrilled to be part of the Tesla mission
in Buffalo I gave up a good job they
come work for that because I look at
that this is a good this is a great
option here and now they're treating us
like we're redheaded strip the stepchild
both men say they saw red flags inside
the sprawling complex from the beginning
and they're convinced a turnaround at
gigafactory 2 will likely be a
tough perhaps impossible climb for the
company and we're gonna have some
problems and we're building the plane as
we're trying to fly it and that was
their model for everything now a Tesla
spokesperson says the company has been
upfront about the operations and project
impact in Buffalo and that the solar
roof product needs to last decades and
has a long development cycle now both
workers we interviewed for the story
claim the Buffalo factory is getting a
new product line that could help the
company sustain itself
Tesla by the way had no comment on that
claim Luke Moretti News 4