Factory Robot Arm Malfunctions, Severely Injures Worker
Tesla and FANUC Named as Defendants, Previous Incidents Reported
An employee at a Tesla manufacturing plant has filed a damages lawsuit worth approximately $51 million (about 7 billion KRW) against Tesla and the robot manufacturer, claiming that a robot attacked him.
On the 22nd (local time), the British newspaper The Independent reported that Peter Hinterdobler, a 50-year-old Tesla robotics engineer, filed a damages lawsuit against Tesla after being injured by a robot at the Tesla manufacturing plant in Fremont, California.
According to court documents, Hinterdobler was disassembling the lower section of a robot that had been moved from the Model 3 production line with a fellow engineer. At that moment, the robot arm activated with great force and detached without any warning, and a counterweight weighing about 8,000 pounds (approximately 3,600 kg) also moved, throwing him to the ground. As a result of the accident, he lost consciousness and suffered serious injuries.
Medical expenses alone have already reached about $1 million (approximately 1.4 billion KRW), and it is estimated that at least an additional $6 million (about 8.3 billion KRW) will be required in the future. Hinterdobler is demanding a total of $51 million, including $20 million (about 2.78 billion KRW) for pain and suffering, $10 million (about 1.39 billion KRW) for emotional distress, and $8 million (about 1.11 billion KRW) for lost wages and future loss of income. His legal representatives added that the claim amount may be subject to change.
The lawsuit was initially filed in a California state court last month but has since been transferred to the federal court in Oakland. Both Tesla and the Japanese robot manufacturer FANUC have been named as defendants, and neither company responded to The Independent's request for comment.
Previous Robot-Related Incidents at Tesla and FANUC
This is not the first time an accident involving a robot has occurred at Tesla. In 2021, at the Giga Factory in Austin, Texas, an engineer was severely injured after being attacked by a robot. At the time, the robot pushed the engineer against a wall and stabbed his back and arm with metal pincers. The victim was only able to escape after a colleague pressed the robot's emergency stop button.
FANUC, the robot manufacturer and another defendant in this lawsuit, has also faced similar lawsuits in the past. A notable case occurred in 2015 at an auto parts factory in Michigan, where a maintenance engineer was unexpectedly trapped by a FANUC robot and died from a fractured skull.
Hinterdobler's side claims that Tesla only introduced new safety regulations regarding robots after the accident and refused to release video footage of the incident at the time. He is seeking both general and punitive damages, as well as attorney fees, through a jury trial.
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