Tesla 'Violated' Workplace Safety Before Worker Death

Good morning! It's Thursday, February 20, 2025, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. This is where you'll find the most important stories that are shaping the way Americans drive and get around.

In this morning's roundup, find out how Tesla was found to be at fault for a worker's death at its factory in Texas and see which struggling EV maker finally bit the dust this week. We also dig into a rift that's appearing between Elon Musk and Donald Trump over car sales in India, of all places, and check in with Carvana.

Things have been going from bad to worse for Tesla in recent months, with sales dropping for the first time in a decade at the end of 2024, and buyers turning their backs on the brand as company boss Elon Musks lets his extremist ideas shine brightly. Now, the American automaker has been cited following an investigation into the death of a worker at its Texas plant.

A Tesla worker was killed at the Austin Gigafactory last summer and an investigation into the causes of the death was immediately launched by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The investigation has now cited Tesla for "violating workplace safety rules," reports Automotive News:

The U.S. Department of Labor confirmed the findings in a statement to Reuters.

"The investigation is closed and citations have been issued," said the department, which oversees the agency that conducted the Tesla probe, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The Labor Department said the matter was concluded in late January. The department declined to disclose the nature of Tesla's workplace-safety failures or whether any penalties were imposed.

Victor Gomez Sr was working as an electrical contractor at the Tesla Plant in Texas when he was killed on August 1. A wrongful death lawsuit was filed by Gomez's family following the incident.

The lawsuit alleges that a panel Gomez was working on should have been inactive but wasn't, adds Automotive News. The suit accuses Tesla of "negligence" that it says resulted in Gomez's electrocution, the site adds:

On Feb. 19, U.S. Representative Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat whose congressional district includes the Tesla plant, sent a letter to the Labor Department urging that OSHA immediately release the full results of its investigation of Gomez's death. The letter said that a refusal to release public records on Tesla's workplace safety failures could raise questions about whether the agency is giving Musk preferential treatment.

"Americans have a right to know whether Tesla and its contractors put a man's life at risk, and whether Tesla will follow workplace safety rules going forward," the letter read.

The Texas plant was also cited and fined about $7,000 on two further occasions last year. The Austin Gigafactory was caught out for two other workplace safety violations, which both involved breaking rules that are in place to protect workers from chemical hazards.

It's tough being an electric vehicle startup right now: you've got to plow millions of dollars into development, hope that consumers actually want to buy your products and then figure out a way to make money on them. Because of these challenges, a lot of fledgling automakers die before they've even had a chance at success, and now Nikola is the latest EV startup to fold.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that Nikola died long ago, after all its founder did end up in jail. But the electric truck maker plowed on, until this week when it filed for bankruptcy, reports the Verge. The automaker announced yesterday that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and would sell off all its remaining assets:

Nikola said it would seek an auction and sale process, pending court approval. The company said it had $47 million in cash on hand to fund its bankruptcy proceedings, implement the sale process, and exit Chapter 11. Nikola listed assets of between $500 million and $1 billion, and estimated its liabilities were between $1 billion and $10 billion, Reuters said citing a court filing.

"Like other companies in the electric vehicle industry, we have faced various market and macroeconomic factors that have impacted our ability to operate," Steve Girsky, President and CEO of Nikola, said in a statement. "In recent months, we have taken numerous actions to raise capital, reduce our liabilities, clean up our balance sheet and preserve cash to sustain our operations. Unfortunately, our very best efforts have not been enough to overcome these significant challenges, and the Board has determined that Chapter 11 represents the best possible path forward under the circumstances for the Company and its stakeholders."

Nikola initially burst onto the scene promising hydrogen fuel cell trucks that would revolutionize the trucking industry. It then pivoted to battery powered and pledged to go up against Tesla, before the troubles started.

In its short history, the automaker fielded allegations of fraud, including claims that it showed its trucks rolling down hill instead of moving under their own power. The allegations led to the departure of founder Trevor Milton and his eventual arrest.

Without Milton, the automaker did actually start shipping trucks and began ramping up production of its vehicles just last year. The brand was losing hundreds of thousands of dollars on every truck sold, however, and its demise felt inevitable.

The horrific bromance between "Home Alone 2" actor Donald Trump and "Big Bang Theory" star Elon Musk started after Musk plow millions into Trump's campaign for the White House. Trump rewarded Musk with a made up department for the Tesla boss to play around with America's cash. The couple faced their first bump on the road, though, after it emerged that Musk is considering building a Tesla plant in India.

Tesla has been promising cars in India for years, but its been stuck with a 100 percent tariff on every model it imports into the country. New rules on importing EVs into India now state that a car will be subject to only a 15 percent tariff if the automaker invests heavily in the country, reports Reuters.

Because Musk is a man who only really cares about making money, he's obviously jumped at the opportunity and even gone so far as to begin scouting out dealer locations in India. The move irked his partner in crime, as Trump says it would be unfair for Musk to build his cars in India rather than sell models assembled here in America, as Reuters explains:

"Every country in the world takes advantage of us, and they do it with tariffs... It is impossible to sell a car, practically, in, as an example, India," he said.

India's government in March unveiled a new EV policy lowering import taxes substantially to 15 percent if a carmaker invests at least $500 million and sets up a factory.

Trump said it would be "unfair" to the U.S. if Musk did decide to build a factory there.

"Now, if he built the factory in India, that's okay, but that's unfair to us. It's very unfair," Trump said in the interview.

A move like this would surely play into Trump's belief that the American auto industry is at a deficit to the rest of the world's car makers. It's this attitude that led him to propose a 25 percent tax on foreign cars brought to the U.S., and I can only assume that this new development means he'll now want to tax Indian cars 100 percent should they be sold in America... provided that ever happens.

If there's a company that's had a rougher time of it recently than most EV startups, then it's Carvana. The online car retailer had an awful record of sales, faced allegations of poor customer service and was even banned from selling cars in some states. Because of this, it toed the brink of bankruptcy for a few years, before finally turning around its act.

Now, Carvana is well on the way to recovery and saw profits hit $159 million at the end of 2024 following a 50 percent increase in sales, reports Automotive News. The results for the company's final three months of 2024 were in stark contrast to a year previously, after Carvana lost $200 million in Q4 of 2023:

Revenue surged 46 percent to $3.5 billion, the company said in a Feb. 19 statement.

Carvana, of Tempe, Ariz., said it sold 114,379 used vehicles in the three months ended Dec. 31, up 50 percent from the same time a year ago. Fourth-quarter vehicle sales also rose 5.3 percent from 108,651 sold in the third quarter of 2024.

Shares of Carvana fell as much as 12 percent in immediate after-hours trading Feb. 19, as Wall Street absorbed some quarter-over-quarter softening in the retailer's per-vehicle profit margins. Shares traded down 6.5 percent to $263 at 6:10 p.m.

The company made an average profit of $3,226 on each vehicle it sold in Q4, which was up 15 percent compared to a year prior. The average profit per car was slightly down on Q3 of 2024, but that didn't stop company bosses from lauding that Carvana was now "the most profitable public automotive retailer in U.S. history."

Oh how far you've come, Carvana.

No, it's the first American to orbit above the Earth, silly!

That's right, today marks 63 years since NASA sent an astronaut to orbit above the surface for the first time, according to History.com. The astronaut in question was John Glenn, who was one of seven men selected in the early days of NASA to become America's first astronauts.

He flew into the cosmos aboard the Friendship 7 spacecraft and was the third American to fly into space. His mission took him higher and faster than previous flights, which meant that he entered into an orbit around Earth at a speed of about 17,500 miles per hour.

Glenn completed three complete orbits of Earth, before smashing back through the planet's atmosphere and splashed back safely in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. You can read more about Glenn's mission right here.