Tesla's factory in Germany has had a a lot of problems this year. It has only been about four months since climate protesters attacked the factory and in March the factory had to be shuttered for a week because an arsonist took out the power grid.

Now the same factory is in the news for a new problem. The number of employees taking sick leave is about triple the industry average. In an attempt to deal with this, the factory has been offering bonuses for those who show up 95% of the time.

The carmaker has provided bonuses to staff who turn up for work regularly and executives have suggested that staff who frequently call in sick are “dishonourable” and are “exploiting” the system.

Staff calling in sick at the Berlin gigafactory reached 17% in August, compared to an average rate of sick leave in Germany’s car manufacturing industry of just over 5pc. 

Sick leave is also higher on Fridays, executives have said. “That is not an indicator of bad working conditions because the working conditions are the same on all working days and across all shifts,” Mr Thierig said. “It suggests that the German social system is being exploited to some extent.”

Even worse, some employees just keep claiming sick leave for months at a time and never show up to work.

Some 200 full-time staffers are on payroll but haven’t showed up to work at all in 2024, according to the plant director.

The company clearly believes people are taking advantage of the German social system so they chose about 30 of the chronically ill employees and went to their homes.

“We will not tolerate some people bending their backs for others who just don’t feel like coming to work,” [factory director Andre] Thierig said. “There is no room in this factory for people who “don’t get out of bed in the morning.”

But Thierig went beyond simply chastising employees. Instead, top-level managers picked 30 employees who had been on sick leave and visited their homes. Unsurprisingly, workers weren’t very happy about their bosses knocking on their doors.

Some employees reportedly slammed doors in the faces of the unexpected visitors and others threatened to call the police. But it's legal for the company to do this, even in Germany. The report caught the attention of Elon Musk on X.

This sounds crazy. Looking into it.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 26, 2024

Meanwhile, a German trade union is claiming the unusual sick leave numbers show that Tesla employees are stressed from too much work.

“Employees from almost all areas of the factory have reported an extremely high workload,” Dirk Schulze, a regional director at the union, told the Guardian. “When there are staff shortages, the ill workers are put under pressure and those who remain healthy are overburdened with additional work.”

This sounds like a pretty serious problem and one that needs to be worked out by eventually firing the employees who are faking illness to get out of work. Firing workers may become a necessity anyway as Tesla has seen a real slump in sales in Europe this year. The entire auto industry is struggling in Europe thanks in part to poor sales of European brands in China and the US.

Fortunately, Tesla seems to be doing better in China and is seeing some good news in the US this year. A recent report said the Model Y, Tesla's compact SUV, was within striking distance of being the best selling vehicle in the US this year.

NEWS: @Tesla Model Y is now just a hair from #1 bestselling car in the U.S. pic.twitter.com/ZjfUESjkNZ

— ALEX (@ajtourville) September 20, 2024